I had a feeling there would always, always be pie.
"Let's go see."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Trip
We spent the next two days almost always naked. In her bed. In my bed. On the couch. In the hot tub. Over the kitchen island while she was getting ready to roll out dough to make another pie, leaving us both almost completely covered in flour afterward, sharing a shower, sharing our bodies, then sharing that pie when we eventually got it finished.
The real world would come back soon enough; I found myself in no rush to get back to it, enjoying our little oasis more than I could have ever realized.
The morning following finally giving into each other, into the passion that had always been there from the very beginning, buried under much more convenient hatred, Kathy finally called.
She confessed almost instantly, the words tumbling out, loud enough for me to hear even standing several feet away from Jett.
Actually, it was your father's idea.
I had a hard time picturing that.
But, then again, had you never seen Mitch around his wife, you never would have imagined him to be the romantic he truly was.
Maybe the right woman just brought that out of you.
And maybe Mitch and Kathy had always been able to see what we had been desperately trying not to. Just how compatible we really were. How good we could be if we managed to get our heads out of our asses and admitted that all our disagreements were based on a core misunderstanding about our roles in Mitch's life.
Now that it was all out on the table, it was hard to believe we'd spent years sniping and snapping and dreading running into each other, criticizing every little thing because, well, it was impossible to find any big things about each other that we hated.
Animosity gone, Jett was every bit the Sunshine people so often referred to her as. She was deeply passionate about even the smallest things—movies, TV, music, what flavors did and did not go together—and intensely loyal to those that mattered most to her. She cared about the environment and animals and had a long-held wish to have a pet pig someday that stemmed from an obsession with Charlotte's Web as a kid.
She sang—horribly—when she was happy.
She answered the phone like each call was the first time she'd heard someone's voice in a decade.
She beamed at me when I walked in a room.
She reached for my hand in her sleep.
She made food for me and watched me with eager eyes when I dug in, like she enjoyed nourishing me, like she enjoyed my enjoyment.
It was everything I had never realized I wanted.
And I never wanted to let it go now that I found it, now that it belonged to me.
"What happens now?" Jett asked, gaze out the front windows toward the cleared driveway, watching the snow plow do one final lap down the road leading toward it.
There were no more excuses.
It was time to go back to our lives.
"Depends on how stubborn you are going to choose to be."
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, shooting small eyes at me.
"Careful," I said, smirking. "As per our agreement, if you keep that attitude up, we're going to be putting on one hell of a show for the staff when they come by." Which we were forewarned they would be as soon as the road was cleared, to come in and help us clean, clear out the food, get the house ready for no one to be there for another whole year.
To that, her lips curved up into a smile. "No attitude. I just don't know what you think I am being stubborn about."
"Nothing yet, but I have a feeling that it is coming."
"About what happens next," I clarified. "If you are going to go along with what we both know is going to be your future sooner or later, or if you are going to dig your heels in, be a pain in the ass, and insist it has to be later."
"And just how am I going to go about being a pain in the ass in this situation?"
"By insisting you have to go back to the city, go back to your job, go back to your life—"
"But I do have to go back to the city, back to my job, back to my life. Just like you have to go back to yours."
"Look, we both know what is going to happen eventually. You are going to quit that job. You are going to move back to Pennsylvania, buy that house you want, come back to Kensley. There is no question that you see that as your future now, right?"
"Right," she agreed, nodding.
"So you know you want that. You know you can have that. The stubbornness would be you insisting that needs to happen one—or five—years down the road."
"I guess you have a point," she agreed, glancing down at her phone, one that had been dinging pretty incessantly since we had woken up. She was, technically, back on the clock, even if she was working remotely.
"Go back to the city. Get your shit in order. Give your notice. Then come to Pennsylvania."
"You make it sound so easy."
"Because it is easy, Princess. You just have to make those choices."
Her gaze fell, thinking it through, being someone who needed to process things for a minute before she could really wrap her head around it.
"I guess I could move back in with my parents for a while so I can job hunt."
"No."
"What do you mean no? They'd be happy to have me."
"Yeah, well, I think I would be happier to have you," I told her.
I hadn't even thought that offer through. But even with it out there, I realized I didn't want to take it back.
I did want her there with me.
I wanted more of this.
I wanted all of this that I could get.
"You just want me to be there to make you more pie."
"Well, yeah, there is that," I agreed, moving over toward her, wrapping my arms around her lower back, looking down at her. "Say yes," I demanded.
There was a hesitation.
Of about three seconds.
"Yes."
I was going to get her.
And all the pie I could eat.
It sounded pretty freaking perfect to me.
EPILOGUE
Juliette - One Year Later
"You're quiet," my mother said, eyes a little concerned as she brushed her hair out of her face, reaching for the canister of the flour to start rolling out the dough for her pecan pie.
"Am I?" I asked, shaking my head, having trouble adjusting to my newfound tiredness. Without the aid of coffee. "I'm a little worn out," I admitted.
Four a.m. seemed to come earlier this year than any before. And it had nothing to do with how I'd slept the night before. Which had been like the dead. But no matter how much sleep I got, my body wanted more more more. Despite how little I did. The day before, the extent of my exertion was sitting in the passenger seat watching the world go by me, then planting myself on the couch watching TV with my dad.
"Go back upstairs, curl up with your man," she suggested, smile sweet. "I have this."
"No no. I wait all year for this," I assured her. It was the truth. It didn't matter that we now lived in the same town, that I saw her every Sunday in my halfway remodeled kitchen, eating off the tile backsplash samples I seemed incapable of choosing between as makeshift placemats.
That was our everyday thing.
This?
This was our Thanksgiving thing.
My favorite holiday.
All of our favorite.
Maybe even more so now.
It was the one holiday we all spent together. It was when my mother and I went over-the-top to make a memorable meal. It was when we stopped to reflect on things we were grateful for.
And now, well, it was the anniversary of Trip and I finally realizing something my mother and father had known nearly all along. That we were supposed to be together. Just like they were. Sure, they were willing to let us go through the motions much like they had needed to, deal with the ups and downs, find out the truth for ourselves in our own time, but they had been rooting for us almost all
along.
I didn't want to ruin the day just because it seemed like there was a weight constantly pressing down on my eyelids, begging them to close for just another couple minutes.
"Yes, Pudge, honey, but this is the first year you are having to prepare Thanksgiving while pregnant, so some exceptions must be made."
My hand immediately slapped down on my stomach, one I was pretty sure looked just as it always had still.
"How did you know?"
"Just like you, Jetty, I was practically narcoleptic my first trimester. You've been dragging for a few weeks now. I keep waiting for the announcement. But..."
"I didn't tell Trip yet," I told her.
"What? Why not? This is happy news!"
"It is," I agreed, nodding. Trip wanted kids. I wanted kids. We'd just never agreed on a timeline for that. And I had just wanted to be sure first. Then felt a little unsure how to tell him. "I kind of decided that waiting and telling him here would be kind of sweet."
"Not kind of sweet," she corrected. "Very sweet."
"What's very sweet?" Trip asked, moving past me to get a coffee, brows furrowing when I shook my head, despite stifling a yawn.
"Apple pie," I told him, changing the topic.
"Which brings me to why I am up at this hour," he said, twisting the top onto a travel mug of coffee. "I need to go for a run to build up my appetite for later," he told me, smile genuine.
He'd been talking about the Thanksgiving menu for weeks, been demanding I would once again make him Thanksgiving pierogi, that we would get back up after our turkey comas to watch Home for the Holidays again, that every tradition would stay just as they always had been.
"How about you come and meet me at the fire pit in half an hour? I won't keep you long. I know you have to bake. And we have a parade to watch. But just to have a couple quiet minutes."
"Okay. I'll meet you there," I agreed, leaning a bit into the kiss he pressed at my temple on his way past me.
"You know what? I think this might be the perfect opportunity for you to tell him, Pudge," my mom suggested.
And, well, she was right.
On that note, I got the filling made for my pie then rushed upstairs to get the box I had carefully tucked away with my shoes—a suitcase Trip would never go inside—then bundling up and making my way down the old familiar path, realizing this would likely be the last time I would do so alone, that the next year, I could have a little one doing it with me, someone else to share traditions with.
By the time I made it to the fire pit, my heart was so full it was near to bursting.
When I saw Trip there building up the fire, it simply overflowed.
"There you are," he said, smiling as he dropped down on one of the stone seats, patting the one next to him. "What do you have there?" he asked, nodding toward the box I was awkwardly cradling between both hands in my lap.
"A present," I told him, stomach fluttering around.
"For me?"
"Yeah."
"Can I have it?" he asked, smirking when I kept gripping it like a life vest.
"I, ah, yeah. Here," I said, practically throwing it at him, making his brows furrow as he reached for the lid, slowly pulling it open, then parting the tissue paper to reveal the pair of plain white baby shoes.
"Princess," he said, voice a little thick. "I thought you said you were bad at giving presents," he told me, gaze lifting, eyes filled with all the love and excitement I was feeling.
"You're happy?" I asked, already seeing the answer in his face. A face I had come to love more than I could say over the past year. Even when we were getting dangerously close to yelling at each other just a month and a half before over what kind of crown molding to use in the house we were working on. Before remembering our agreement about fights. And breaking in the dining room table. And, I suspected, creating the life currently growing inside me.
"Yes. And no," he said, making my stomach drop.
"No?" I asked.
"Yeah, 'cause, well, you kind of upstaged me," he told me, making my brows furrowing.
"Upstaged you?" I repeated.
"Yeah. Now asking you to marry me isn't going to be nearly as epic," he said, reaching into his pocket to produce the ring.
It was, though.
Epic.
"Trip..."
"Marry me," he demanded, already slipping the ring onto my finger. "I want to build a lifetime of traditions with you," he added, closing his hand over mine, giving it a squeeze.
"You just want a lifetime of pie," I told him, feeling a tear slide down my cheek.
"Well, yeah," he agreed, smiling huge. "There better be pie."
XX
ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA
If you liked this book, check out these other series and titles in the NAVESINK BANK UNIVERSE:
The Henchmen MC
Reign
Cash
Wolf
Repo
Duke
Renny
Lazarus
Pagan
Cyrus
Edison
Reeve
Sugar
The Fall of V
Adler
Roderick
Virgin
Roan
Camden
The Savages
Monster
Killer
Savior
Mallick Brothers
For A Good Time, Call
Shane
Ryan
Mark
Eli
Charlie & Helen: Back to the Beginning
Investigators
367 Days
14 Weeks
4 Months
Dark
Dark Mysteries
Dark Secrets
Dark Horse
Professionals
The Fixer
The Ghost
The Messenger
The General
The Babysitter
The Middle Man
Rivers Brothers
Lift You Up
STANDALONES WITHIN NAVESINK BANK:
Vigilante
Grudge Match
OTHER SERIES AND STANDALONES:
Stars Landing
What The Heart Needs
What The Heart Wants
What The Heart Finds
What The Heart Knows
The Stars Landing Deviant
What The Heart Learns
Surrogate
The Sex Surrogate
Dr. Chase Hudson
The Green Series
Into the Green
Escape from the Green
DEBT
Dissent
Stuffed: A Thanksgiving Romance
Unwrapped
Peace, Love, & Macarons
A Navesink Bank Christmas
Don't Come
Fix It Up
N.Y.E.
faire l'amour
Revenge
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Gadziala is a full-time writer, parrot enthusiast, and coffee drinker from New Jersey. She enjoys short rides to the book store, sad songs, and cold weather.
She is very active on Goodreads, Facebook, as well as her personal groups on those sites. Join in. She's friendly.
STALK HER!
Connect with Jessica:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaGadziala/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/314540025563403/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13800950.Jessica_Gadziala
Goodreads Group: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/177944-jessica-gadziala-books-and-bullsh
Twitter: @JessicaGadziala
JessicaGadziala.com
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