by Devney Perry
Rowen had made princess crowns this morning and instead of one for me, she’d made a “boy princess crown” for Jess. His was decorated with green and blue glitter pens, hers with yellow and pink.
She hadn’t seen him since our hike Friday and she’d been asking about him all day. It was Sunday afternoon heading into another busy week. Even though he was working, it would be nice to surprise him with a quick visit. Rowen could deliver her present and he could take a little break from the madness.
Roe fidgeted in her seat as we drove into town, barely able to contain her excitement. Her little legs kicked back and forth wildly the whole trip.
The station was dead quiet. The dispatcher up front was the only one in the building except for Jess.
I had a hold of Rowen’s hand as we walked through the bull pen, but when we got close to Jess’s office at the back corner, she pulled away and sprinted toward his door, waving his crown and shouting his name.
The front of his office had two big windows on either side of the door. It gave him an open view of the bull pen and deputies a view into his office.
Rowen’s shouting startled Jess. The second before she’d started yelling, he’d lifted a can of soda to his mouth. When she shouted, he flinched and fumbled the can, dropping it on his messy desk, spilling soda all over his sea of papers.
Eff.
He stood up from his desk so quickly, his chair went flying back, crashing into the wall.
Oakley got startled and started barking the second Rowen entered the office.
I hurried behind Rowen so I could help Jess clean up the mess but before I could make it to the office, he bellowed, “Damn it, Rowen! Shut up!”
Between Jess’s yelling and Oakley’s barking, Rowen dissolved into tears. I reached the doorway just as she collapsed to her knees, Jess’s crown falling to the floor.
“What the hell is your problem, Jess?” I bent and picked Rowen up.
“Me? What the fuck are you two doing here? Look at this fucking mess, Georgia! Would a phone call to warn me have been too fucking much to ask?” he shouted.
Jackass Jess was back.
It was one thing to yell at me. But to be an asshole to my child? Uh . . . no.
I shoved my hand, palm out, in his direction.
“She was bringing you that crown she made you today,” I said. “She was excited to give it to you and we wanted it to be a surprise. Well, I guess the surprise was on us because I’m standing here, shocked that you could be such a jerk to a four-year-old kid. I knew you could be a jackass to me. But to Rowen?”
“Georgia—” he started but since my hand was still out, I waved, stopping his words.
“No. Not okay, Jess. Stay at your house for a while. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk. Maybe.” I turned and walked out.
He followed, Oakley right on his heels.
“Georgia, wait.”
But with Rowen burrowed into my chest, still sobbing, there was no way I was stopping.
“Let’s talk about this,” he pleaded.
“Nope. No talking. Think of me like NASA. I need space.” I kept moving, Rowen’s legs swinging wildly at my sides as I stormed out to the parking lot.
Jess didn’t follow.
As Rowen continued to cry, I scolded myself on the drive home. How could I have been so stupid? Hadn’t I done this once before?
Nate had said horrible and nasty things to me. When I’d told him that I was pregnant, he’d thrown a glass of water in my face. I’d been humiliated, sitting in a restaurant crying and soaked.
After he signed away his parental rights, I had vowed not to let assholes into my life. Or Roe’s.
I had thought Jess was an asshole at first, but he had been proving me wrong. I guess it had been too good to be true. If he couldn’t keep a hold of his temper, I couldn’t trust him with Rowen. Or with my heart.
I had let down my guard again.
Stupid.
“Mommy?” Rowen called.
“Kitchen!”
We’d already had bath time and both of us were dressed for bed. I had come to the kitchen for a glass of wine and gotten lost in thought.
“What are you doing?” Rowen asked when she walked in.
“Just thinking, baby girl. I’m tired.”
“Thinking about Jess?” she asked.
“Yeah. About Jess.”
She frowned.
We’d left the station on Sunday and come straight home. After I’d calmed Rowen down, we’d sat together on the couch and I’d apologized for Jess’s behavior. Her feelings had been raw. He had hurt them. Mine too.
I’d had a fitful night’s sleep, tossing and turning, the faintest noise sending me back and forth to the windows so I could look outside and make sure no one was there. That Jess wasn’t there.
The next day had been brutal. I’d checked my phone at least a hundred times, expecting to see some sort of communication from Jess. But there had been nothing.
That had been four days ago and I still hadn’t heard from him.
I was confused and angry. Jess’s silence was making me nauseous. Just because I’d asked for space didn’t mean he couldn’t apologize.
I hated that I didn’t know what was going to happen with us. I was mad at him but that didn’t mean my feelings for him had disappeared. This separation between us had made me realize how much it would hurt if we ended our relationship.
Even though I’d said I would call him, I couldn’t find the courage to pick up the phone. I didn’t know if I wanted to break up with him or try and work it out.
I was scared. Scared we’d be here again.
“Do you want to have a dance party, Mommy?” Rowen asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Do you?”
She smiled huge and nodded, bouncing from one foot to the other.
When she was two, I had invented dance parties as a way to cheer her up or distract her from a tantrum. And we’d been having them ever since.
I would crank the music and we’d dance around the house like crazy people. We’d shake our booties and laugh until our cheeks hurt. The last dance party we’d had was before Ben died and we were overdue.
“Okay.” I smiled. “Go get the speaker from the office.”
She scampered as fast as her feet could carry her, squealing with joy, and met me in the living room, shoving the Bluetooth speaker into my hands.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Yeah!”
“The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World started blaring through the house.
As we danced and laughed, I raised my arms above my head and let loose, jumping around my beautiful daughter as she giggled and danced her heart out. The lyrics reminded me of what I needed to hear.
Everything was going to be all right.
When it was over, I was laughing and dancing so hard I was out of breath.
“That was fun!” Rowen shouted, beaming with happiness.
“Yes it was.” The smile on my face was real and wide.
“I liked it.”
At the sound of Jess’s voice, I jumped back and clutched my hands to my pounding heart.
He was leaning against the wall, his long legs crossed at his ankles, his arms resting lightly on this chest. And he had a huge smile on his face.
“Jess!” Rowen screamed and launched her little body at his. Either she had forgotten about the incident at the station Sunday or she had already forgiven him.
He picked her up and threw her up in the air a couple feet. She giggled hysterically as she flew. He caught her on the way down and planted her firmly on his hip.
“We were having a dance party,” she said.
“Is that what that was?”
Jess set Rowen down and knelt in front of her. “Little bit, I wasn’t very nice on Sunday, was I?”
She tipped her head to the floor and shook it. “You hurt my feelings.”
“I’m sorry, Rowen. I promise I won’t do it again. I overreacted and just snapped.
Can you forgive me?” he pleaded, tipping up her chin so she would see his apologetic face.
“Yeah.” She smiled and then threw her arms around his neck.
I was glad he’d made amends with Roe. But we had a lot to talk about, so I interrupted their hug. “Okay, baby girl. Time for bed. Let’s go up and read a story.”
“Georgia—” Jess started, but I cut him off.
“We can talk after she’s in bed.”
He closed his eyes and dropped his chin. He gave me a small nod before I led Rowen upstairs.
I did my best but it was hard concentrating on Rowen’s bedtime stories. My mind was on the man downstairs and what our upcoming conversation would bring.
Jess and I sat on the porch swing and watched the sunset. Soon it would be winter and my evenings outside would be over until spring.
He had on his coat while I was bundled up under a big blanket.
We sat in silence, neither one of us wanting to start the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Freckles. I fucked up,” Jess finally said.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said softly.
“About what?” he asked.
“About us. She’s my life, Jess. What you did to her? I can’t risk that ever happening again. Because what happens next time? What will you say? Something worse? Something that will destroy her? She doesn’t have a father in her life because he is an asshole and I won’t allow him to treat her the way he treated me.”
He took in a long, deep breath while letting my words sink in. “You’ve been looking for a chance to push me away. First, thinking I was with you to get the farmhouse. Now this. Doesn’t it make sense to you yet?” he asked.
“What do you mean ‘make sense’?”
“Those were your words, not mine. You said that we didn’t make sense together. So you keep pushing me. Which means you still don’t think we make sense. If you did, you’d be fighting a lot harder to get over your fears.”
“Don’t turn this on me, Jess. You weren’t here on Sunday with her.”
“No, I wasn’t. Because you needed space. I gave you almost a week to cool off when what I wanted to do was follow your ass here from the station Sunday and work it out. Wanted to apologize to Rowen the minute you walked out the station’s door and make it right. But I didn’t get that. So I’ve been waiting for you to be done with your space. Praying she’d forgive me for being a dumbass. And she did. Right away. Because I meant it and she knows it. So why can’t you forgive me?”
“It hurt, Jess.” Tears started to fill my eyes. “Not just Sunday. How you treated me when we first moved here? It hurt. And then seeing you yell at Rowen made it worse. The fact that you went days without reaching out to me and apologizing hurt too.”
Up until this point, we hadn’t touched. But he’d had enough of the distance and shifted me across the swing and into his lap.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he said into my hair. “I don’t know what else to say. I didn’t know you wanted me to call you. If I had, I’d have been here on Sunday night. Thought you’d want me to stay away. I’ll try, I swear. I’ll try to not let it happen again. I had a lot on my mind and I snapped. Just like you let it blow when you’re pissed, I do the same. I just need to find a way to let it out without hurting my girls. And I will. Promise. Just don’t give up.”
I sat in his arms and contemplated my options. Let him go or let it go.
“You’re right. I am scared,” I admitted. “I don’t trust that you won’t hurt me. That you can keep a hold of your temper and won’t break our hearts. But this fight, it hurts too. I didn’t like that you weren’t here this last week. I’ve been sick to my stomach, wondering if you’d come back or if you were done with us. I don’t want to be done, but at the same time, I don’t want to get hurt. I feel like I’m torn in half and neither side knows what to do.”
He pulled me tighter into his chest so I had to turn my face and rest my cheek against his heart.
“I’ve got you, baby. I swear you’re safe with me. It hurt me being away too. I don’t much feel like ever doing that again. You can trust me and I’ll prove it to you. But you can’t give up and push me away. You have to give me time to earn your trust and prove we make perfect sense. Forgive me for being an asshole? One last time?”
Maybe sharing my fears with him would make overcoming them easier. I wasn’t sure but it was worth a shot. He was worth a shot.
So I whispered, “Okay.”
After we finished our talk, Jess carried me inside from the porch swing and took me straight to bed. Then he showed me what the hype about make-up sex was all about.
Now we were ready for sleep, talking quietly and catching up from our week apart. I wasn’t in my usual position, tucked to Jess’s side. Instead, his arms were banded around me, pulling my back tightly to his front. When he talked, I felt his breath at the top of my head.
“Uh . . . how much of the dance party did you see?” I asked.
“A lot.” His chest was shaking as he tried to muffle his laughter.
I was completely embarrassed he had seen me shaking my ass off, dancing like a fool in the living room.
Correction. I was completely mortified. My cheeks were so hot I was sure they were as red as an apple, so I turned my face into the pillow.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I had a shit week without you. Coming here to see you laughing and dancing made it all go away. Besides, now I know you you’ve got some moves, Freckles. You’ve been holding out on me.” He squeezed his arms a little tighter around my body.
“What?” I asked, confused.
He unlaced his fingers from mine and one hand traveled under the covers to my bum.
“You can shake this ass, baby.”
“Oh my god,” I muttered into the pillow, now even more embarrassed. Jess lost his hold and started howling. His laughter filled the room. And mortified as I was, it felt great to have him back.
The shrill ring of Jess’s phone woke us from a dead sleep.
He reached quickly for his phone while I turned to look at my alarm clock.
2:23 a.m.
Eff.
In all the nights that Jess had slept in my bed, not once had his phone gone off at odd hours. The latest I’d ever seen him get a call was nine o’clock. A call to the sheriff after two in the morning could not mean good things.
“Yeah,” he answered. Ten seconds later, he rumbled, “Be right there.”
He threw the covers back and leaped out of bed.
“Emergency in town, Georgia. There’s a house on fire. I gotta get down there.”
“Okay,” I said to his back.
I sat up and waited for him to emerge from the closet.
I wasn’t surprised when he came out wearing different clothes than he’d come over with tonight. Jess had been building a collection of clothes in my closet. A few pairs of jeans, a sweater and an extra work shirt. I’d even started putting his T-shirts, boxer briefs and socks in my top drawer. I hadn’t asked but I assumed he stopped by his house a few times a week to reload the backpack he brought with him to the farmhouse.
“Don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll lock up when I go.” He had pulled on jeans and a brown wool sweater.
“Be safe.”
He planted one hand on the bed to lean in and give me a quick kiss. Then he took three long strides and was out the door. Twenty seconds later, I heard his truck roar to life and speed down the gravel drive. To make it to his truck so quickly, he must have been running by the time he hit the front door. And the sound of spraying gravel from his spinning truck wheels meant he wasn’t slowing down.
Things were not good in Prescott tonight.
“Baby, wake up.”
I jolted awake and it took me a second to realize where I was. The office, in my chair.
Jess was on one knee, crouched down in front of me. One of his hands was gently shaking me awake.
After he’d left, I’d tried to get back to sleep. But a
n hour later, I’d still been tossing and turning. I’d finally given up and come to the office to read. I must have fallen asleep not long ago because the last thing I remembered was the early light of dawn coming through the front windows.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost six.”
I was curled into my reading chair in front of the fireplace. My feet were tucked into one side and my knees were drawn up to my chest. Unfolding myself, I turned to inspect him.
He was a mess. His hair was sticking up in all different directions and his face and clothes were streaked with soot. The only thing that would get all of those black streaks out was a shower. His frame was hunched and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy.
And he reeked of smoke. I scrunched my nose after taking a breath.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay. Is everything all right?”
After a long breath, he muttered, “No.”
I lifted my hand to the side of his face, using my thumb to rub a black smudge on his cheek. He gave me the weight of his head and closed his eyes.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked.
“How about I take a shower and then fill you in?”
“Okay.” I nodded.
His hand stroked my knee one last time before he left.
I got out of the chair and went to the kitchen to turn on the coffeepot. I’d need a lot of caffeine to make it through the day. When I heard the shower turn on, I walked upstairs to see if Roe was still sleeping. She was zonked so I decided to jump in the shower with Jess. Stripping off my pajamas, I crept silently into the bathroom and opened the shower door.
Jess was standing underneath the spray, his head bent down, letting the water run down the back of his head and neck. His arms were above his head, resting against the shower wall, and his eyes were closed.
Fitting myself to his back, I wrapped my arms around his waist and did my best to ease my man’s troubled mind while I cleaned the fire from his body, replacing the nasty smell with clean and fresh green apple.
By the time we made it out of the shower, I needed to hustle to get to work on time. I roused Rowen out of bed and we hurried through our morning routine.
