The Light Before Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  His sharp, heavy laughter cuts into my sentence. “You think I’m sleeping with Camille, that she and I are together?”

  “I don’t know.” And I don’t really care. Regardless of his supposed interest in me and any insistence he and Camille are only friends, I figure the two of them have something going.

  “I’m not interested in her, not since tenth grade at least.” He laughs dismissively and eyes me like I’m absolutely out of my mind. “You don’t realize it’s you I’m interested in?”

  I take a step back from Will, my skin starting to crawl. “I think I made it clear that’s not going to happen.”

  “So you’d rather shack up with some guy who’s old enough to be your fucking father?”

  “He’s not—it’s none of your business, Will, and you pressuring me like this is starting to get kind of scary.”

  With a stone cold stare that could send a small child screaming, he says, “I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  He’s making it difficult to think straight, but I pull my words together, not wanting to cower in his midst. “If that’s the case, then could you please just do what I asked? Leaving Camille here in the state she’s in and plying her with drinks isn’t doing anyone any favors.”

  The stare continues before he lifts his brows and calmly says, “Fine, Natalie. You want me to drag Camille home, then I’ll go and drag Camille home. I’m not such a bad guy, you know, but you might want to look yourself in the mirror one of these times. Camille might be a sloppy, slutty drunk, but you ever think she might have a reason to be pissed off at you?”

  “No, Will, I don’t.” I do my best to sound strong and authoritative even as my legs are starting to turn to jelly. “Look, I’m going to head out to the back patio and find Jack,” I say, just the mention of his name making me feel more protected. “And you and Camille should probably be gone by the time we come back in.”

  Will doesn’t reply, and so I start to walk away, realizing there is only so much I can do. Only a few steps away from the bar, and I feel a hand on my arm, fingers digging into my flesh, and then I’m being yanked backward toward Will, stumbling.

  I’m still registering the fact that he’s grabbed me and pulled me back to him when he pretty much snarls at me. “Let’s get something straight,” he says between tight lips. “You don’t tell me what to fucking do, okay?”

  I’m too dumbfounded to say anything and am in the process of shaking him loose from me when his eyes pop painfully wide and his entire body twists around at an unnatural angle.

  “Get your fucking hands off of her!” Jack demands, appearing just when I need him the most.

  “Jack.” I say his name, not in protest of what he’s doing to Will—twisting his arm behind his back and causing his face to wrack in pain—but in gratitude.

  “Let go of me, asshole!” Will seethes, speaking between clenched teeth.

  “You ever touch her again like that, and I swear to god I’ll make you suffer!”

  We’ve managed to gain an audience when Jack finally lets Will go. I try not to look at any of the people staring at us, but from what I can tell, this isn’t the kind of place people gather around yelling, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and their touristy expressions are likely more stunned than psyched.

  “Fucking deal with Camille on your own,” Will manages to get out, holding his injured elbow with his other hand before slinking away and disappearing into the crowd.

  “What the hell was that about?” Jack asks, steadying me with a firm hold on my shoulders.

  “I don’t know.” It’s all I can think to say because Will’s strange behavior still has my head spinning.

  “You don’t know why another guy was laying his hands on you?” Jack’s tone, in fact his entire demeanor, is accusatory.

  “I didn’t ask him to touch me, Jack!” I pull away from him, not appreciating what he might be inferring.

  “I didn’t say you did, but—”

  “But what? You think I’m doing something behind your back?” Even imagining Jack would think I’d have any interest in another guy crushes my heart a little.

  He sighs and puts his hand up to his forehead, closing his eyes and wiping at his temple before dropping his hand down to his side. “I haven’t done this in a long time, Natalie,” he says, just loud enough to be heard above the cacophony of voices in the café. “I mean… I haven’t been involved with anyone I really cared about since…”

  He can’t seem to bring himself to say his wife’s name just now, and I don’t make him. I can’t stay mad at him, not when I see his outburst was only connected to how much he cares about me. Instead, I put my hand on his shoulder and very calmly say, “Camille showed up drunk, and Will was with her. I was trying to get him—and me—away from the table so that Melissa could talk her down. I was just asking him to take her home when he flipped out.”

  He nods, guiltily I think. “God, I’m sorry. I wanted to smash his face in, and then I thought… well… I was wrong.”

  I could reiterate to Jack that he’s the only man I want to be with, but he’s going to have to find a way to trust that above any of the words I’d be able to offer him now. So, I remain quiet on that front and take his hand, looking across the café to the table we’d been at earlier. “Let’s head back over. Maybe we should all just call it a night and think about going home.”

  He doesn’t say anything but grips my hand tight, easily following me through the twists of tables and patrons until we’re back where we started the evening out. Camille is still here, but she’s somewhat more subdued. Sandy and Barbara have returned, and I’m thrown off by a grin on Barbara’s face that just can’t be contained.

  “I was waiting for you to beat the little bastard to the ground!” She directs her amped up words to Jack, and he blushes in response.

  “Where’d he go?” Camille lifts her head up and looks around, as if she hadn’t witnessed the scene between Jack and Will, hadn’t noticed Will leaving the café with his tail between his legs.

  “He left,” Jack says, firm and to the point.

  Camille looks up at him like a star struck teenager before jumping to her wobbly feet and throwing her arms around his neck. “Why don’t you want me?” she whines. “Why don’t you?”

  Before I can be sickened by any further displays, Jack peels her hands away from him, Melissa helping by pulling her daughter off. “I think we all need to head on home,” she says. “It’s been a very full night.”

  “I don’t get a drink?” Barbara pouts. “And all because Camille decides to make a scene?”

  I’m not sure if it’s remnants of the stroke or just a growing tiredness of Camille’s antics that have Barbara acting apathetic, but whatever it is, I can’t blame her. Her one night out, and the ending of it gets ruined.

  “Natalie and I can stay with you,” Jack offers before I can think to do the same. He looks over to Melissa for backup. “That good with you?”

  “That would be wonderful, if it’s really no trouble.” She looks to Dwight who I’m sure was hoping he’d get a couple more hours to talk about the merits of Shakespeare instead of having to help drag his date’s drunk daughter home. But to his credit, he offers Melissa a very supportive nod and doesn’t complain in the least.

  I don’t expect Camille to be as cooperative as Dwight, but, with droopy eyelids, she stands up and allows herself to be guided by Melissa and Dwight out of the café.

  “Should I feel bad for her?” I ask the question of the entire table, wondering if I’ve missed something about Camille, some reason for the way she behaves around me.

  Barbara laughs, Sandy laughing right along with her. “She’s an entitled brat,” she says, mincing no words. “I hate to say it about my own granddaughter, but she’s been like that since she was a child. I thought she’d grow out of it, but I was most certainly mistaken.”

  “But maybe she’s had it rough… without a dad?” I keep digging, wanting to find a reason for her actions, for why she h
ates me so much and appears to want to make life miserable for her mother and grandmother.

  “A lot of people have it rough,” Jack tells me gently. “I wouldn’t say you’ve had a walk in the park, and you turned out just fine.”

  I touch his hand and smile at him, a silent thank you. Jack understands something that other people might not. On paper, my life has been a cakewalk. Plenty of people would gladly trade in their hardships for a chance at what I’d been given, and I have no illusions to the privilege I was raised in. But my life had also been like a prison, and I’d been willing to give everything up just for a chance at escaping it. A chance, perhaps, to find myself and then to find a love I wanted, to find someone who really loved me back.

  I’d never imagined it could come so soon or that I’d find it with Jack, a man who has lost so much, a man who I know would have given all of his physical possessions away if it would have saved Marjorie.

  “And sometimes people are just plain bad,” Sandy adds in like she’s delivering a decadent bit of gossip. “That girl has always looked at me sideways.”

  “She’s right.” Barbara sighs. “And she wasn’t without a male role model in her life. She had Harold, and he treated her just like he would his own daughter. We brought her to the zoo, paid for camp each summer, made sure she always had a warm meal and a family for the holidays. And that doesn’t even come close to everything Mel did for her! After Camille’s father left, Mel dated for a while, but she quit because Camille didn’t like it, and she wanted to give her all the extra time she could. And that was tough! She was working from dawn to dusk at the diner before she put enough away to buy the place. Oh, and that’s not to mention the extra mortgage Mel took out on the house to pay for Camille’s college, which she has yet to finish!”

  It’s a lot of information all at once, and while I’m processing it, I can’t help but to be proud of Barbara for delivering it so succinctly. The ability to put a long string of thoughts together without any apparent difficulty shows just how far she’s come in her recovery.

  “You’re everything she’s not,” Jack tells me, taking my hand.

  “Exactly,” Barbara adds in before picking up her menu. “And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I really do want that drink!”

  We’d followed the van Sandy drove back to Meadow Brook, making sure Barbara made it safely back inside with Melissa meeting us on the porch, apologizing for Camille’s behavior and telling us she was sleeping it off in her bedroom.

  “Will’s not a good influence on her,” she said before we left. “He seems to feed on her making a mess of things.”

  Jack and I nodded in agreement, but we didn’t discuss Will, Camille or anyone else on our way back to the cabin.

  “Thank you for defending me tonight,” I tell him once we’re home and up in his bedroom, me sitting at the edge of the bed and slipping my heels off.

  Unbuttoning his shirt, he says, “Gladly. And I’m sorry for being a jealous ass. I just…” He shakes his head, walks over to me and reaches for my hands, pulling me to my now bare feet.

  “You’re just what?” His lips look so delicious.

  He smiles, dragging his thumb over the edge of my ear. “I’m just in love with you, Natalie. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I say without even a split second of hesitation, feeling the emotion of the words, how important they are and what they mean. I’d told Michael I loved him, but I’d said it to him like a prisoner thanking their captor for a moldy slice of bread or a dirty drink of water. I’d only ever done it to appease him.

  But with Jack—oh, with Jack—I mean every single syllable.

  He kisses me, hard and strong, dragging his hands down the length of my body before cupping my ass and pulling me toward him. Every last nerve in my body springs to attention as warmth spreads all over, heating my center.

  I push at his open shirt, dragging my hands over his chest before following the trail of hair down to his belt, unbuckling and tugging and unzipping with an intense determination.

  He’s just as determined, nearly ripping my dress off and sliding to his knees, kissing the thin material of my lace panties and driving me insane before gently pulling the material down and sliding his tongue through my slit and then swirling it around my center. I lean on him, my palms set on his shoulders as he devours me and throws me into an orgasm that sends my eyes into the back of my head and my knees nearly buckling.

  He hasn’t even begun to finish with me as he stands, his hard cock stabbing my belly, his lips around my aroused nipples, sucking as I bring my hands up, tugging and gripping his hair and needing him inside of me. He must know how desperate I am for him because he swiftly lifts me up and settles me on his bed.

  And then he’s on top of me, my eyes glued to his, him seeing right into my soul.

  I feel so loved and cherished in this moment, not just physically, but in every way, a feeling that magnifies when he thrusts himself into me as men in love have done for millennia. He and I are a part of that beautiful and magnificent history, two people in love, connected physically and emotionally, ignited only by the other.

  “I love you so much,” I say, gripping his shoulders, my legs spread for him, the ecstasy I feel with him all encompassing.

  “God, I love you too,” he tells me with eyes that mean every word.

  Chapter Nineteen

  NATALIE

  I love you.

  It’s the first thought I have as I’m being awoken by the sound of my phone ringing.

  Jack loves me, and I love Jack.

  Only half awake, I manage a, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Natalie. It’s Melissa. Sorry to call so early, but—”

  “Is Barbara okay?” I shoot into a sitting position, picturing her mother in the hospital all over again.

  “She’s fine. I was just calling to let you know that we’ve decided to close the diner for today. My mother and I… well, we think it’s a good idea to spend the day with Camille and try to get through to her. I’ll pay you for the day of course, but you won’t need to come over.”

  Relief in knowing Barbara is okay catches up to me. “You don’t have to pay me, Melissa. Actually, I’d feel really guilty if you did. I’m just glad everyone is okay.”

  She sighs. “You really are a blessing to us, Natalie. So, thank you, and I’ve got high hopes we’ll be more okay after today.”

  “I hope you do too,” I tell her.

  “Everything all right?” Bare-chested, Jack sits up after I hang up.

  It’s barely just light out, and I look at him guiltily for waking him. “Melissa is closing the diner for the day to have some kind of intervention for Camille.” I turn my body to his and touch his muscled arm. “So, I’ve got an unexpected day off.”

  “You do?” He smiles, then bends his chin down and kisses me on the shoulder. “So I’ve got you all to myself?”

  “Uh huh.”

  The only talking I can remember after that is when Jack and I confirm we love one another again, words spoken during the throngs of passion as well as after, once we’ve come down off the high of the orgasms we both experience in near simultaneous waves.

  Jack sleeps after we’ve had sex, but I lie awake, turned to him, unable to take my eyes away from his perfect male form. The contours of his muscles are the very definition of masculinity, made even more perfect by the even growth of hair over his chest, his arms and the way the hair picks up again beneath his belly button. His light snores are peaceful, his eyelashes hiding his deep brown eyes, his lips parted only slightly as his chest rises and falls.

  The idea of spending the entire day with him in bed is a tempting one, but so is the thought of having at least part of the day to myself. It seems so long since I’ve done anything fun on my own, save for running out of my wedding and piecing together a life here in Meadow Brook, which was actually more stressful than pleasurable. So, with the idea of some me time, I slip out of bed, head down to the shower and then back up
to my old room where I still have most of my clothes.

  “Well, look at you,” I say to Jack who has since gotten up and is now making pancakes in the kitchen. He’s wearing jeans and a plain white T, his hair still mussed up and looking adorable as he stands over the stove.

  I walk over to him in my wedge heels and basic, black summer dress and plant a kiss on his lips, almost immediately stepping back because I know it will turn into more if I let it.

  “You look beautiful,” he tells me, his eyes going up and down the length of my body. “And I’m assuming this means you’re leaving me?”

  I laugh. “Your pancakes are burning.”

  He laughs too, flipping them out of the pan with a spatula. “I thought they’d be our pancakes. You have time to eat?”

  “I’m not especially hungry,” I say. Actually, I’m a bit queasy all of a sudden, attributing it to the invading memory of Will and Camille from last night. “I thought I’d go into town and get some flowers to plant around the cabin. I’m not much of a gardener, but I’d like to try.”

  “I think that’s a sweet idea.” He comes toward me and wraps me up in his arms, giving me a gentle kiss on the lips before his gorgeous eyes penetrate mine. “You sure you don’t want company?”

  “It’s tempting,” I tell him, and it is. “But I should probably be on my own for a few hours. I’ll see you back here, and you can inspect my planting abilities.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what if you’re not up to snuff? Do I get to punish you?”

  I laugh, roll my eyes and push away from him. “Whatever you could do to me wouldn’t be punishment.”

  “You really are tempting me,” he says, pressing his lips together hard and cracking his knuckles to keep his hands occupied.

  “What are you going to do today?” I ask him, far enough away from him to keep temptation from me too.

  “Besides eating my pancakes alone?”

  “Yes, besides that,” I say, almost tempted to cancel my plans because he’s just too cute when he asks.