It's What You Do

by C L Wesley

  I sit up from my lounging state and turn towards him. “What’s up?” I knew something was off earlier but I let it go because of the news about Noah.

  “Brittany went Facebook Live on Saturday morning at 9AM. There was a girl leaving Matt’s frat house that could have been your doppelganger. You couldn’t see her face but everything else screamed it was you.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “The guys were razzing me about it and that is when I Face Timed you.”

  “To find what? That you are a gigantic ass for not trusting me? Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me Jay? And is that what you think of me that you had to check for yourself?” I felt my eyes starting to burn. I stand up, “And why the fuck would you think I would EVER go back to that frat house?” I grab my bag and throw my slides on, not even bothering with my jacket.

  “Taryn, don’t go.” Jensen asked, standing up in every attempt to snatch me before I walked out the door.

  “I don’t want to be here right now.” I slam his door and run for my car before he had a chance to catch up. I drove home to my parent’s house and cried my sorrows out in my mother’s home-made Kahlua, ignoring Noah’s texts, ignoring Jensen’s texts and calls, and even ignoring Izzy because it would be weird to talk to her about this. Checking my texts, I go through an emotional roller coaster.

  N: I’m home Darlin

  J: I’m an idiot and I’m sorry

  N: Please have dinner with me. I need to get my notes from you ??

  J: My actions carried over from my relationship with Izzy and you are DEFINITELY not her

  N: I love you Taryn

  J: I love you Taryn

  Holy shit! I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. It took me an hour of erased messages to finally send them both a text. I sent Jensen’s first.

  Me: I love you too

  Me: I’ll leave your notes at the Café. You can get them from Chloe.

  I did something this week that I’ve never done. I called off work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from both the Café and from OG. I went straight into class and straight home to my parent’s house. I talked to Jay via text and calls as I told him that I just needed a minute to breathe but that we are fine. “Are we still okay to leave for OBX after your class?” He asks when I talk to him on my drive to his place Thursday morning. I had talked to my mom about leaving with him and she said that if I was unsure at all about my feelings for him, not to go.

  “Yeah, I have my bag in my car.” I tell him as I get out of the car at his place. “What are you doing right now?” I ask knowing that if he is on his normal schedule he should be getting ready for class.

  “Getting ready to jump in the shower. This morning’s workout was rough.” I knock on his door. “Hold on babe, someone is here.” I hang up the phone when I hear him unlock the door.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been AWOL all week.” I say when pulls me through the door with a smile, locking his arms around my lower back, his lips finding mine. “So, you missed me?” I say when he pulls back.

  “You needed a few minutes. Now I need a few hours.” He lifts me over his shoulder, smacking my ass as we head to his bedroom for some long-awaited make-up time.

  Jensen walked me to my last class of the day before heading to the Commons to study himself, letting me know he will pick me up and we are out of Ohio for a week. My class went surprisingly fast and the professor released us ten minutes early…even better. I walk out of the building to see Noah sitting on the stairs. “Hey Darlin’.” I stop dead in my tracks that voice speaking to parts of me I wasn’t aware I had. Noah stood up, his blue eyes staring into my soul. “I can’t say thank you enough for the notes.” He takes the steps one by one until he was one below me. “Taryn, I am sorry for everything. I should have never left.” I feel my eyes burning and my bottom lip trembling. “Darlin’, please give me another chance. I love you so much.” I see Jensen standing on the sidewalk that crosses the one for this building.

  “I can’t.” I tell him. “I’m happy I was able to fix what I took from you and I’m sorry that I will always be burnt into your mind as your first. You were my first real love Noah.”

  “I’m not sorry. You still love me.” He cuts me off and turns around to see his former friend standing there. “Is he who you want Taryn?”

  “I can’t do this with you.” I feel the tears start to form.

  “You didn’t answer me.” He reaches out and wipes a tear from my cheek.

  “You didn’t come back for me!” I raise my voice. “Do you know how many nights I cried myself to sleep waiting for you to text or call me back? Do you know how often I checked my phone just hoping that you said something as simple as ‘hi’? I exhausted myself to right the wrongs I thought were my fault and you only now come back when you find out it benefits you!” I scream at him causing a scene. “So to ask me who I want? I want the guy who picked up the pieces and put me back together again.”

  “I’m here now.” I see his eyes water up and I know that it may finally be sinking in that I’m done. “Stay here for break. Please don’t leave with him. Let my actions speak for themselves.”

  I wipe at my face. “They already have Noah.” I try to sidestep him when he stops me.

  “Taryn, please?” I see Noah wipe at his face through blurry eyes.

  “Noah, I’m sorry. I love you and maybe someday we can be friends but the guy I was in love with told me that I was the ‘distraction that ruined him’ and as much as I prayed for you to come back, I can’t be with you anymore.” I wrap my arms around his waist and give him a hug. I feel the instant familiarity when his arms envelope me and it would be all too easy to stay put but there is someone waiting for me and he deserves to have the best part of me.

  I let go and make my way straight to Jensen. “Ready to go?” I say while trying to hold myself together. Jensen puts his hands gently on my cheeks, using his thumbs to wipe at my tears. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “It needed to be done.” He continues cradling my face in his hands.

  “I know. I’m sorry you had to witness it. That couldn’t be an easy thing to see me with him.” I say knowing that if Izzy was standing here, I would be uncomfortable.

  “You needed a moment.” He grabs my hand and turns us to head down the sidewalk towards his truck. “And someone once told me it’s what you do when you love someone.”

  Epilogue-

  10 Years Later…

  “I got it!” I scream as I run through the mudroom into the kitchen of our house.

  “You got it!” My husband picks me up and spins me around. “I’m so proud of you, Professor Marshite.” Jay kisses me and puts me down just in time for our seven-year old son, Nathan, to run through the door. “Stop right there and get those cleats off Dude!” Jensen corrects his son as his Dad walks through the door. “Hey Pop, we are in the presence of the newest adjunct faculty member at UNC.”

  Mark walks over and pulls me into his arms for a hug. “Congratulations Taryn!” Jay’s mom Ellie walks in behind Mark to hear the good news. “And before Nate tells on us again. We stopped for Dairy Queen happy hour on the way to practice.” I shake my head and giggle knowing I have a secret sitting in my purse.

  “Thank you for taking him to practice for me. Well as long as everyone is here, I have to show you something.” I go into my oversized Michael Kors bag and pull out a small picture frame I stopped at Hobby Lobby for and handed it to Jensen first. He looked at the post-it note I attached. Without saying a word, I was swooped up into his still large arms and swung around before his lips descended on mine.

  “Eww. Mom, Dad, do that in your bedroom.” Nate said as he walked to the refrigerator to grab a water.

  Jensen handed the picture to his mom. “Coming in March!” She jumped up and down before handing the frame to Mark and attacking us with hugs and kisses. Once it sank in with Mark, he hugged us both as well before Nathan was wondering what we were celebrating.

  Jay walked over and picked up his
little boy. “Well big man, you are going to be a big brother.” I watch the reaction on Nathan’s face as fifty emotions crossed his face before he finally smiled that beautiful dimpled smile he inherited from his father.

  “I don’t have to change poop diapers, do I?” He scrunched up his nose and we all laughed. After six years of trying for another baby, we finally get a chance to be parents again. I think back to the ectopic pregnancy our senior year of college that landed me in the emergency room thanks to the malfunction of my IUD.

  “This may or may not affect your ability to have children in the future but you are young and healthy so complications should be minimal if any at all.” The doctor tells me before I fall asleep from the painkillers and the medication given to abort the baby, their first line of defense before surgery. I heard Jensen talking before I opened my eyes, his hand splayed across my belly… “Hey munchkin, it’s your Dad. I wanted to talk to you before you leave us. You would have been such an adventure. Before you come back to us, make sure Mommy is healthy because this is one thing you and I cannot do without her. She’s pretty amazing. I love you, kiddo.”

  After ordering a celebratory dinner and tucking Nathan in for the night, we said goodbye to Ellie and Mark and started closing up our house for the night. We went about our routine and as I shut off the last light in the living room I looked at our lit up back yard through the French doors. I walked to the back doors and looked outside our pool light illuminating our patio and the fairy lights providing a subtle glow to the rest of the back yard. It reminded me of Noah’s mom’s pool house some nights.

  I never thought in a million years I would find myself living in a state that does not get snow often but here I am killing it with the aid of air conditioning. When Jensen asked me to move to Chapel Hill with him when he got his acceptance into the Biomedical Engineering Master’s program at UNC, I originally declined and stayed in Ohio working at the marketing firm I had interned with the summer between my junior and senior year. That lasted all of two weeks that Fall when I found myself knocking on his door in North Carolina, my bags packed, and now I only visit Ohio when I want to see my family.

  I got a job in Raleigh at a marketing firm that works with Nascar and their advertising. It is a fun and rewarding career. They even paid for me to get my Master’s degree at UNC. Jensen proposed on his graduation day, we got married that Fall, only to find out on Christmas that we were going to have Nathan. We bought our home two months later and I have been here ever since with the man who was there all along. It just took us a few years and a couple doozy of relationships to realize that we were it for each other, we always had been.

  I was lost in thought when a warm pair of lips on my neck snapped me into reality, Jensen’s arms wrapping tightly around me, his large hand splayed across my no longer firm belly. “You make me so happy. I love you so much.”

  “I love you too.” I spin in his arms, my lips finding his. “Take me to bed.” Jay smiles that incredibly handsome smile of his and picks me up, my legs wrapping around his waist. “I won’t be able to do this in a few months.” I smile rubbing my nose on his.

  “I look forward to it.” He takes us upstairs into the bedroom where he shows me exactly how much he loves me.

  In the morning, I was making breakfast when I noticed yesterday’s mail sitting on the counter. Looking through it I see an invitation. “Oh My God!” I scream out! How dare that bitch not tell me in person! “Jay! Isabelle is getting married in Chicago in December!” Izzy and I kept in contact making sure to schedule calls or FaceTime’s with each other every two weeks. She was in a relationship with the guy she met at AA for a while before he started drinking again after ten years. She left him quickly and finished up her bachelor’s degree getting a job at a publishing house downtown Chi-town. A few years ago she met a lawyer at her nieces’ soccer game while he was watching his nephew and now they’re getting married!

  “You’re kidding me! She didn’t say anything to you did she?” Jay walks up behind me, caging me in against the counter, his warm chest pressed against my back.

  “No, shall we RSVP?” I ask when Jay picks up a note that fell out of the envelope.

  “Baby, this is yours.”

  Surprise Bitch! I need a matron of honor, know anyone that would be interested? Love you!

  “I’m going to fucking kill her! How dare she need a bachelorette party when I am pregnant!” I smile, tilting my head when Jensen puts his chin on my shoulder.

  “I guess we need to RSVP then.” He writes down the dates. “I’ll have my parents watch Nate. We can make a small getaway out of it if you want.” I smile. Jensen has always put the work into making our relationship and now marriage work, whether it be candlelit dinners, erotic cooking, overnight stays a few towns over, brewery tours, or just backyard BBQs with our local friends and family. I called Izzy later that day on my lunch hour and obviously accepting her request as well as telling her that she was going to be Auntie Izzy again! What I wasn’t expecting is that she would share the same news, only she is due in February.

  We chatted for my whole lunch hour when she spilled the beans that she ran into Noah in Chicago at the hospital when she went into the OBGYN. “I got onto the elevator and there was Dr. BG.” I hadn’t talked to Noah since our senior year of college. We became friendly acquaintances but our paths no longer crossed unless he was coming into the café to eat. Jensen and Noah eventually talked one day that ended with Noah promising to castrate Jay if he ever hurt me.

  “He works at your hospital?” I sit back in my chair astonished. I thought for sure he would have chosen Texas for a career spot. “That’s crazy.”

  “Alex and I had lunch with him and his girlfriend a few days ago. He’s doing good. He’s almost done with his residency. He chose pediatrics. His girlfriend is an airhead but somehow managed to be a nurse. When she went to the restroom he asked about you.” She tells me and now I am curious as hell.

  “And?” I ask because I know the bitch is holding out on me.

  “I showed him a few select pictures. You know, your wedding picture, one of you and I at your wedding, your family picture with Nate as a baby, and a newer one of you guys from a few months ago.”

  “Oh you dirty bitch!” I laugh.

  “That is what Alex said too.” She returns my laughter. “He still kicks himself in the ass for junior year, as do I but it all turned out for the best.”

  “Yeah, it really did and we kept you as our awesome Chi-town relative! You truly are awesome.” I almost cry from the damn hormones.

  “It’s what you do, right?” She giggles.

  “Absolutely! Hey, I gotta go. See you soon!”

  “Love you girl!” Izzy says in her Isabelle voice I miss so much.

  “Love you too!” I disconnect the call and think of Noah. I changed my number senior year so the texts would stop. I know he realized he messed up, but just a little too late or I’d be in Chicago with him. I don’t regret my choice to stay with Jensen, even after Noah returned to Ohio. I feel as though I righted the wrongs and now he is living the future he is meant to live. I laugh to myself, I wonder if his mother has met the airhead nurse?

  Acknowledgments

  It’s What You Do was a joy to write. I took the fairy tale and ran with it but with an alternate ending. Lesson being…good guys do finish last…when they mess up. I have to thank my friends for being who they are because a lot of their cool as hell personalities are portrayed in the characters of this book. I have to thank them as well for being my biggest fans and egging me on to continue to write. You guys rock!

  I also need to thank my husband Joe for putting up with the late night glow of the laptop in bed, my daughter Brooklyn for finding songs that speak to me and the characters I write about, and my other two munchkins Addison and Brandon for listening to said songs over and over and over and over until I learned all the words and used them in the ‘soundtrack’ I use to write these stories. I love you so much!

&nbs
p; It’s What You Do Playlist

  On Tonight – Chase Rice

  Number One – Chris Lane

  Somebody’s Been Drinkin’ – Cole Swindell

  Not Good at Not- Morgan Wallen

  Everything I Need- Skylar Grey

  Dancing with a Stranger- Sam Smith & Normani

  Here Without You- 3 Doors Down

  You Make It Easy- Jason Aldean

  Eyes Closed- Halsey

  Dangerous Woman- Ariana Grande

  I See You- Luke Bryan

  Thing For You- Hinder

  Lights of My Hometown- Brantley Gilbert

  Is This Love- Whitesnake

  Other books by C L Wesley

  The Encounters Series:

  Chance Encounters

  https://www.amazon.com/Chance-Encounters-C-L-Wesley-ebook/dp/B075FHKQGW/ref=sr_1_11?qid=1569441938&refinements=p_27%3AC+L+Wesley&s=digital-text&sr=1-11&text=C+L+Wesley

  Future Encounters

  https://www.amazon.com/Future-Encounters-Encounter-Book-2-ebook/dp/B078V3G76B/ref=sr_1_10?qid=1569442028&refinements=p_27%3AC+L+Wesley&s=digital-text&sr=1-10&text=C+L+Wesley

  The Final Encounter

  https://www.amazon.com/Final-Encounter-C-L-Wesley-ebook/dp/B07D6XKDKR/ref=sr_1_9?qid=1569442118&refinements=p_27%3AC+L+Wesley&s=digital-text&sr=1-9&text=C+L+Wesley