Challenged by You: A Fusion Universe Novel

by Tracey Jerald

  “As far back as I can remember, my mother would remind me how much life changed for her when I came into it,” she begins, her voice sad.

  “I imagine it would.”

  “He left because you were too much of a burden,” she mimics.

  Her words cause my body to jerk. “I’m sorry?”

  A hiccuping sob escapes. “That’s my line, Jonas. From the time I was old enough to form the words until, oh, last week, I’ve spent my life apologizing for my father leaving, for being a burden, for leaving her alone, and then for coming back with her grandchildren.” A shudder racks through her. “And then there’s Annie and Chris’s father.”

  “He gave the three of you up. How could he be so stupid?” I wonder.

  Trina’s voice is quiet when she admits, “Beneath it all, I harbor a lot of anger at my ex-boyfriend—Will. In the beginning our relationship was everything I needed. It was like a perfect soufflé—light and fluffy, full of air and decadence. Neither of us was expecting for me to get pregnant. Looking back, the only thing I think I wanted was for him to continue being the kind of man I knew since culinary school, warm and caring.”

  “Is that where you met him?”

  She nods, fingers plucking away at an imaginary piece of lint on my shirt. “Overnight, Will changed. At first, I didn’t notice it. I was too busy with work and preparing for Annie and Chris to notice. Then, little things begin creep through until I realized he was flat out lying with every word he spoke.”

  I don’t know this guy and I want to hunt him down and hurt him, and that’s before Trina continues. “ I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully understand that. Even if we were over, he helped create such beautiful children. We weren’t in love by any means, but for him to try to take them from me because his lover wanted children and it was convenient Will had a few?” Her laugh is sardonic.

  “I fought him tooth and nail for the kids. And ultimately, it came down to nothing. Erik’s sister agreed to carry a child for them. It wasn’t so much about my children as much as having a child. So, after almost a year of fighting, Will signed away his rights to my children.” A face filled with fierce determination lifts to mine. “And I’m glad. I don’t need anything from a man like that. In the end, it cost me everything I had. I sold my home, my car, anything the kids didn’t need to fight for sole custody—hell, I’d have sold myself if I had to. I even had to quit my job because I couldn’t make it there. Living in Connecticut you have to have a car, and I can’t afford that.”

  “Why?” A simple question with a million answers.

  Her face takes on a faraway look. “The lawyer fees were ridiculous. You asked me why I don’t live in a two-bedroom? I’m sure I could if I wasn’t still paying back the lawyers. I had to look for a job here in the city because opportunities are greater here. Plus, I need mass transit to get around. But everything I do for Chris and Annie is worth it,” she concludes.

  My fingers, which had been tangled in the ends of her hair, tighten. I’m speechless. This is what I’ve been looking for. For years I thought what I was missing was the life I had when Mom was swept away from me and Julian. But it’s the fierceness of a woman who would do anything for those she loves. And with a shocking clarity, I realize I began my first step onto the path with Trina the day she slammed into me after her confrontation with Chef Spencer.

  “Shocked you?” Her voice is brittle.

  Jolted out of my thoughts, I become cognizant of the fact she’s stiff as a board in my arms. “I wish you understood everything you’ve done for Annie and Chris is the way love is supposed to be.” I don’t mince words.

  “By subjecting them to the same life I led with a mother who’s never around?” My heart cracks open as her words catch. Her small fist pounds against my chest. “Maybe my mother’s right.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What right do I have to this—to you—when I claim I want to give them better? What am I doing letting myself be distracted by you when I should be focusing on giving my kids everything?” Tears drip from her eyes as she confesses her deepest pain to me.

  I press her fist against my heart. “Is that all I am, Trina? A distraction?” Her answer is either going to cause all the walls between us to crumble or throw them back up with steel reinforcements.

  Her fist unfolds, hand splaying across the width of where my heart beats frantically beneath. I feel her shallow breaths wisp across my skin. We’re doing little more than cuddling, and I’m more enraptured in this moment than in any other in my memory. “T?” I prompt her, my voice a hoarse rasp.

  I need words to let me know I’m not in this all alone, that the surge of passion between us wasn’t temporary but a beginning.

  “You’re not just a distraction, Jonas. You the kind of man a woman changes her life for. And frankly, that terrifies me,” she whispers almost soundlessly.

  But I still hear her.

  “Fuck,” I hiss. Rolling Trina over to her back, I bury my head into the curve of her shoulder and just inhale the scent we made between us that seems to cling to her right there.

  “Just promise me something.” Her words are a mumble against my neck.

  I pull back just enough so our noses brush against one another. Her breath catches, causing my pulse to trip. “Anything.”

  “I can handle anything, but Annie? Chris? Please don’t…”

  I cut off her question by crushing my mouth down on hers, frustrated she feels she has to voice her concerns because even after what we’ve shared, part of her is still linking this with her past relationship. The rest of my emotions are wiped away by the undercurrents of her unspoken words conveyed through her kiss. The rest of the world fades away except for the magic of this kiss. It’s the longing of two hearts realizing they found their match to fill the holes in the other.

  When I pull back, Trina’s lips are puffy, cheeks flushed. My hands are gripping hers on either side of her head, but despite knowing I already gave her my reply, I still tell her, “Those children of yours are just like their mother.”

  Her eyes, which had been staring up at me languidly, clear before they narrow. “Oh?” A few weeks ago, the single word would have caused my balls to shrivel up in fear.

  Now, I just grin down into her ferocious scowl. “Yep.” Plucking a kiss from her mutinous lips, I list out Annie and Chris’s attributes. “Smart.” Kiss. “Loyal.” Another brush of our lips. “Retaliatory.”

  Trina bursts into laughter. “Sorry, not sorry,” she giggles.

  “Shh. I’m debating if the french toast outweighs the freaking mac’n’crap,” I sigh. Sliding to the side so I don’t crush her, I slide my hand over her face without actually touching it. “Beautiful,” I whisper. “From the inside out.”

  “Jonas,” Trina whispers. “Maybe they are, but—”

  “You are the most beautiful, strong, opinionated, hardheaded woman I’ve ever met,” I muse. “And I want to introduce you to my family so you can learn all about the only other woman I’ve…cared…about in quite the same way.”

  Then my eyes bug out. Shit, Julian would have my head. What kind of an idiot brings up a woman while in bed with another. I brace for the explosion. I should have known better.

  With a mother’s eyes, Trina reaches up and smooths a lock of hair away from my face. “Who?”

  With a sharp exhale, grateful Trina just gets me through the exterior I’ve held as a shield, I say, “My mother.” I wait for the judgment, the commentary about an Oedipus complex. Some snark that will shatter the emotional bonds wrapping around my heart.

  Then she surprises me again when she says thoughtfully, “That explains so much about how you are with Annie and Chris. You understand their hearts may be missing something with only one parent, but you’re so careful with them.” Tugging my head closer, she brushes her lips against my jaw which I know is slightly unhinged. “Be careful, Jonas. I might begin to like you more than I already do. And I’m really starting to do that.” The express
ion on her face tells me it’s a hell of a lot more than like, but life has taught her to not leap before she looks.

  Just like it handed me the same lessons. Inside, there’s something changing within me. I can’t name exactly what it is, but even as I slide my arms beneath Trina to tug her to me before I roll us both over so she can rest on top of me, I blurt out, “Apples,” before I know what I’m doing.

  “A sweet edible fruit,” she smarts. “Grown worldwide and found on a deciduous tree. Some people in this room think they’re disgusting.”

  My lips quirk. Trina’s the only person I know who could take a dark confession and make me want to laugh. “I hate apples for a reason,” I tell her, but instead of my voice coming out sinister, there’s a vein of laughter through it.

  Propping herself up on one arm on my chest, her fall of hair cascades over, blocking her face. I brush it away. “Will you tell me why?” she asks.

  My heart constricts. Sweat breaks out across my brow, not from the remembrance of pleasure we shared a while ago as I feel her breasts push against me, but from memories. Remembering the love Mom took the time to give me before… “Mom was a nurse. The night she died, she was late going to work.”

  “You mentioned she was gone.”

  “She was hit by a driver running a red light.” Even now, the words taste as bitter as an apple on my tongue to speak.

  Trina’s hands smooth over me. And I absorb her touch, memorizing it, because when she hears the truth, what will happen? Will she turn away?

  I finally blurt out, “She was running late to get to the hospital because I asked her to peel an apple for me before Julian and I went to Karlson and Lucy’s. No, asked is the wrong word.” I shake my head in frustration. “I threw a freaking fit. I said…I said…” And the burn behind my eyes causes me to squeeze them together. I don’t even know if Julian remembers what I said to Mom that day.

  If you love us enough, you’d stay, Mommy.

  Prying them open, I brace myself for the disgust I feel to be visible on Trina’s face. Instead, I find a quiet empathy. I honestly don’t know what’s worse. “Anyway, when you asked me if I wanted applesauce that first morning, I couldn’t be nice and say yes. I can’t eat them, can’t bear the smell of them cooking, anything. It’s because I caused my mother to…”

  “Stop.” Trina’s voice is a lash. My lips part, not to speak but out of shock. “Do you realize how many times a day my children complain about doing something? Or they tell me they hate me? Do you remember us running into you the day of the shots?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Chris had just finished asking for a new mother. One who wouldn’t make him get a poke.” Trina says the words matter-of-factly, but I know they must have stung at the time. “Why do you think he was so all fired up to go to an almost stranger?”

  “I never even thought about it. They’re not normally good with people?”

  “They are; they just normally wouldn’t leap from my arms to go to someone. There are days parenting hurts, Jonas. There’s the good kind and the bad kind of hurt. But trust me, it goes both ways.”

  Smoothing a hand down her cheek, I ask, “What do you mean?”

  “Annie is a monster every time I try to make her nap, and Chris tries to choke me when I cuddle with him to read. I’ve heard the ‘Mean, Mama,’ ‘No fun, Mama’ and, my favorite, ‘Grandma—or Dada—better.’ The twins are two, and they’re not getting their way. Do I hold that against them? No. Does it hurt? Only until the next time they come up and wrap those little arms around me and tell me they love me. I don’t love my children any less; I never could. The problem, Jonas, is you never got the chance to wrap your arms around your mother again to thank her for peeling that apple.”

  I crush Trina to me, burying my face into her neck. My shoulders shake even though tears don’t come. I think the little boy cried them out too long ago.

  But inside, I realize I suddenly desire the taste of apples. And that sparks an idea—one I’m not quite ready to share with the woman in my arms. I need to talk with her boss first.

  Long moments later, I feel her lips at my neck. “I have no doubt your mother loved you, Jonas. After all, she peeled the apple, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah, Trina.” I hug her tightly before loosening my arms. “She did.”

  Resting her head on my shoulder, Trina begins to draw patterns through the hair on my chest. “So, tell me about her. What was her name?”

  “Doria.”

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “It means selfless.” I feel Trina smile against me. “I looked it up in college. For years, I thought that meant she sacrificed herself for me.”

  “No, I think it simply means your grandparents had the foresight to aptly name a woman who believed in helping others long before she knew what she was meant to be—a mother and a nurse.”

  Twisting us so we’re face-to-face, I trail my fingers along Trina’s jaw. “Be careful, Trina. I might start to like you more than I already do. And that was already a lot.”

  “Just remember, I’m the raving lunatic who serves you mac’n’crap and you’ll get over it.” She pats my cheek condescendingly.

  I slap her ass in retaliation before we both break up laughing. Then in the quiet of the room, I share with Trina as many memories of my mom that I can remember before I roll out of bed, pull on a pair of pants, and drag her to the kitchen to find something to munch on.

  It may not be on either the culinary level of what we had for dinner or her pastry skills, but I’m pretty impressed with the way I slice the cheese and arrange the crackers. “And,” I tease her, taking a punch to the gut as I do, “it surpasses mac’n’crap.”

  But I don’t think she cares what the hell we munched on when I drag her over to my never-used dining room, lay her on top of the table, and feast on her before I pick her up and carry her back to bed.

  Chapter 19

  Trina

  It’s slightly after dawn the next morning when Jonas drives us back to the Bronx. My hand is held firmly against his thigh except when he has to shift. With a smirk, I note, “You’re lucky parking fees aren’t going to eat a chunk into your ‘salary,’ Rice.”

  Humor dancing in his dark eyes, he pulls into the parking space I’ve never used but come as a perk of my particular unit. “Completely lucked out,” he agrees. “Now that I have to ‘live off’ the same food budget you do, I honestly don’t know how you manage for one, let alone three.”

  I slide out before answering him. We meet around the back of his car where he clasps my hand in his. As we walk to the bank of elevators, I shrug, “A lot of it is strict planning. Luxuries are few and far between, but I’m grateful to you,” I concede as the car arrives and we step in.

  “For what?”

  “For forcing me to show you my New York. For so many years I thought it was this cold, heartless place. Maybe there are people who are, but that’s the truth anywhere, isn’t it?”

  Jonas tugs me back into him, before answering me. “I think that’s true no matter where you are. I think some people get off on being cruel to build themselves up. When I reread what I wrote in some of my columns, I realized I was in danger of that.”

  I’m about to ask him what he means when I catch the silver doors sliding shut. “Crap. I forgot to press my floor.” I quickly using my dongle before punching the button for my floor.

  He assumes his haughty air. “I have that effect on women.”

  I punch him in his rock-hard stomach before leaning into him, trusting the emotional connection between us especially after last night. This Jonas Rice isn’t just pithy words on paper; he’s a man with an enormous heart. Unfortunately, like mine, his heart has tiny holes that have organically formed due to life.

  “We’re like Swiss Lorraine,” I proclaim as the elevator rises.

  Jonas chokes. “Cheap, smelly cheese? Couldn’t you have picked triple creme? Christ, after tasting something so delicious—over and over—last nigh
t, can’t you come up with a better comparison? Don’t I deserve Emmenthaler at the very least?”

  I twist around and press a smacking kiss on his lips just as the door slides open. “No, you dork. I mean we each have this crazy slice of life, but they have thousands of tiny holes in them that keep them from being perfect.” I conclude my analysis just as I insert the first key in the lock. Repeating the process twice more, I hold a finger to my lips. I then tuck my hands beneath my cheek knowing Elle and my babies should still be sleeping.

  He nods. “Okay, Lorraine.”

  I can’t prevent the giggle from escaping as I push open the door. Then the sound dries up as Jonas crashes into my back.

  Because it’s not Elle lying in my daybed lightly snoring like I expect when I push the door open.

  Instead, my mother’s sitting on the couch wearing an expression I haven’t seen in more than two years. It’s fury combined with disgust.

  And just like with my children, I step in front of Jonas to shield him from it.

  “Mom,” I try to placate her.

  “Shut your mouth, Trina. God, with everything I’ve done to help you, this is the kind of example you set for those babies?”

  We’re in the hallway where she stormed after seeing me and Jonas together. For the last twenty minutes, I’ve had my behavior likened to a streetwalker, an unfit mother, and what might be the worst of all things in her mind, my father.

  “You left those babies alone all night with…with that woman!” she sputters. My temper begins to fray as she starts to malign my best friend.

  “Annie and Chris love being around Elle.” I try to hold on to my fraying patience. “She’s over several times a week—”

  “What, giving you time to go off galivanting? Maybe those babies would have been better off with their father.” Her words are aimed perfectly for my heart.

  “You can’t mean that,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself.