Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 209(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 209(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Jacey studied me for a long moment, defiant and hopeful at the same time, and I could almost see her brain churning as she tried to come up with a solution. “Do you like him?” she blurted finally.
I frowned. “Your dad? Of course I like him. He’s wonderful.” Then the true meaning of her question hit me. “Oh! Do I like him like him. I… well. I didn’t even realize he was gay until three days ago, Jace.” Not that I’d let that stop me from fantasizing. A lot.
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not an answer,” she pointed out. “Because if you do like him, Brody, maybe you could try it. Just for a while. Just to see. You’re both gay, and you both care about each other. You’re young, and you’re cute. Sorta.”
“Stop. You’ll make me blush,” I said wryly.
Jacey laughed. “And Dad’s old and boring, but not, like, really gross-looking, right? He’s smart and successful, and his jokes aren’t always cheesy. And he makes good pancakes. And I know it’s annoying that he leaves his dirty cream cheese knife on the edge of the sink like he’s going to make another bagel—which he never does—and he leaves empty water bottles rolling around in his car all the time, and he works way too much, but he always listens when you talk to him about that stuff, Brody. So maybe you could try to like him that way.”
I laughed weakly. She had no idea. None.
“’Cause if you did like each other,” she said softly, “then it wouldn’t really matter how your relationship started. It would be real, and no one would be lying at all.” She swallowed. “And then, you’d stay with us always.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Impulsively, I grabbed her hand. “I’ve told you—it doesn’t matter if I work for your dad or not, you and your sisters are always going to be my special girls. Your dad would have to barricade the door to get me to stop seeing you—”
“I know. But it won’t be the same, will it?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. It wouldn’t, and I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Jacey shrugged, then nodded resolutely, pulling her hand away. “Okay, so if you’re asking for my opinion or what I feel comfortable saying, I wanna tell everyone you’re married. Cleo, Mia, Aunt Gwen… everyone. I wanna say, ‘My dad and Brody are husbands now, and Cleo, Mia, and I are really hoping it’ll work out for those crazy lovebirds.’ I want to wish it so hard it comes true. Because if it doesn’t work out, Brody,” she added gently, “it’s not gonna hurt more when you leave because you’re divorcing than it would if you were leaving because you got another job. Me and Cleo and Mia already handled our parents’ divorce, remember?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“And Mom already got remarried and divorced again, and we handled that, too. It wasn’t the same because we only knew Elias for maybe three weeks of that time—remember when they took us to New Zealand on the Lord of the Rings tour a few years ago?”
“I remember,” I agreed.
I remembered Grant complaining about the girls going on a tour of a movie they’d been too young to even watch. I remembered he’d spent the three weeks of their trip working extra hours at the hospital just to keep himself distracted. And I remembered that when he had come home, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa with the TV playing old Doris Day movies, and I’d covered him with a blanket while wishing desperately he’d make a move on me while the girls were out of the country… but he hadn’t, damn it.
Even after all this time, even after getting freaking married, he hadn’t.
Which meant he wouldn’t. He might be it for me, but I wasn’t it for him. Deluding myself that this arrangement would have a happily ever after was about as effective as Jacey “wishing it true.”
“The point is, it’s the losing you part that’ll hurt, Brody, not the divorce part.”
Her words made me feel both better and worse. It helped to know the marriage bargain wasn’t going to make things worse for them, but knowing that eventually I’d have to leave—because, as Fen said, “every fairy tale has to end sometime, boo”—killed me as much as it did her.
“Have I mentioned today how very smart you are?” I asked roughly. “Because you are, Jacey Brighton. You’re absolutely brilliant. And I could not love you more.”
To my shock, her eyes welled with tears. “Back atcha. You’re like a dad… only cooler.” She sniffed and assumed her usual disdainful teenager expression to cover it. “Like, a tiny bit cooler.”
Oh, my fucking heart.
“It’s my musical taste that gets me the cool points, isn’t it?” I joked, nudging her arm. “Should I break into some ‘Exile’? You can sing the Taylor parts.”