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He squeezed my hand again as the cab pulled up outside the hotel. After paying the driver, Joey and I climbed out, and my stomach churned. What if Jason wasn’t there? What if he’d disappeared? How would I find him when I had no idea where anything was or what kind of places he might be? It could be as simple as checking nearby coffee shops or as complicated as finding somewhere totally obscure because he really didn’t want to be found yet.
As we entered the lobby, a woman of around sixty gasped when she spotted Joey. She ran toward him, enveloping him in a hug, leaving the woman at the reception desk looking a little perplexed since she’d obviously been checking her in. Joey collapsed into her arms. That was all it took for him to break down, and my eyes welled up. No matter how old a man got, he always needed his mother.
I gently rested a hand on his shoulder and jerked my head toward the elevator to let him know I’d be okay to look for Jason on my own. He nodded, and I left them alone.
The slow rise to the fourth floor seemed like an eternity as my heart thudded harder, hoping and praying Jason would be in his room. In his room and okay. My feet picked up the pace, and I ran along the corridor. When I reached number four-forty-three, I knocked on the door.
“Jase? Jase, are you in there?”
I took in a long, deep breath and waited. Only a few seconds passed before he opened the door and pulled me inside, pressing me to him. Relief made my limbs weaken, and I melted against him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he buried his hand in my hair. “I’m sorry.”
I breathed him in like I’d been away from him for years instead of an hour, and held onto him in a way that let him know I wouldn’t let go. “What for? You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I shouldn’t have left you there.”
“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t stay. I yelled at Ellie, then left. I sat in the cafeteria and waited for you.”
Jason placed his hands on my cheeks and gently moved me back a little so he could look in my eyes. “I’m sorry about that too. I know I was supposed to call, but—”
I shook my head to cut him off. “It’s fine. As long as you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
He gently pressed his lips to mine, and we went to sit on his bed. I kicked off my shoes before we snuggled up the way we had earlier.
“Nobody has called me since I left the waiting room,” I said as I rested my head on Jason’s chest, and he curled his arm around me. “But Joey came back to the hotel with me. When we arrived, his mum had just got here.”
“That’s good. He needs some time away from the hospital. I’ll call Dad in a while and see how things are, but I’m not ready to go back yet.”
“Me neither. I just want to be here with you.”
The two of us lay in silence for a while, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I was jetlagged as hell, and it was getting close to what should be bedtime according to my body clock, but my mind was still racing too much for me to relax enough to sleep fully. There was too much tension and too much to worry about.
Jason’s hand slipped into my hair, gently curling the ends around his fingers, releasing them, and starting again. I shuffled a little higher up the bed so I could touch his lips with mine, and he moved his hand to my cheek, then slowly down my neck to my shoulder, leaving a trail of tingles in its wake.
After the events of the last twenty-four hours and the last few weeks, being back in Jason’s arms was pure heaven. Nobody else mattered at that moment. Jason’s eyes stared deep into mine. Without words, I tried to convey everything I felt, everything I wanted. What the hell was I waiting for? In seconds, lives had been lost and lives had been changed. I was lying with the man I’d loved for years but could just as easily have been sitting in the hospital beside Ellie, waiting to find out if he’d pull through or worse. I could have never gotten the chance to see him again.
“Luce,” he whispered, his fingers moving into my hair again as his eyes darkened. “It’s too soon.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice soft. “Why is it too soon?”
“You know why. And I promised you we would take this slowly.”
“We’ve been sensible, Jase. So far, we’ve done what was right, even when it wasn’t what we wanted. Everything we’ve done has been to make everyone else happy. What about us? What about what we want?” I questioned.
Jason’s hand slipped around to the back of my neck. “We’ve got time, Lucy. We don’t need to rush this. I made a promise to you, and I’ve broken so many promises. I don’t want to break my promise to you.”
“What if I want you to? What if I want that, want you more than I want you to honor your promise?”
My heart began to pound in my chest because I knew why he was struggling. I knew I was putting him in a difficult position because, for the first time, maybe in his whole life, he was willing to stand up for something.
For me.
“What if you regret it, Luce? What if you think you’re sure right now, but later, you regret it, and you resent me for not doing what I said I would?”
The worry in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. How could I regret being with someone who was willing to put my feelings first?
