Until Lexi

“Well,” I start, giving him a little smirk. “I do owe you a date.”

We’ll start with dinner, then see where the night leads.

Oh, who the hell am I kidding? The back and forth between the two of us might as well be foreplay. I know exactly where the night will lead. I wouldn’t even mind skipping dinner and getting right to the good part.

“Let me tell Blossom I’m leaving. I’ll meet you outside.”

Not waiting for a response, I turn, leaving him to find his own way out while I go hunt down Blossom. Ten minutes—and a ridiculous amount of ribbing from my boss—later, I walk back up front, only to find Jake standing exactly where I left him.

Interesting.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a strong personality. I’m in the habit of knowing what I want and doing what I need to do to make sure I get it, which means I’m used to taking the lead with the men I get involved with. Unlike the men in my past, Jake doesn’t seem content to follow. I’m not sure what to do with that. When he places his hand on my lower back and guides me to the door, taking the time to hold it for me as I exit, I decide I don’t care.

Those walls I mentioned earlier?

They’ve disappeared completely.

Whatever this is… it’s temporary.

I’m gonna go with the flow and enjoy it while it lasts.

***

“So, how did you and your sisters end up so close? I sense there’s a story there.”

My hand stills, fork midway to my mouth, eyes meeting his across the table. “You could say that,” I admit, caught off guard.

There isa story there. Several of them, in fact. But they aren’t all mine to tell, and mine isn’t something I normally share. I’m always wary when people ask personal questions, but I don’t sense any ill intent from Jake. He seems to genuinely want to get to know me.

It’s different. Nice.

Jake keeps surprising me.

Despite the dark, heated looks he’s given me and what he said about giving me what I want, he’s nothing like I expected. He’s treating this like a normal date. My dates are usually only a prerequisite for what comes after. Half the time, they can’t even be considered dates.

“I’m trying to get to know you, Lexi,” he says, a look of understanding in his eyes.

He’s so damn earnest, it’s impossible not to give a little. Lowering my hand, I clear my throat and sit up straighter.

“Penny’s mom, before she passed, ran what I guess you could call a home for girls. She always wanted a big family and a ton of kids, but… life doesn’t always give us what we want. Kathy was a saint. One of those genuinely good people with a heart of gold. She didn’t let life get her down. Complications during Penny’s birth prevented her from having more children of her own, so she poured all her love into the misfits who didn’t have anyone else.”

“Misfits like you?”

The question isn’t meant to be offensive, so I take none.

“Yeah, like me… and Riley. Tons of others too, but none of them stuck around for long once they aged out.”

“What about Hope?”

“Hope and Penny are cousins, actually. Hope’s dad was Kathy’s younger brother. I guess he knocked up some one-night stand, and neither of them wanted the responsibility of being parents. They gave it a go for a few years, but eventually decided she was too much work. They dropped her off with Kathy and never looked back.”

“Damn. That’s fucked up,” he says, scrubbing his hand across his jaw.

He doesn’t know the half of it.

We’ve all been through it.

Penny, Riley, Hope and I… we’ve bonded over all the ways life enjoys fucking us. It brought us together and has kept us close over the years. Hope seems to have it worse than the rest of us. Life enjoys kicking her when she’s already down and she’s never quite been able to pick herself back up. We do what we can, but… we can only help so much, especially when she makes no effort to help herself.

It doesn’t stop us from worrying about her though, especially after the truth came out about Mercy. The weight of my worry grows as Hope’s mental state diminishes day by day. She’s usually good at hiding it, but she’s no longer bothering to try. Hope is spiraling, and while I understand, I fear for what it means for her, for the rest of us.

It’s especially difficult when I’m battling my own demons.

Hearing that Hope was raped, how that might have been the way Mercy was conceived… it dredged up bad memories and feelings I’ve long since thought I’d gotten over.

“What’s wrong, Lexi? You went all quiet on me.”

I’m pulled from my thoughts by the concern lacing Jake’s tone. The softness in his eyes brings tears to my own. Shaking my head, I swallow the lump in my throat.

“I’m worried about Hope,” I admit, knowing it’s only a partial truth.

“No, it’s more than that.”

How the hell does he see right through me?

With a shaky sigh, I open my mouth and the story I never share with anyone comes pouring out. I can’t bear to look at him, so I focus my gaze on the table instead.

“When I was four, my mom gave me up. Abandoned me, really. For the longest time, I wondered what I did wrong to make her not want me anymore. I spent my childhood thinking I was unlovable. If my mom didn’t want me, why would anyone else? I don’t have many clear memories from my time with her, but the one thing I’ll never forget is the pain in her eyes every time she looked at me.”

My eyes flit to Jake. He’s watching me, listening intently.

“Of course, I was far too young to see it for what it was, to understand why it was only me who caused the dark cloud that hovered over her. I think I was thirteen when I overheard my caseworker talking to someone about me. I don’t remember who it was. Foster parents, maybe.” I lift my shoulder and let it fall. “Doesn’t matter. Turns out, my mom couldn’t stand looking at me. I was conceived from rape. The older I got, the more I looked like the monster who made me. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore. Looking at me was a daily reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her.”

Jake mutters a curse, and a wry chuckle slips between my lips as I hastily swipe the tears running down my cheeks.

“Part of me isn’t even mad about it. As an adult, I can look at it objectively, and I can’t imagine what it was like for her. But that broken little girl? She needed her mom, and that’s a feeling that never went away. Hope’s struggles make so much more sense now but hearing about what happened to her… and the possibility of Mercy… my god. It brought up all these old feelings I thought I’d moved past.”

“Understandable,” Jake says calmly, handing me a napkin.

“Ugh,” I groan, reaching for the napkin. I still can’t quite bring myself to look him in the eye, so I busy myself with drying my face. “I don’t know why I told you all that. I never open up to people this quickly, or at all. I damn sure don’t get emotional and cry. This is not the way this date was supposed to go.”

Even as I say it, I have no regrets about sharing my history with him. I don’t know what made me do it, but opening up to Jake was easy, and it felt right. There’s something about him. Something that makes me feel completely at ease with him, like I’m free to be myself without limits, without holding back the parts I don’t want anyone to see. I’ve never met anyone else that makes me feel this way, not even the women I call my sisters.

I don’t know what it means, but I want to experience more of it.

Jake reaches across the table and takes my hand, his thumb slowly tracing back and forth across my knuckles. “There’s nothing wrong with showing vulnerability, Lexi.”

“That’s not who I am. I’m not myself around you.”

“Mmm. But what if you are?” He squeezes my hand, and I finally meet his eyes. “Maybe this is the real you. The you without the mask you wear, without the wall you build around yourself.”

He could be right.

Not that I’m ready to admit it.

Thankfully, in that weird way of his, Jake seems to know I’ve hit my limit for deep and heavy. He doesn’t protest when I steer the conversation to something lighter. One day I’ll finish telling him how the girls and I grew from strangers to family but talking about my past has me feeling wrung out.

This date isn’t going the way I’d hoped. I was looking forward to whatever wicked things Jake wanted to do to me at the end of the night. Unfortunately, my unexpected desire to completely open myself up has killed the mood. The sexual tension that was simmering between the two of us has vanished, and now I have to figure out if I can salvage what’s left of the date.

I can’t read Jake the same way he reads me—like an open book—but he doesn’t appear to be affected by the downward turn of the night. He’s not judging me, not pushing me to continue talking about something that’s clearly difficult for me. He didn’t offer any bullshit platitudes or tell me how I should or shouldn’t feel. He simply listened, then let me lead us in a different direction.

The whole mood has changed, and even though conversation comes easy, the fun, flirty banter doesn’t make another appearance.

Oddly, I find myself simply enjoying his company.