Forever Starts Tonight (Wilder Family #4)

Chapter 2

Poppy

Present day

Some day, in the very distant future, I might blame all of what happened next on my propensity for making decisions through a pros and cons list. It wasn’t that the system was flawed. Lists were good . I loved making lists on paper. Seeing things in black and white with the ability to cross off what was already done was very helpful. In this case, the list was titled A confrontation with Jax to be able to move on.

The list was a solid one too.

Pros:

- Life is short. If I died tomorrow, I refuse to feel regret that I didn’t at least try, and regrets are bullshit.

-My mom is out of town, which means there will be no roommate interference. (side note: start a new list re: because I’m twenty-five and my MOM is my roommate)

-Jax isn’t expecting me, so the element of surprise is on my side. He won’t be able to talk me out of it.

-Seeing him in his home element could negate my feelings for him. Maybe he’s messy, and it looks like a frat house. (check for posters of naked women on the walls)

-I’ve had an out-of-control crush on him since I was fifteen. Zero clarity has been gained in that time. Confrontations gain clarity.

-Clarity will allow me to finally move on.

There was really only one con. And sure, it was a doozy, the sort of crusade-killing truth that would negate all of the above.

Cons:

-Jax will never let me in his home because he refuses to be alone with me. Which means the risk of mortifying embarrassment is high. I would never be able to show my face in front of him again once it’s done. If he laughs, I might consider moving away and starting a new life.

If I’d been sober, there was a high possibility that I never would’ve made the trek.

As it turned out, drunk Poppy had questionable decision-making skills.

Which is how I ended up getting relationship advice from my twice divorced Uber driver while she safely transported me to the home of my longtime crush, who’d never given me a single moment of indication he wanted me. There was one moment, right before she turned onto the road that led to his house, when I tried to read the list again but couldn’t see my chicken scratch handwriting. I shrugged, wadding it into a ball and shoving it in my purse.

It would be fine .

“You figure out what you’re gonna say to him?” Patrice asked. She had frizzy red hair and the raspy voice of someone who smoked many cigarettes in her life, but damn if she wasn’t good for a drunk pep talk. Fifteen minutes in her car and I felt like I could take over the world.

I nodded, my head still very filled with wine, so all my movements felt slow. “Yeah. Maybe. I think so?”

She laughed. “Just rip your top off and kiss him. That always worked for me.”

My laughter came out with the slightest edge of hysteria, but I wasn’t sure she heard it. Mainly because the only thing currently filling my head was, how the hell did I get here? List or no list, this was almost undoubtedly certifiable .

It’s not necessarily the kind of story that painted me in a good, flattering light, but I couldn’t do much about that.

I should probably start with how I ended up drunk in the first place.

There’s a special kind of intoxication one wants to achieve at the end of a spectacularly bad date. I hadn’t experienced it often, and I was thankful for that, but this bad date? Not enough bottles of wine in the fridge at home.

On a normal night, a couple of glasses was good enough for me. If I really wanted to feel that fuzzy, floaty feeling, I’d go for the harder stuff, but it had been a long time since anything had happened to make me crave that.

Apparently, it took one handsy finance guy with an ego the size of a small planet and a rejection complex. When I politely yanked his hand off my leg, I told him I’d stab him with my steak knife it he tried feeling me up again. Dude wasn’t a fan of that.

He left me with a lesson in the creative use of swear words, the expensive bill, as well as a sneaking suspicion that there were no solid relationship prospects for a hundred square miles. I finished my giant glass of wine, then his, before heading home.

I’d met nice men. Kind and funny and sweet. I’d met a few asshole men, like the handsy dude who was fortunate enough to keep his fingers. And I’d met a few others who honestly defied categorization.

Months of going on dates to uproot Jax from my head, and what did I have to show for it?

Abso-fricken-lutely nothing.

The guys were never quite right, and as I yanked the first bottle out of the fridge at home—thank the Lord for a screw top because I was not sober to wrangling a corkscrew—I knew why.

I didn’t want to think about why they weren’t right or enough or why a date or two never quite progressed past more. The first drink I took was straight from the mouth of the bottle because trying to find a cup felt like a ridiculous waste of time and energy.

The house itself was empty when I arrived—which I was prepared for—and my trusty roommate was gone for the night. As referenced in the list, the roommate was my mother, newly widowed within the past few months. I’d stayed home longer than I ever intended so that I could be there while my dad was sick and then in the aftermath of losing him. It wasn’t like I was embarrassed to be in my mid-twenties and still living at home, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it didn’t really help my love life either.

I had a good job working for our family’s construction company, and between my mom and my sisters, I could legitimately count my family as my best friends. It was a good life.

I should be happy. Happy-ish, at least.

But I wasn’t.

I missed my dad, gone only for a few months, and in the wake of that gnawing, empty hole in my chest, I just wanted something . But I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pinpoint exactly what that was. And being alone tonight wasn’t helping.

I was never the impulsive one. At least not with my own life. I had plans. Good plans. Organized, color-coded plans.

And tonight, I was just building to a killer hangover and another disappointing night.

Usually, the empty house didn’t bother me. I could crank the music she hated, I could waltz around naked if I wanted to (I didn’t because honestly, who wanted to walk around naked, but that was beside the point). But tonight, as I plopped on the couch and took another healthy swig of the wine, the quiet pressed in on me like a vise. Like someone invisible turned a giant metal crank and walls closed in, inch by inch by inch, until the air felt thin and my rib cage was tight .

If I closed my eyes, the room might spin just a little bit, but if I breathed beyond that, I knew what I’d see. I’d see the reason that all these dates felt like a giant waste of time, why no one gave me butterflies or goose bumps or fantasies of more.

What a glutton for punishment I was, because closing my eyes is exactly what I did. Sure, there was spinning of the walls, and as soon as it settled, there he was.

Jax Cartwright, the bane of my existence the past ten years and the only man who’d ever made my head go twisty turny in the way that no bottle of wine ever would.

“Fucking Jax,” I muttered, taking another swig of wine.

He was everything you’d think of in a man who’d held your attention for a decade of your formative years. Handsome, of course, with all the rippling muscles and big biceps that made me lose a few IQ points. Mysterious and quiet, with the kind of soul-searing dark eyes that always made me lose my breath a little. And no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he was kind underneath it, even if he had the conversational skills of a potato.

And most unfortunately, he was ten years older, the best friend of my brother Cameron, and had never given me a single lingering look. Not even a little baby one that could be misconstrued as one. There was no lingering. Ever. Honestly, he kept his distance so thoroughly that sometimes I questioned my own intelligence that I couldn’t quite shove him out of my mind.

And why, on nights like this, when I’d threatened violence and got left with a massive bill at the nicest restaurant in the neighboring town of Redmond, I kinda just wanted to get drunk and wish for the day that I’d stop comparing every man to him.

It wasn’t fair.

Maybe if he’d been a dick to me, it would be easier. But he wasn’t .

Angrily, I took another drink. A big one, too. More wine was definitely the answer to this problem.

But problems had solutions, right?

Tapping my fingers on the glass bottle, I tried to think of what that solution might be. There had to be a way to purge one stupid man from my head. I wasn’t silly enough to think I was truly in love with him after all these years of nothing from him, but I couldn’t quite rip the hold he had on my head away either.

What better way to do that than just confront him. The racing of my heart was the first indication I was on the right track because I was not the confrontational Wilder in the family. I was the cheerful youngest sister; I was the optimist. The one who listened and encouraged. But never once had I stood face-to-face with Jax and asked him why . Or why not, I guess.

Why not me?

He wasn’t married. Wasn’t in a relationship. Hell, he’d never been in a serious relationship.

I was nice. People liked me. And I was attractive, in that girl next door kinda way. No, men didn’t usually trip over themselves when I walked into the room, but son of a bitch, I was a fucking catch . And I wasn’t a kid anymore.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I was off the couch, slamming back another drink of wine and yanking out my phone to pull up the rideshare app. With vicious taps of my thumbs, the address was in, and I submitted my request with the smug-ass grin of a drunk girl who was feeling a little too feisty for her own good after putting planet-ego man in his place.

And to my luck, Patrice was the one driving.

“Where’re we headed tonight, honey?”

I toppled into the back seat and yanked the door shut when a gust of wind lifted my floaty skirt up. “Jax fucking Cartwright’s house,” I said. Her eyebrows popped up, but she didn’t say anything, verifying the address I’d entered into the app. “He doesn’t know I’m coming, so I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. He’s ignored me for ages ,” I said, only the teeny tiniest slur to my voice.

“Ignored a pretty girl like you?” She clucked her tongue. “He married?”

“He’s painfully and perpetually single, which almost makes it worse. He won’t even sleep with women from town so he doesn’t risk seeing them again.”

Patrice whistled. “I had a husband like that once. It’s kinda fun to be the one to have them coming back for more.”

“I don’t have Jax coming back for anything. First or seconds.” Slumping in the back seat of the car, I fiddled with the hem of my skirt. “And I just don’t understand why. I’ve never straight out asked him to go out with me, and the only thing I can think of is that he’s afraid of my brother.”

“You got a protective one?” she asked.

I blew out a short laugh. “I have four brothers who are varying degrees of protective and two sisters. One of those sisters is the most terrifying of all my siblings, and they’d all admit it too. But yes, Jax is my brother Cameron’s best friend.” My tone turned glum. “They’re older than me by, like, ten years. I think that’s why he always blew me off. But how can I know if I don’t ask him, right?”

“Ten years ain’t nothing,” Patrice said with an encouraging smile. “My second husband was twenty years older than me.”

“Twenty?” I whistled. “Damn, Patrice.”

She chuckled, a low, throaty sound. “He croaked after a few years, and I got a nice little house out of the deal. He wasn’t so bad. Not my favorite, though.” Her eyes glinted in the dark interior of the car. “Husband three is my favorite. He’s the best in bed and always lets me do whatever I want.”

My cheeks heated.

“You know there’s an ice storm rolling into tonight, yeah?” she asked, eyeing me warily through the rearview mirror. Rain started hitting the windshield in big, fat strikes. Suddenly, the sight of them looked very ominous.

It was a very good thing I wasn’t sober, because man, this shit might make me turn back around.

“Huh,” I said, only the slightest wobble to my voice. “Is there?”

She hummed. “Be a damn shame if you got stuck out there in the woods with your mystery man, wouldn’t it?”

Nerves erupted in my already roiling stomach, and I pressed a shaky hand there. “You think I will?”

“No doubt,” she said easily. “No one should be driving on these roads when it gets icy like this. Will your family be looking for you tonight, honey?”

“No,” I said on a sigh. “My mom is visiting my sister in Salem. No one else will check on me until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Hot damn, you can do a lot in a twenty-four hours.”

I covered my face with a groan. “Oh my gosh, you’re going to make me chicken out.”

“You got good underwear on?” she asked.

Slowly, I pried my fingers apart and caught her eye in the mirror, giving her a slight nod.

Patrice hooted. “Good girl. Always gotta be prepared.”

“I’m not going out here to get laid , Patrice. I just want to talk to him while I have the courage. My brother is always around when I see him, and…” My shoulders slumped, the weight of feeling stuck hitting me from a dozen directions. “I’m sick of doing nothing,” I whispered. “I want to do something . I want to know for sure, so that I can move on from him.”

As she took the final turn toward his house, she asked if I knew what I was going to say, and the answer to that, no matter what came out of my mouth, was an unequivocal no. Hell, just the sight of his house had my legs trembling a little .

I knew where he lived, but I’d never been inside. It was a small white house tucked back in the trees, hidden from the road. Because he was farther out from town, the houses were spread apart, so he had total privacy, and even though the sky was dark and the rain pelted the car with increased intensity, it was still a beautiful drive. In the daytime, at least.

The headlights from Patrice’s car sliced along the front of his house—white siding with wooden shutters, and underneath the carport was the black and chrome motorcycle he loved. A zap of nerves had my tummy rolling again, and I let out a deep breath when Patrice told me to just take off my top and kiss him.

It wasn’t worth arguing with her anymore because she had her heart set on naked shenanigans, but that was about as likely as getting struck by lightning as I walked to his door. Patrice gave me a thumbs-up. “Good luck, kid. You look hot.”

Quietly, I exhaled a laugh and nodded. “Thanks. I promise I’ll give you a good tip for bringing me out here in this weather.”

She winked. “Don’t you worry about that, honey. Husband number three waits for me at home, and he’ll take good care of me.”

I smiled, then tugged my purse over my head to shield me from the freezing rain as I huddled under his front porch. My entire body trembled from nerves and cold because my drunk ass didn’t even think about grabbing a coat. I hadn’t knocked yet. Maybe I could still head home, and he’d be none the wiser.

For a moment, I pinched my eyes shut, running through a quick list.

Pros:

He never knows, thereby I don’t have to move away in embarrassment.

Cons:

I’ll know. And … something with regrets. No regrets, right? Yeah. Th at was it. And not dying without asking his grumpy ass why he always ignores me.

But it was so cold . And my shirt was wet. And I started shivering just long enough that the first one on the list won out. Avoiding mortification was a hell of a motivator, as it turned out. With a raised hand, I turned to flag down Patrice, but she was already turning the car out of the driveway.

“Dammit,” I whispered. I wrapped my arms around my middle in a pathetic attempt to stay warm, then blew out a slow breath. “Being impulsive is bullshit,” I hissed. “Why do people like this?”

Before I could get up my nerve to pound on the front door, it was yanked open.

The wine wasn’t enough.

Not a dozen more bottles.

No list in the world could prepare me for this moment.

Because framed in the light of the doorway—a white T-shirt stretched over his broad chest, towering above me with his dark brows furrowed in confusion and his dark eyes locked on mine like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing—was Jax Cartwright.

His gaze tracked down the front of my rain-soaked body, and somehow, impossibly, his glare intensified.

I lifted my hand in a pathetic little wave. “Hi.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, Poppy?”