Forever Starts Tonight (Wilder Family #4)

Chapter 17

Jax

“What’s this?”

Cameron tilted his head, mouth moving as he read the message waiting for me on my phone.

“Ahh. I believe we call those text messages.”

My facial expression didn’t budge.

Cameron grinned. “Looks like my mom got your cell phone number.”

I set my jaw, glancing down at the text again, like I hadn’t read it a dozen times.

Unknown number: Jax, it’s Sheila Wilder. I’d love to invite you over for a family dinner tonight at six if you don’t have any plans. I apologize for the late notice. I meant to send this yesterday, but the day got away from me. If you can’t come, please know you’re always welcome in my home.

Cameron’s eyebrows popped on his forehead. “What about this confuses you?”

I stared at him. “Your mom is inviting me for a family dinner.”

“Good Lord, what nefarious thing could she have planned for you?” As he brushed past me, he slapped me on the shoulder.

“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm,” I said to his retreating back.

“You never do. It’s a real shame.” Cameron stuck his fingers into his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The whirring sounds of machinery died down. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m about to head out to the Redmond site to check on some things. We’ll be posting if we can’t find anyone, but we’re looking to hire a couple of new people if you know of anyone who’s willing to learn and likes working with their hands.”

Wade eyed me over the circular saw. “Maybe if Jax stopped taking so many European vacations, we wouldn’t need a new person.”

Cameron gave him a firm look. “If I hadn’t been able to spare him, you and I both know he wouldn’t have been gone. This is more for what’s coming down the pipe, Wade. Once the store is done, we’ve got two large builds we’ll be balancing, and this is a great time to do some training.”

I wandered around the saw and clapped Wade on the back. “Maybe if Wade wasn’t so old and grumpy, he wouldn’t scare off the new guys during his training.”

Wade rolled his eyes. “Not my fault if they can’t handle me.”

In the back of the room, Rob raised his hand. “I might know of someone, Cameron.”

Cameron lifted his chin. “Yeah? Who is it?”

“My buddy, Trevor. College isn’t his thing, you know? Real smart, though. He’s like … deep . Hates sitting around doing nothing. He’s been trying to find some work and hasn’t had any luck yet.”

Wade eyed Rob skeptically. “Your friend anything like you?”

I gave Wade a look. “He did say he was deep, Wade. ”

Rob laughed. “Nope, nothing like me, old man.”

Wade grunted. “Good.”

Cameron chuckled under his breath. “All right, give him my email address, I’ll set up an interview.” My friend nodded his chin toward the door, gesturing for me to follow. When we cleared the doorway, he crossed his arms, studying my face. “You gonna come to dinner?”

Discomfort must have been rolling off me in waves because I didn’t say a word, and Cameron sighed, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck.

“It’s just dinner, Jax.”

I glanced sideways. “Is it?”

My disbelieving tone had him chuckling. “What else would it be?”

“A Wilder family firing squad aimed right at my balls, maybe.”

His smile faded. “Fuck, Jax, I shouldn’t have said I hated it was you,” he murmured, staring off down the street. “I was upset. At you. At Poppy. Wishing my dad was here to keep us all steadied out. It’s like we’re all still trying to figure out how to navigate big shit like this without him.” His eyes met mine. “But I shouldn’t have said that. Or told you to leave.” Cameron extended his arm. “I’m sorry.”

I clasped his outstretched hand in mine and shook it. “Forgiven. Honestly, if this had happened to her by anyone else, I would’ve been saying the same shit.”

The words came out unthinkingly, and I kept my face even.

Cameron didn’t answer, simply hummed quietly, then gave me one last look before he descended the front steps. “No pressure or anything, but you’ll break my mom’s heart if you don’t come.”

I flipped him off, then, to the sound of his laughter, I sighed, tapped out a quick reply to Sheila Wilder and headed back in to work .

By the time I was done, had gone home, and showered, I found myself driving toward the Wilder House, anxiety building by the second.

Was I supposed to bring something?

A dish to pass or something?

Wine.

Maybe I could bring her a bottle of wine. Or some flowers.

My stomach went ice cold. Anytime I thought about standing in front of that cheery fucking display, buckets overflowing with flowers, I wanted to break something. No. No flowers.

But I could pick a bottle of wine.

Turning the truck into the parking lot of the grocery store, I sat forward when I noticed Poppy walk inside, her dark hair swinging from a high ponytail, and her legs bare underneath a swishy blue skirt that stopped above her knees. An elderly couple stopped her just before she went into the store, Poppy smiled easily with a hand resting on the top of her small bump. They talked for a minute before she waved and headed inside.

I leaned my head back against the seat rest after she disappeared.

The cheery awning over the vet’s office across the street caught my eye, and I fought a scowl.

I thought about seeing her again in front of her family, and I wasn’t sure it was any easier than seeing her like this—when she wasn’t expecting me.

It reminded me of the letter. Because I was a chump, I’d pulled it from my bag and shoved it in the console of my work truck. Carefully, I pulled it out and held it in my hands. The edges of the envelope were battered and bent from all the times I’d clutched it just like this.

What if I’d just sent it from Spain? Not knowing what was waiting for me when I came back. If she’d known that my feelings had changed.

That they’d shifted into something else.

Something bigger.

The first time in my life when I waited—when I curbed an impulse brewing under my skin—and it seemed now like I’d waited too long.

Fucking figured.

The man I was when I scrawled my thoughts out onto paper wasn’t even recognizable anymore. It was almost impossible to stay the same when the landscape of your life shifted so quickly. But the thoughts I’d put on paper, the feelings that plagued me every single day we were apart, those were still just as true.

Dear Poppy,

I’m not good with words, so forgive me for how this might come out. I can’t stop thinking about you...

“Enough,” I said in a harsh whisper, smacking the back of my head against the seat rest.

We were friends now.

I didn’t know how to be friends with Poppy any more than she knew how to be friends with me, which was really fucking clear in our interaction on her parents’ porch. We had no basis for this. No foundation to build on.

I didn’t know her favorite food or if she was a morning person or not.

I didn’t know if she took naps during the day or if she was craving weird foods.

God, how I wanted to know all those things. Not because we were friends, but because being around her set me on edge in a way that felt amazing and uncomfortable. Still didn’t know how to label it, if I were being honest.

There were people in the world who balanced multiple friendships with ease, juggling them without breaking a sweat. Good friends and work acquaintances and neighbors, all whipping through the air flawlessly.

For me though, each single relationship in my life was like the concrete footings we built houses on. You couldn’t move them quickly, couldn’t demolish them easily, and you only needed a few strategically placed to keep everything standing.

But I wasn’t juggling shit.

I had Cameron. And now, I thought with a deep sigh, I had Poppy. Not in the way she’d always wanted me but in a way that was far more vulnerable. Because now, I was the one sitting back in the stands, watching her live her life, fighting against a burgeoning sense of longing that threatened to take me over.

Because that longing was futile. It was energy crawling through my body with nowhere to go.

The telltale signs of an anxiety attack crawled quick and lethal through my veins, and I ran my hands up and down the tops of my thighs. It was so much simpler when I didn’t notice her. When I forced myself not to see.

Things that were easy for other people weren’t easy for me, and instead of easily being able to shift things aside to make some room for Poppy, to be thankful that we had this tentative truce between us, there was this screaming instinct to swipe everything off the table until she was the only thing there.

I didn’t want to just make room. I wanted to give her every fucking inch of my life, and I didn’t know how to do less. When the baby came, maybe this wouldn’t seem so complicated, but for right now, all I could hear were her family’s justifiable threats ringing in my ear, and all I could see were her big brown eyes staring up at me when I asked her to marry me. When she told me she had a boyfriend.

A knock on my passenger side window had my eyes flying open, and Poppy’s smiling face had my heart thudding uncomfortably. I leaned over, unlocking the door, and she leaned her shoulder against the doorframe after wrenching it open.

“You stalking me, Cartwright?”

“No,” I growled. “I just … saw you go in, and thought …” I wiped a hand over my face when my cheeks felt suspiciously warm. “I don’t fucking know what I thought, Poppy.”

Her teeth dug into her bottom lip while she studied me, and after only a moment of hesitation, she climbed into the truck and closed us in together with a slam of the door.

That smell.

Damn, that smell. That would be the thing haunting me for the rest of my natural born life.

She situated herself in the corner of the truck so she could properly stare me down.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist, Jax?”

At her phrasing, I gave her a dry arch of my eyebrow. “Nothing.”

“It’s something,” she answered so very patiently. “No marriage proposals in the works today, I presume?”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

There was a hint of a smile on her face, there and gone in less than a heartbeat, and for the first time all day, I didn’t feel like a failure. Didn’t feel like I was completely inept at all these new things being thrown at me.

The bag on her lap crinkled when she dug her hand into it, and when she pulled out a giant box of sour candy, my eyebrows popped up.

“You eat that shit?”

“Constantly right now,” she answered. Poppy dug into the box and fished out a few of the colorful pieces, sighing happily when she chewed the first bite. “So fricken good. Want some?”

I eyed it suspiciously. “No thanks. Don’t really have much of a sweet tooth, actually.”

“Good, because I was just being polite. I’ll have this box gone before dinner.” She ate another piece, her lips puckering up at the sour. Then she gave me a look. “You eat cookies when I bring them to work.”

“Cookies are not that,” I said, gesturing to the candy. “You know what they do to that shit to make it those colors?”

“Yeah, they create happiness from thin air, that’s what.” She ate another couple of pieces, and then settled back against the seat. “So … why are you sitting here being grumpy?”

“I’m not being grumpy.”

Her attention shifted to the crumpled envelope in my hand, and my heart thumped erratically when she studied it curiously.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. Too quickly. Her eyes narrowed.

Could I stuff the envelope back in the console without her getting suspicious? Unlikely. Poppy was curious about everything.

“Bad day at work then?” she asked.

When was the last time anyone asked me about my day?

It was so … mundane. Normal. And holy shit, did it make me feel twitchy.

I grunted. “Work was fine. And I’m not sitting here being grumpy, I just…” I let out a sharp breath and decided honesty was about the only way this would work. “I saw you and wasn’t sure how the fuck we’re supposed to be friends. That’s all. I don’t have girl friends.”

Poppy snorted. “I noticed.”

“Friends that are girls, angel,” I clarified, crossing my arms and staring out the windshield. “I don’t … I don’t know how this is supposed to work.”

She chewed slowly, a thoughtful look in her eyes that made me incredibly uncomfortable. “Being friends with someone is easy, Jax.”

I rolled my eyes. “You would say that. ”

Poppy smacked my arm. “I’m serious. You find the things you have in common and talk about them. You text each other when you find something funny. Grab a drink if you’ve had a shit day”—she tilted her head—”or grab a water in my case, but whatever. You hang out. Give each other advice. Talk about the memories you have.”

I turned in my seat, all those impotent feelings snaking up my throat, looking for a way out from where I’d been bottling them up. “And which memory of ours should we revisit in our new friendship?” I asked, my chest tight and hot. “The shots? When you crawled in my bed? The second time I fucked you because I woke up hard, and you smelled so fucking good that I couldn’t stop myself?”

The words poured out fast, unstoppable as a tornado and whipping through the truck just as quick, and Poppy’s cheeks were deliciously pink when I finished. Jaw tight, I screwed my eyes shut and faced forward again, pinching the bridge of my nose when I realized exactly what I’d said.

Embarrassment had my hands trembling when I wrenched open the console and shoved the stupid fucking letter inside, then slammed the door shut. Shame had me looking away for a moment, the residual feeling coating my skin, sticky and cold and uncomfortable.

I didn’t deserve her. I don’t know why I ever thought I earned a chance to try.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” I admitted harshly.

Her face was even, and the look in her eyes was filled with so much understanding, it made me want to scream. “No, you shouldn’t have,” she agreed.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I said again in a low, urgent voice. “And I don’t want to ruin this, but it’s hard for me to just … pretend we have some easy road ahead of us.”

“I know we don’t,” she spoke softly. “But we can start small.”

How many chances would this woman give me? How many emotionally stunted transgressions would she forgive before this was over? Before we figured out a normal that, at the moment, felt like it was as out of reach as jumping from my truck and somehow landing on the moon.

With a small, incredulous shake of my head, I risked a glance in her direction. “Like what?”

She stared down at the box of candy, then slowly tucked it away in the bag. “Well, now I know that you really only like cookies if you’re craving something sweet. I didn’t know that before. And you know I like sour candy. If I’m having a bad day, you show up with these, and I’ll love you forever.” At the slip in her words, my eyes flashed over to hers. She blew out a slow breath. “Sorry, poor choice of phrasing. I’ll be eternally grateful,” she said carefully.

“Candy,” I said slowly. “That’s the basis of our friendship?”

Poppy shrugged. “I mean, to your point, it’s either that or the sex, and that might not be the best place to start. It honestly would’ve been so much easier for me if you were bad in bed, but…” Her voice trailed off when I gave her an incredulous look. “What? You didn’t have to be such an overachiever.”

I leaned my head back against the seat and sighed. “You’re right. We should stick with the candy.”

Her laughter filled my truck, and I wondered briefly if the sound would absorb into the seats, something that would imbue the space with just a little bit of the happiness she always seemed to carry around with her.

“Are you coming over for dinner?” she asked.

I grimaced. “Can’t say no to Sheila, can I?”

She grinned, that dimple peeking out again. “It’s really best not to try. She’s relentless.”

“A family trait,” I muttered under my breath.

Poppy smacked my chest, and I rubbed at the spot like she’d actually wounded me .

She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, one of her nervous tells. “Dean will be there too,” she said. Her big eyes watched my face carefully.

Ahh. Right.

This was one of those moments, wasn’t it? Where you prove whether you’re as good of a person as you’d like to think you are. When you’re faced with the hard thing and you have to make a decision how to react. I’d already proven that I was capable of frustration laced bursts of emotion. That I was more than capable of unthinkingly offering up solutions that didn’t actually help anyone.

But could I do this thing?

Meet the guy who’d filled a space in Poppy’s life that I never had. That I’d never allowed myself to fill.

“A vet, huh?”

She nodded. “Mom played matchmaker for a while before we finally met. I think she might have done too good of a job talking me up.”

I hummed. “Not sure that’s possible.”

Poppy’s cheeks flushed a pretty pink, and she gathered the small bag in her hands. “He knows you’re coming too.”

“He gonna play nice?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, eyes so open and honest that it was almost hard to meet them. “He was … shocked, to say the least. I think,” Poppy paused for a moment, glancing out the front of the truck. “I think it was harder to hear about you than it was when I told him I was pregnant.”

“Why?”

Her lips edged up in a rueful smile. “Because you’re you, Jax. You’re the man I compared everyone against.”

I shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “Lucky for those guys.”

Poppy ignored me. “Before, there wasn’t anyone for him to compete with. But now…”

My gaze sharpened on her face. “Is it a competition? ”

“No.” She swallowed. “He thought it was just a stranger I spent one night with. Someone he’d never have to see, or get to know. Watch me interact with.”

My heart galloped in my chest.

A sharp awareness split me straight down the middle. Having to see them, get to know him, watch her interact with him was no less than I deserved.

I was nowhere near earning the right to feel any sort of jealousy, but there was no explaining the hot surge of it in my veins.

But with her sitting there looking at me, begging for this platonic relationship for her own sanity, begging with those big eyes and that sweet smile that I could do this thing for her, I ignored the heat. Ignored the surge. Ignored all of it.

“Dr. Dean has nothing to worry about,” I told her. “We’re friends, right?”

Poppy let out a slow breath and smiled. “Right.” She tilted her head. “I’ll see you at my mom’s?”

I nodded, keeping my face impassive while that fucking devil on my shoulder absolutely raged.

Do something.

Anything.

Leave.

Go.

You’re not what she needs.

With a hard swallow as the truck door slammed shut behind her, I took a few deep breaths and waited for her to leave the parking lot in front of me, then yanked the gear shift and put the truck in reverse while I followed her out to the house.