Forever Starts Tonight (Wilder Family #4)

Chapter 21

Jax

“Don’t make me do it,” I begged.

Cameron pushed his tongue into his cheek and studied me with shrewd eyes. “Wade trained Rob, which means it’s your turn.”

Next to me, Wade had his arms crossed and a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Don’t gloat,” I told him. “It’s rude.”

Wade chuckled under his breath. “Oh, I can’t wait to watch this. If you make it one week without losing your mind, it’ll be a fucking miracle.”

A tool dropping loudly on the floor had all three of us turning to look. Rob’s friend—I didn’t know his name—slowly bent over to pick up the tool belt he was supposed to be hooking around his waist.

At our notice, he paused, eyes wide and a sheepish grin on his baby face. “I, uh, missed the first buckle.”

Rob slapped his back. “Don’t worry, we all had a first day at one point.”

“I didn’t,” Wade muttered. “I didn’t ever have a first day where I didn’t know how to put a tool belt on.”

The friend tried to line up the hammer in its slot, missed, and it clattered back to the floor .

Wade’s eyes fell closed, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Rob shoved him with a laugh. “You dipshit,” he said.

“He has experience?” I asked skeptically.

Cameron sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “A couple of summers ago, he helped his uncle in Michigan on a job while he visited.” Both Wade and I swung around to stare at him. He held up his hands. “I know . Greer liked him. She said he’d bring a good energy to the jobsite.”

The kid sauntered over, his long, scraggly hair swooping down over his forehead. He had to do this weird head toss to keep it out of his eyes, and I set my hands on my hips.

“I’m Jax,” I told him. “I’ll, uh, be training you, I guess.” The kid leaned forward, staring into my face like he was searching for something. Unthinkingly, I backed away. “What are you doing?”

His eyes were a vivid green, and then he straightened after another second. “You have a red aura.” He lifted his hands, motioning around my body. “Some orange too. Interesting.”

Cameron choked on a laugh.

I stared at him for a few seconds, waiting for him to elaborate. “What now?”

“Red is very passionate. Grounded. Physical. But orange is an adventurous spirit. Hard to settle down.”

Rob settled a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “He’s very good at reading people’s energies.”

“Dipshit is?” I asked.

Wade snorted.

“That’s not his name.” Cameron sighed.

“It’s what Rob called him.” I hardened my jaw and studied the kid head to toe. “That’s what I’m calling him.”

Dipshit nodded like this made a lot of sense. “You were right, Rob. He’s got a very hard exterior. What was your childhood like, Jax?”

Immediately, I turned to Cameron. “No. I cannot do it. ”

Cameron was still staring slack-jawed at the kid. “I?—”

“It’s all right,” Dipshit said patiently. “We’ll work through it. I’m an empath, so it’s really easy for me to read people’s energies and adjust accordingly.”

This was it. This would be the day I quit and walked away and told Cameron he was on his fucking own because it wasn’t worth the paycheck anymore.

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, then slicked my tongue over my teeth and started walking away. “I’m not waiting for you, kid,” I called over my shoulder.

“That was a great day,” Dipshit said on a sigh. He was stretched out on the bed of Rob’s truck, staring up at the cloudless sky. “Physical labor is incredibly grounding.”

Rob sat on the tailgate, a cold beer in hand, nodding like that made sense.

It was one of our traditions—Cameron brought us a beer at the end of someone’s first day. He’d had to leave for a meeting, but Ian, Wade, and I took part with some other guys. I drank half of mine and tossed the rest into the metal trash bin next to the house’s frame.

Wade stood to the side, taking a long pull from his cigarette. “You break anything?”

Dipshit smiled. “Nope.”

“Almost,” I corrected.

“But I didn’t,” he said, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head. “You’re a good teacher, Jax, even if you pretend to hate it.”

Wade’s brow raised so sharply that the bill of his hat moved.

I gave Dipshit a steady look. “What did I tell you about reading my aura at work?”

Rob laughed. “Come on, man, we should go. Cameron said you needed to drop off that paperwork at the office.”

“We do paperwork for this job now?” Wade asked.

“Not you,” I answered. “You’re too old, and you’ve been here too long.”

He smiled begrudgingly. “Tim pretty much said, hey, want a job? And then he started paying me cash at the end of every week.”

“Bro, that’s such a boomer thing to say.”

“I am a boomer,” Wade said dryly.

“You’re my favorite boomer, Wade.”

The sound of Poppy’s voice had me snapping up straight. It was a good thing I wasn’t in the middle of drinking my beer because I had the distinct feeling I would’ve choked on it.

Wade smiled easily. “Don’t tell your mom that.”

Poppy laughed, her eyes catching mine as she entered our little circle. “Hope it’s okay I’m interrupting the first-day tradition.”

Rob made room for her on the tailgate, but she waved that off with a grateful smile, one hand on her bump.

My awareness of Poppy felt like an electrical current. The moment she appeared, a low-lying hum of energy filled the space, tugging at the hair on the back of my neck.

Almost instinctively, my gaze traced over her face—the lush curve of her lips and the arch of her cheekbones, the dark brows over her dark eyes, the white of her teeth when she smiled at Wade.

God, it was like she brought the fucking sun with her. This sense of warmth and kindness soaked the space around her, and I wasn’t even sure she knew how powerful that was.

Years earlier, this would’ve sent me into a tailspin, and triggered that irrepressible urge to run and hide from it, but even though she wasn’t mine to want, I let myself settle into the way it felt.

To know and admit it because, eventually, it would fade.

Eventually, it would pass.

It had to, right?

Her hair was pulled off her face today, a high ponytail that highlighted the length of her neck, and even though the simple cotton dress she wore covered her shoulders and down to her knees, it left a deep V of her chest open. My stomach tightened at the sight of her cleavage. It was noticeably bigger, pressing against the line of the dress.

Don’t think about Poppy’s tits , I thought viciously. Like she could read the train of my thoughts, she gave me a curious glance, and I met it evenly, wondering what color her cheeks would turn if she had any fucking idea where my brain was dragging me.

I wasn’t a caveman. I did have control of myself.

Except with her, apparently.

And now I knew what they looked like and tasted like and the sounds she made when I used my mouth on them, which made it all so much worse.

I swear, I was going to burn in hell for the type of person I was when I was around her.

Next to me, Ian cleared his throat pointedly.

I blinked, shifting my gaze down to the ground.

“You doing okay, Pops?” Ian asked, eyeing his sister carefully.

“Of course,” she said simply. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t I be okay?” The unspoken subtext was heavy in her answer, and she gave him a wordless look that had me narrowing my eyes.

Ian hummed, taking a sip of his beer.

Fuck, I wanted to ask. Those freaking Wilders could have an entire conversation without exchanging a single word. I’d seen it a million times since I became friends with Cameron .

I’d seen them exchange entire sentences without a sound uttered. Encouragement. Understanding. Death threats.

Siblings were weird.

She cleared her throat when she realized everyone in the circle was watching their interaction. “I was just driving by and thought I’d stop and meet Trevor. I think you have some paperwork for me. Saves you a drive over to my office.”

“Who’s Trevor?” Wade asked.

Dipshit raised his hand. “I am.”

“I like Dipshit better.”

Poppy rolled her eyes. “You guys are the worst. Whose idea was it to call him that?” Everyone looked at me, and I pushed my tongue into the side of my cheek. “Oh,” she said, fighting a smile.

Dipshit looked at Poppy with a slight tilt to his head. “Blue. Very blue. You have incredibly calming energy.”

“I’m sorry?” she asked, brows furrowing slightly.

“Don’t ask,” I told her.

Trevor grinned, walking over to the front seat of Rob’s truck to get the papers Poppy asked for. Handing her the papers, he was pleasant and kind, and had her laughing in only a few seconds.

As much as I didn’t want to, I had to give the kid credit because he was completely unfazed by my sniping, which is probably why our first day of training wasn’t complete hell on earth. He was eager to learn and clearly wanted to work hard. He reminded me of a puppy. Bouncy energy, nothing seemed to bother him.

My chest clenched, thinking of Henry. How patiently he’d taught me everything.

As he walked back to the truck to hop up next to his friend, I gave him a slight nod. “You did good today.”

His features morphed into a pleased smile, his chest puffing out slightly. “Thanks, Jax.”

Poppy watched us curiously, then tilted her head toward the front of the house where she must have parked. “Do you mind walking me to my car?”

I’d walk with you wherever the fuck you wanted to go , I thought with a desperation that took me by surprise. But I simply nodded. Ignoring the looks from every guy around us, I followed Poppy with my hands tucked safely behind my back.

She waited with a smile as soon as we were out of view of the group. “I probably could have messaged you, but I really did need to get the papers from Trevor.”

“No, his new name is Dipshit. If we call him Trevor, he’ll feel like he won, and we can’t have that for at least a year into his employment. The power will go to his head.”

The sound of Poppy’s laugh was like fucking bells or wind chimes or something light and pleasant and magical. Irrationally, I wanted to slam something over my ears to block it out because hearing it made me want to tear something down with my bare hands. It was that electricity again, a writhing pulse straight from her that sent a jolt of energy through my whole body.

She was a force, and she had no idea.

Had it always been like this? Had I just so effectively blocked myself off from it that it didn’t even register? Suddenly, I wished for the ability to travel back in time. One year or two or three, to watch Poppy and myself from a distance. The times where she was clearly watching me and I ignored it, leaving the room or pretending I didn’t feel her eyes on me.

Even then, I felt it, but it was muted. Blocked behind the forbidden nature of who she was, the impossibility of anything happening between us.

It wasn’t muted now.

On her front porch.

In my truck.

At her mom’s.

Every little snippet of time we spent together felt vivid and rich and deep, in a way that I couldn’t even make sense of except for how powerful it was.

Friends.

Friends.

Friends.

I reminded myself.

She reached into her purse—a giant bag with hidden depths—and pulled out a manila folder, handing it to me with an expectant smile on her face. “I made a list of things we should really start discussing.”

“How did that fit in there?” I asked, eyeing her bag.

“Oh, I can run the world with what I have in this purse.”

“Uh-huh.” Exhaling quietly, I flipped open the folder, my eyebrows climbing sky high. The list was long. “Holy shit, Poppy. How long did this take you?”

She tilted her head. “About an hour.”

“All of this was just … ready to go in your head?”

“Yes?”

There was a blue section and a green section, orange and red, with timelines for each and an inexplicable pros and cons list on the side discussing different parenting styles.

“Wh-what do all the colors mean?”

“Oh, umm, that’s priority level. Blue is lowest level of priority, then green, then orange. Red is highest level of importance. You know, sort of angry and pressing and needs to get taken care of soon.”

“Like my fucking aura,” I muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s unschooling?” I asked, my head spinning a thousand miles a minute. Was I supposed to be thinking about all these things? God, I was so behind already.

Why didn’t I read that fucking book from Sheila when I got home from dinner last night? I should have.

The section on discipline styles made me slightly nauseous .

“Oh, I was just throwing that in for comparison, I don’t think it’s right for me.” She tapped the other side of the paper. “On this side here you can see that we don’t need to worry about that for a couple of years, but it still warrants discussion. I assumed you wouldn’t feel strongly about homeschooling, but your opinion is still just as important as mine, you know?”

I wasn’t sure my opinions were worth shit in this situation because I didn’t know what the hell any of this meant.

Slowly, I closed the manila folder and leaned against the side of her car, staring at her with a growing sense of awe. “How are you so calm all the time? I feel like I’m … like I might have a heart attack reading all that.”

Poppy closed her eyes with a soft smile, then turned and leaned against the car, her shoulder almost brushing my arm. A single inch, and it would be.

What would she do if I leaned in?

No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

There was no world where I could let myself touch her again unless it was a freaking emergency because I was already struggling with a wobbling sense of discipline. I almost punched her fucking boyfriend in the balls when he purposely tripped me during our game to keep me from catching a pass. The yard full of witnesses was all that held me back.

The feel of her skin on mine was absolutely off-limits, even accidentally, so I kept still and made sure not to move a single inch.

“I wasn’t calm at first,” she admitted, staring straight ahead. “Not even a little.”

Turning my head, I studied the lines of her profile. “How did you find out?”

She blew out a slow breath. “It was Parker, actually. He was home visiting after their playoff loss, and it was pretty rough for him. I thought I was sick. I’d never been that tired in my whole life. And he said something to me like, you’re not pregnant, are you? ”

My eyes fell shut, imagining how scared she must have been.

“And you knew,” I said.

“I was pretty sure, yeah.” She ran the tips of her fingers over the front of her stomach, the sweet smile on her face almost too much for me to bear. My chest felt cracked wide open, the messy feelings for her mixing with the strangest sense of awe that I’d have a child with someone like her. Someone good and kind and amazing.

The thought of a little girl just like Poppy sent a bolt of longing and fear so potent that I almost fell to my knees. With her smile and her hair and her eyes.

I’d be a fucking goner. I’d give her anything she wanted. Turn my world inside out just to make sure she was happy.

Sort of how I felt about her mom.

“Parker got me a million pregnancy tests,” she continued. “And when I saw the positive test, I cried. A lot.”

I dropped my chin to my chest and breathed through that image. My hands curled into helpless fists, the urge to reach for her so strong I could hardly think of anything else.

“The list has been slowly building in my head for the past couple of months,” she admitted. “I knew you’d be home eventually, and we’d have to talk about things like … money. Health insurance. Custody,” she added delicately. Her eyes darted to mine and held. “Do you want split custody? I don’t even know how you feel about wanting to be a hands-on dad.”

Anxiety sat like a block of ice on my chest, worries compounding bigger and bigger and bigger until I could hardly breathe through it.

I thought about my two-bedroom house with no personality. Thought about trying to have a kid there every other weekend and split holidays. Is that how it would work?

What did I feel about being hands-on? Could I handle a baby on my own?

I’d never changed a diaper in my entire life. Never rocked a kid to sleep. Never handled them during a tantrum. Never tried to calm them when they had a nightmare or cried because they dropped their ice cream on the floor.

Pushing off the car, I paced around it for a few seconds, trying to let that initial prickling, cold wave pass. She watched patiently because, of course, she’d had her days and weeks to cry. I was the one who was behind.

Always, always behind on figuring this shit out.

What had my mom done when I cried? When I spilled ice cream on the floor or had a tantrum?

My mind was blank. Nothing. I couldn’t dredge up a single memory of any of those things.

All I could think of was her handing me a strip of condoms when I was sixteen. “Keep those in your wallet. Believe me, you’ll want to wrap it up or you’ll end up with a whole lot of regrets, kid. Trust me.”

I pinched my eyes shut. A different memory pressed through, insistent and unwilling not to be remembered. Sitting on Henry’s back deck, eating a bowl of ice cream after we painted his front porch. “Tastes better after some hard work, doesn’t it?” he said. And it had. It was the best ice cream I’d ever had in my life.

I had good memories. I had examples that I could pull from, and it was important to remember that.

Prying my eyes open, I turned and faced Poppy.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I don’t know how… how to do anything for a kid, Poppy. Never thought about wanting one. Never imagined having one.”

“That’s okay,” she said earnestly. “We have time, Jax. None of this needs to be decided now.” Her smile was wry. “I know my lists don’t always help?—”

“Your lists are fine.” I interrupted, stepping forward and keeping my eyes locked on hers. “I thought about them while I was gone, actually.”

Her eyes lit up. “You did? ”

“How they help you make sense of your thoughts.”

Of feelings that didn’t make sense. Helped carve a path through something big and scary that seemed far too daunting to face.

“You should see the notebook on my desk,” she admitted, a sheepish grin lifting her cheeks. “It’s slightly neurotic.”

“What’s in it? Tell me one of your lists.”

The fact that I asked had her staring up at me with a shocked sort of awe. “I … you really want to know?”

“I do,” I admitted in a low voice. I wanted to know everything.

Poppy licked at her bottom lip, looking down at the ground for a moment as she seemed to come to a decision. “Well, I made a list about you once,” she said quietly. “And it ended with me on your front porch in the rain.”

God, I wanted to kiss her.

I wanted to slide my hands into her hair and slant my lips over hers, absorb the sounds she’d make, soak in the taste of her lips and the feel of her tongue. It would be good.

It would be amazing.

And it would destroy her, if I pulled her into some dark, selfish space with me.

“Hopefully that’s a list you don’t regret,” I said.

Her smile did something to my insides. Something permanent and unmoving.

“I already told you I could never regret you,” Poppy answered.

“And you still mean it?”

She gave me a small nod.

Maybe there was a past life I’d lived before this one. Perhaps I’d done something really fucking incredible to deserve this woman’s trust, to deserve her unwavering admiration because it sure as hell wasn’t anything I’d done in this life.

To deserve her .

Not that I did yet. Not that I even had the chance.

I looked down at the folder and sighed. “Can I keep this? Think it over?”

“Of course.” Poppy took a step forward. “I know it’s a lot to decide, and our decisions might change as time passes, but…” She smiled, her hand pressing to the side of her belly and her eyes lighting up. “Oh , they’re doing backflips in there.”

Don’t touch.

Don’t touch.

Touch.

Touch her.

“Yeah?” I asked, throat closing up. I wanted to fall to my fucking knees and press my forehead to that impossible little bump holding that impossible little person. But I couldn’t.

I’d wreck everything.

She reached for my hand, and I pulled away before she could grab my wrist. The self-preservation was so strong, my muscles reacted before I could hardly take a breath to think about the ramifications.

Poppy’s face showed a momentary shock, but she recovered well. “I shouldn’t have assumed…”

My jaw was clenched so tight, it was hard to breathe. “It’s fine, I just—I…”

How was I supposed to tell her any of this in a way that made sense?

I could hardly make sense of what I was thinking and how to walk through this, keeping our tentative, delicate friendship intact.

The one thing she told me she needed was that.

“Well, I have a feeling whenever you are ready … they’ll only get more active. It’s still new to feel it this hard.” Poppy pressed her hand on her belly again, lips curling in a secret little smile. “Maybe you wouldn’t have even felt it yet. The ot her day, I tried with my mom, but she couldn’t feel anything.”

I managed a short nod, cursing the spiderweb of emotions tangling up my chest.

“It’s the size of a pear,” she said.

“What?”

She held her hands out, cupping her palms together to create a reference point. “About five inches long. The baby is the size of a pear. Isn’t that crazy?”

Staring down at Poppy’s hands, I felt my heart turn over slowly. So small. Too small.

Where would they sleep?

What would they look like?

How was I supposed to help with something that tiny and breakable and important? I didn’t know anything.

Do something.

Go and do something.

God, I hope they looked like her.

Poppy’s phone rang, and she glanced at the screen. “Shoot, it’s my mom. I told her I’d pick up some dinner while I was downtown.” Her smile was sweet and a little mischievous. “It’s really just because I was craving a burger from the pub.”

“Cheeseburger with mayo, ketchup, and lettuce?” I said.

Fuck. Ing. Hell.

Her lips fell open on a gentle O, snapping shut in the next instant, and I cursed my fucking mouth. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Am I that predictable?”

Admissions stuck fast at the back of my tongue, and I pushed them back down where they belonged. “You better go get your food,” I told her gently. “I have some work to do tonight.”

Eyes curious, Poppy nodded. She paused by the car door, mouth open to say something, when Rob and Dipshit came around to the front of the house, laughing loudly. Ian was a few steps behind. She closed her eyes on a quiet laugh. “Never mind.”

“It’ll keep,” I told her.

Poppy’s gaze was so direct. How had I ever hidden from this woman?

“Can we talk soon?” she asked. “Maybe … maybe more than a random run-in or a family dinner where fifty people watch our every move.”

“So I’m not the only person who felt like that?” I asked.

She laughed. “No.”

“That sounds good,” I told her, nerves cycling lightly through my stomach. It sounded intentional, something we’d never quite mastered, had we?

I held the door open for her while she settled in the driver’s seat, carefully closing the door as she adjusted her safety belt over her bump.

Stepping back, I felt Ian approach while Poppy drove away.

“What was that about?” he asked.

I held up the manila folder. “I have five years’ worth of decisions to make.”

He laughed under his breath. “Sounds about right.”

Her car disappeared, leaving with me the strangest sense that I’d be watching that happen a lot. Hadn’t I earned that, though? Poppy had years of watching me live my life, and now I was watching her live hers.

Do something.

Go. Go now.

In the wake of her departure, the energy she brought didn’t dissipate; it simply changed. The unused current was shifting into a twitchy sort of restlessness under my skin. I would’ve packed my bags in the past when I felt like this. But now, I had to plant my feet and figure out a different way to release it.

I thought about lists and pears and backflips that I couldn’t feel. Tiny little hands and feet. Wide smiles and pretty eyes and undeserved trust and trying to be what she needed.

Not what I wanted. Something even more important than that.

“Ian, do you have a few minutes? I need your help with something.”