Always Us (The Jade Series #8) (40 page)

The waitress stops by and drops off the check. “Did Brandon leave?”

“Yeah. Why?” Sara says, as she rubs Caleb’s back. He’s falling asleep now.

“I hate that guy. Last year he was always in here grabbing my ass and trying to get me to go out with him.” She shudders. “I was so happy when he left town. He didn’t move back here, did he?”

“No, he’s in San Francisco now.”

“They can have him.” She smiles. “You guys can pay whenever you want. No rush.”

Alex drops some cash on the check. “It’s all set.”

She picks up the money. “Thanks. Have a good night.”

“We should go,” Alex says to Sara.

“Yeah, I need to get Caleb to bed.” She reaches under the table for her purse.

We all get out of the booth and Garret goes up to Alex. “Hey. Are we good? I didn’t mean to step in like that but—”

“No, I’m glad you did. If you want to come over and watch a game when you guys get back from your trip, just let me know.”

“You guys are watching a game?” Sara asks. “Why can’t us girls come over?”

Alex kisses her cheek. “You can. I just didn’t think you’d want to watch the game.”

“Jade and I could still come over. You want to, Jade?”

“Sure. We’ll talk when I get back and figure it out.”

“Have a good trip.” Sara gives me a hug. “See you guys later.”

On the drive home, I say to Garret, “I can’t believe Caleb’s dad showed up tonight.”

“
I
can’t believe Sara dated that guy.”

“She doesn’t have good self-esteem so she puts up with stuff she shouldn’t.”

He holds my hand. “If we have a daughter someday, we’re gonna make damn sure she feels good about herself so she doesn’t put up with guys like that.”

“With you as her dad, every guy she dates is going to seem like a loser. She’ll never be able to go out with anyone.”

“Good. Just the way I want it.”

He’s not joking. If we have a daughter, no guy will ever be good enough for her.

GARRET

When we get home from the restaurant I turn on the TV, and the horror movie Jade made me take her to last year for her birthday is on.

“Jade, remember this one? It’s that shit movie you made us go to last year.”

“Yeah, I didn’t like that one.” She sits on my lap and slips her sweater off. Then she reaches behind her back and unhooks her bra and tosses it on the floor.

“Are we watching TV naked tonight?” My eyes go right to her breasts. It reminds me of Caleb staring at the waitress. Doesn’t matter what age we are, we can’t help ourselves. Our eyes just go there.

“I’m not really in the mood for TV.”
 

“I’m not either anymore.” I click the TV off. “So what brought
this
on?”

“What do you mean?” She stands up and turns around, her ass facing me as she takes her jeans off, leaving her in just her black string bikinis.
 

“You usually don’t want to have sex the second we get home.” I grab hold of her hips and pull her down on my lap.
 

“I do tonight.” She reaches back and strokes my face, her fingers landing on my lips.

“Any reason why?” I kiss each of her fingers as I cup her breast with my hand and slide my other hand down her stomach and under her bikinis.

She arches back at my touch. “I just got really turned on watching you tonight.”

“Watching me what?”

“Take down Brandon. You were a total badass. I liked it.”

“I was far worse in high school.”

“I like this version better.” She grinds her ass into me as I touch her, her arched back displaying her breasts right under my face. Fucking hot.

“We need to move to the bedroom,” I tell her.

She smiles, tilting her head to the side. “But I like it right here.”

“So do I.” I talk next to her ear. “But I’ve got too many clothes on for what I’d like to do to you.”

“You’re such a bad boy.” She pushes off me and stands up.
 

“You love it.” I swat her ass. “Now get in there.”

We have sex a couple times before finally going to sleep. I didn’t know Jade would get so turned on by me yelling at Brandon. I thought she might get mad about it and we’d have to talk about it when we got home. But instead we had sex. Yeah, I love my wife.

The next morning we get up early and head to the airport for our flight to Connecticut. I almost wish we weren’t going. This is our first Christmas as a married couple and I really wanted it to be special. But instead it’s going to be tense and uncomfortable because of Katherine. I know she has to be there for Lilly’s sake, but I still don’t want her around.

We’ll also have to deal with my grandmother, who will be judging everything I do and say, and ignoring Jade. When I was there for the memorial, I thought my grandmother might be starting to change now that my grandfather is gone. She gave me a hug, a real hug, not one of her distant hugs. I took that as a sign she was changing. But then after that, she hardly talked to me. And when I left, she didn’t even call or stop by the house to say goodbye. So I don’t know what to expect at Christmas. I’m assuming she’ll be back to her old self.

Christmas is a week from today and we’re not leaving until the following Monday, which means we have eight days with my family. That’d be great if it were just Lilly and my dad, but adding Katherine to the mix will make those eight days go by excruciatingly slow.

The wheels of the plane touch down and Jade stirs a little in her seat. She’s been asleep the entire flight. She usually wakes up when the flight staff makes all those announcements about the plane preparing to land. This time she didn’t wake up, so I let her sleep until the plane comes to a stop.

Her face is against my shoulder. I kiss her forehead. “Time to get up, sleepy girl.”

“Are we almost there?” she mumbles.

“We just landed.”

She sits up. “But I just fell asleep.”

“You fell asleep hours ago.” I unfasten my seatbelt and grab our carry-on bags.
 

She hangs onto the back of my shirt as we exit the plane. She’s still groggy, yawning as we walk through the terminal.

“Ready for a week with my family?” I ask her.

She perks up. “Yeah, I can’t wait.”

“You do know Katherine will be there, right?”

She laughs and loops her arm in mine. “Yes, Garret. You’ve reminded me a million times and I told you, I’m not letting her ruin Christmas. I’ll just ignore her.”

“Maybe we should’ve gone to Frank’s house.”

“He wants to be with his girlfriend. He doesn’t want us hanging around.”
 

Frank is still dating Karen and they’re spending the holiday together. It sounds like they’re getting pretty serious. He’ll probably marry Karen before Ryan marries Chloe.

Ryan and Chloe are spending Christmas in Florida with her sister, who lives in Tampa. Her parents will be there, too. Then the day after Christmas, Ryan and Chloe are driving down to the Florida Keys for vacation. It’ll be the first time Ryan’s had a real vacation.
 

“We could’ve stayed home,” I say to Jade. “Had our own Christmas. Just the two of us.”

“Why are you acting like this? I thought you
wanted
to be here for Christmas.”

“I do. I just don’t want our Christmas ruined by Katherine.”

“We had a great Christmas last year even though she was there, so we’ll have a great one this year, too.”

I love that Jade has such a good attitude about this. My grandmother ignores her. Katherine’s mean to her. And yet Jade still wants to be here for Christmas.

We go past the security checkpoint area and I stop and give her a kiss. “I love you.”

She smiles. “I love you, too.”

“Garret! Jade!” Lilly comes running up to us, slamming into our legs. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas.” Jade hugs her.

Lilly holds her arms out to me. I pick her up. “Where’s Dad?”

“Over there.” She points to him as he walks toward us.

“She ran ahead of me.” He goes up and hugs Jade. “Welcome back.”

She laughs. “I know. We were just here. You’re going to be sick of us by the end of the week.”

“Not at all. I wish you two lived closer so I could see you every day.” He smiles at me. “Garret.”

“Hey, Dad.” I half hug him since Lilly’s attached to me.

I set Lilly down and she grabs my hand as we walk to the baggage area. “Daddy said we can watch a movie tonight.”

I can’t imagine Katherine going along with that. She’ll be doing everything she can to keep Lilly busy so Jade and I can’t spend time with her.

“Is your mom going to watch the movie with us?”
 

“Mom isn’t home.” She swings our arms back and forth as we walk.

“Where is she?”

Lilly shrugs. “I don’t know. Dad said she had to go somewhere. She won’t be back till after Christmas.”

Katherine’s gone? For the entire week? That can’t be right. Lilly must be confused.

I look back and see Jade and my dad talking.

“Dad.” I wait until I have his attention. “Did Katherine go somewhere?”

“Yes. I was just telling Jade that Katherine and her parents went to see Katherine’s sister in Paris. They’ll be having Christmas there this year.”

Jade smiles at me.

My dad nods toward Lilly. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Yeah. Okay.” I look down at Lilly.

She’s still holding my hand and skipping a little as she walks. “We’re gonna swim in the pool and watch movies and make cookies and play the race car game.”

I smile at her. “Sounds like a busy week.”

Now I’m glad we came. Lilly needs us here. Her mom left her on Christmas, and even though she doesn’t act upset, I know it hurts her. Lilly’s good at hiding her feelings, but what kid her age wouldn’t feel sad when her mom just takes off like that at the holidays?

“Don’t forget sledding,” I say as we arrive at the baggage claim area.

“Sledding!” She jumps around. “Daddy, can we go to the big hill again?”

“Yes, honey.” He takes her hand. He has to keep a close watch on her, especially in a crowded airport. Even if he wasn’t part of the organization, he’d still have to watch her. That’s just what you have to do when you have his kind of money and people know who you are. You always have to be extra cautious.

As we’re driving to the house, I hear Jade talking to Lilly in the back seat.
 

“So how are your swim lessons going?” Jade asks her.

“Good.” She pauses, then says, “Mom and Dad are getting divorced.”

The car goes silent. My dad glances back at Lilly, who’s sitting behind me. I don’t think he told her about the divorce yet. I think she just knew.

Jade breaks the silence. “I’m sorry, Lilly.”

“It’s okay.” She says it softly. “They didn’t like each other.”

“Lilly, why don’t we talk about this at home?” my dad says.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says.

I turn back and see her looking down at her shoes. Jade’s holding her hand.

The car goes silent again. It’s awkward, but luckily, a few minutes later we’re at the house. As Jade helps Lilly out of the car, my dad comes up to me, lowering his voice. “Go ahead and get settled. I need to talk to her.”

“Yeah. We’re fine. Take all the time you need.”

I get our luggage from the car while he takes Lilly inside. Jade and I go up to my room.

“Did he already tell Lilly about the divorce?” Jade asks.

“I don’t think so. I think she just guessed.” I set the suitcase on the floor by the closet. “I think Katherine might’ve already moved out.”

“And she didn’t say goodbye to Lilly?”

“It doesn’t sound like it.”

“How could Katherine just leave like that without even telling Lilly goodbye? And she does this at Christmas? How could she do that?”

“It’s just the way she is. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Her parents are like that, so it’s how she was raised.” I open the suitcase and start hanging stuff up in the closet.

“Garret?”

“Yeah?” I turn around and see Jade sitting on the bed.
 

“Do you think Lilly could stay with us this summer?”

“Maybe. We’d have to ask my dad.” I go and sit next to her. “Do you want her to stay for a couple weeks, or what?”

“She could stay as long as she wants. Maybe even the whole summer. Your dad works all the time and I don’t want Lilly to be all alone in this big house.”

I smile and hug her into my side. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“For a while.” She puts her head on my shoulder. “I feel really bad for her, Garret. She’s always alone and she gets ignored and then she tries to pretend everything’s okay. It sounds like me growing up. But it shouldn’t be like that for her. And she shouldn’t have to spend the summer all by herself in her room.”

“I don’t know if my dad would agree to the entire summer, but I’m sure he’d let her stay with us for a few weeks.”

She nods.
 

“Hey.” I lift her face off my shoulder so I can kiss her. “I love you. And I love that you care about Lilly so much.” I stand up and pull her up from the bed. “Let’s go downstairs and watch TV. I think my dad will be talking to Lilly for a while.”

Jade and I go in the game room and watch the last half of a movie that’s playing. An hour later my dad comes and finds us and we follow him to his office.

“How did Lilly take the news?” I ask him.

“She knew it was coming, but she acted like it didn’t bother her. I told her it’s okay to be upset or cry but she still didn’t react. Katherine has forced Lilly to hide her emotions for so long that it’ll take a while for her to open up. Maybe you two could help with that. She opens up to you, Garret, more than anyone else.”

“I know. I’ll talk to her. What did she say when you told her you got custody?”

“That’s the only time she showed any emotion.” My dad smiles. “She was happy. She hugged me, then asked if we could move to California and live next door to the two of you.”

“Speaking of that.” Jade glances at me. “Do you think Lilly could come stay with us this summer? Just for a few weeks?”