Once Written, Twice Shy (The Broken Men Chronicles) (23 page)

A few weeks later, Doctor Messing
had brought us all back for a progress report on Jasper’s health.  To say that
Julie, me and the rest of us adults were on edge was a huge understatement.

It had been a month since
Jasper’s release from the hospital.  Two months since my beautiful girlfriend might
have altered the course of our lives forever by taking a leap of faith in an
attempt to save my son’s life.

“So,” Doctor Messing said with
all seriousness in his tone.  Alissa and I reached out to each other and linked
our hands thankful that Jasper wasn’t in the room with us but outside with one
of the nurses in the reception area.  “I’ve run a full exam, the necessary
blood-work and the scans,” he said and fell silent.

I wanted to stand, reach across
his desk, wrap my hands around his shoulders and shake him like a ragdoll.  The
suspense was killing me. 
Come out and say it dammit.

The moment of truth…

Life or death…

The man seated across the desk
from the four of us steepled his fingers over my son’s file.  His lips were in
a thin line.

And then…

My heart began to beat out of my
chest.

This is it.

A smile…an honest to God genuine smile
spread across the man’s face.

“It looks fantastic so far,”
Messing said.  “Of course, I’d like to keep seeing Jasper and monitor his
progress but I see no reason why I should see him more than every couple of
weeks.  His numbers keep going up every day and his energy seems to be coming
back slowly but I see no need to keep him from school.  Of course, I’d
recommend starting him a day or two a week at first so he doesn’t exhaust
himself starting now.  Come January, if nothing happens, his numbers keep climbing,
I may be able to give the little guy a clean bill at the rate he’s going.”

“He’s cured?” Julie asked.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Messing
said.  “He’s on his way to what we like to call remission but it’s pointing
that way, yes.”

I was elated.  I was thrilled. 
Hell, I don’t know what else I could tell you to pin-point the exact emotions
that reeled through me in that moment.

My body began to shake, releasing
the pent up stress, worry, anxiety that have become a permanent fixture in my
everyday life over the last few months.  Just when I would have thought my
reaction to be one of jumping up for joy and taking this man into a bone
crushing hug, my body had fallen to complete mush.  The muscles in my legs were
lost.  The cheering and excitement in the room was nothing but a pool of
muffled sounds that came from a distance as the blood rushed through my ears. 
And then I felt
her
.

Arms wrapped around me and kisses
peppered my face.  I snapped out of it and found myself staring into Alissa’s
bright blue teary eyes.  My state of shock faded and my body became mine
again.  I wrapped my arms around a kneeling Alissa and lifted her so she sat on
my lap.  My first bone crushing hug belonged to her.

“It was you, all you, you saved
him,” I said over her lips with my hands cupped on either side of her face
before kissing her hard.

“I’d like to think that I had
something to do with it also,” Doctor Messing said as he stood, his hand held
out to me for a shake and I grasped it and pulled the guy in for a man hug.

“Thank you,” I said and smiled at
him.  I let Alissa stand up where Julie pulled her into a hug, her belly
bulging out at her five months of pregnancy.

We were escorted out of Doctor
Messing’s office with another set of directions on what we could now let Jasper
do and what he should hold out on for a little while longer.  Suffice it to say
that he wasn’t a complete bubble boy but it wasn’t too far from the truth. 
Regardless, my boy was home and his health was improving every day.

The four of us stood in silence
as we watched Jasper amuse himself with Tyler, his hospital buddy when Messing
escorted us out of his office.  He looked up and smiled at us.  I took a knee
and he got up and took a giant leap into my arms.

“Did Doctor Messing tell you?” Jasper
asked without a hint of a slur.  He’d done so well with his speech therapy, I
couldn’t be more proud of him.

“He did, son,” I said before I kissed
the top of his head a couple of times in quick succession.  I ruffled his hair
and released him so he could hug his mother and everyone else he pleased.

Alissa was the last one for his
attentions but she certainly wasn’t the least.  After a giant hug, he backed
away, grabbed her face in his tiny hands and gave her a big juicy kiss on the
lips.  “Thank you for fixing me,” he said.

The look on her face was of
absolute hilarity.  Her eyes were bulged, her face had blushed to a beautiful
surprised crimson and her mouth opened much like that of a fish out of water.  Kissed
speechless by a four-year-old—
my
four-year-old.

“I think the girls are in
trouble,” she said as she stood and I wrapped an arm around her waist laughing
at what had taken place.

“I think you might be right on
that one,” I said, “and it seems that I need to have a talk with him again about
whose woman you are.”

***

In a mood to celebrate, the five
of us headed out for a family lunch.  I called my parents and told them the
fantastic news while
en route
to Jasper’s favorite restaurant: McDonald’s. 
Relief was an understatement for them when Dad had to hang up because Mom had
gone into hysterics.

I sat with Julie and Todd as we
watched Alissa and Jasper in the playhouse.  He had demanded that she be the
one to go in with him and when one of the workers tried to prevent her from
going up the tubes and down the slides, he kept the advantage.

“My sick is gone,” he said and
pointed to Alissa.  “She fixed me and I’m not dying, she has to play.”  The
worker had no clue how to respond to the child’s statement and after some few
seconds of Jasper standing with his chin held up high, his arms crossed over
his chest and a tiny foot tapping the padded floor, the teenager let them both
have their way.

I was unsure about how he got the
whole bit about dying seeing as no one had told him but I suspected that my
ever so observant four-year-old had picked up on the hushed exchanges and the
grim aura that had surrounded us for the last little while, not to mention the
way he felt through all of it.  It saddened me that he had managed to pick up our
negativity considering all we ever tried to do, when the outcome was unknown,
was to stay happy, upbeat and positive, not to mention, make every day a
special day for him.

After lunch, Alissa needed to
head into the office to tend to a few things for a corporate event she was
overseeing in the following week.  I took the opportunity to whisk Jasper away
with me and have a few hours on the town with him while Julie and Todd headed
back home.

When all was done, I had
everything I needed.  Julie had agreed to Jasper staying around until after
dinner, knowing that Alissa had promised to be back in time for us to eat
together.  It was time for us two guys to head home and get to work.

“I’m really going to need your
help on this one, little man,” I said and looked back toward my son who was
still bouncing around in his booster seat.

“Allie will love it right,
Daddy?”

I hope so.

I knew that everything would end
up being fine—perfect as a matter of fact.  It always was.

“You know it, buddy.”

I was upstairs, tending to some
last minute details when I heard a car drive up the driveway.

It can’t be her.

One look out the window proved
that it was.  A look at my watch also proved that she was over an hour earlier
than what she had previously mentioned.  Without a backward glance, I ran
downstairs and out the back door.

“Jasper, she’s here,” I said, “get
to it.”

***

They rounded the side of the
house, judging by the sound of their voices.

“You should see what Daddy got
today,” Jasper said.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“He’s by the pond, getting
ready.”

“
Getting ready
?  Getting
ready for what?”

“You’ll see,” he said as they drew
closer.

And then they came into my direct
line of sight.

I had hid behind the other side of
the house, my heart pounding out of excitement—out of nervousness—in the race
of my life or so it felt like it at the moment.

Jasper escorted her toward the
pond like I had instructed him to.  They made idle chit chat about his
afternoon with me and then Jasper sprung
it
on her.

“Allie,” Jasper said.

“Yes, little man?”  She swung his
hand back and forth in hers.

“You remember what you said about
wanting to be my mommy?” he asked.

I’ve never seen a head snap so
quick it was almost comical.  She swallowed hard, shock all too evident at
where the conversation had headed.  “What of it?”

“Will you be my mommy?” he asked.

“But you have one already, sweetie,”
she said.

“I know,” Jasper said with such
simplicity, “but Daddy asked me to ask you.”

“Ask me wh-” her mouth slammed shut
and she stopped dead in her tracks and looked down at Jasper who was smiling up
at her with that heart-stopping grin of his that could bring anyone to give him
what he wanted.  My heart melted at the sight.  “You’ve always been mine,
Jasper,” she said and knelt down and hugged him to her, kissing the top of his
head before pulling away and standing up again.  “Tell you what…my answer is still
the same.  Yes, I would be happier than happy if I got to be your second mommy. 
Yes, I love you.  And yes, if Daddy ever wants to get married, the answer I
gave you the last time we talked in that hospital bed hasn’t changed and will
always be
yes
.”

After her heartfelt reassurance
to Jasper, Alissa got up and they continued forward.  She hadn’t realized that
they had finally arrived at their destination until Jasper stopped their
forward progress.

“Jasper, you do know that I love
you and Daddy with all of my heart, right?” she asked and cupped one of his
cheeks with her hand.

“I know that,” he said and pushed
her back so she sat down on the bench.

“Now where’s your father?  You
said he was here,” she said.

With a quick jump to give her a
hug and a kiss to her cheek, he backed up and ran toward me as I approached.  I
hadn’t been that far behind, only enough not to be detected but close enough to
overhear their conversation.

Alissa turned to follow Jasper’s
movements, still in search of her answer and gasped as I walked up to her like
a man on a mission.  Her eyes scanned me from top to bottom, her brows creasing
as she was trying to dissect what the two of us were up to but I knew damn well
that she had caught on.  If not in its entirety then at least she had an
inkling of what was about to happen.

Jasper pulled on the bottom of my
shirt and held out his hand to me as I came to a stop a few feet away from
her.  I nodded to Jasper as I dropped it in his hands.  He skipped the few
steps over to Alissa.

“This is for you,” he said and held
out the box, bouncing on his haunches.

It was an identical-looking box as
to the one that I had used only a month ago.

She looked up at me with
skepticism.  “This isn’t another key, is it?”

I laughed.  “No, but before you
look inside, there are a few things I need to say first.”  I held out my hand
to her.

I closed the gap between us and stood
us toe-to-toe.  Jasper was still bouncing around.  I knew that if I didn’t do
it soon, I would burst.

“Daddy wants to marry you!  Daddy
wants to marry you!” Jasper said and my head snapped in his direction but where
I should have been ticked off of my ruined surprise, I couldn’t help but laugh
as I watched him dance around us in enthusiasm.

I turned my attention back to the
person that meant the world to me aside from my son.  Her gaze was stuck to my
face as if trying to read me like I was one of her favorite books.  “Is this
true?” she asked about Jasper’s outburst.

I took the box from her, looked
down as I opened it, brought my gaze back to hers and pulled her into me by
wrapping my free arm around her waist.  “He didn’t lie,” I said.  “I’ve been
thinking about it for a while now and I don’t know why I waited so damn long. 
Alissa Hidgins, I was first taken by you with your words in writing and then
your smile when we met in person.  I-”

“Please say yes!  Please say yes!”
Jasper chanted and continued to dance around which made Allie look down at my
son and giggle while I watched her face this time around.

“Son, this is twice I try to talk
and you’ve managed to ruin my attempts,” I said and turned my words to Alissa. 
“I’m sorry, it should have been better.  It should have been perfect.  I sh-”

Alissa kissed me, halting all of
my words.  She pulled away but I could still feel her breath on my lips.  She mouthed
that ever so life-altering three letter word on my lips before pressing her
lips back to mine while she wrapped her arms around my neck.

“Really?” I asked and grinned as
I pulled away and pressed our foreheads together.  She nodded with that radiant
smile of hers.  “Oh, thank God!”

She laughed then smacked me.  “As
if you’d think I’d say no.”

I kissed her again before I let
her go and backed away.  “Let me at least do this right since Mister
Ants-in-my-pants over there is a little over-excited today,” I said and assumed
the
position.

On bended knee, I took the ring
out of its box and held it up to her between my thumb and index finger.

“I love you, Alissa Hidgins,” I
said, “please tell me again and say that you’ll be my wife?”

“You bet I will,” she said and
threw her giggling self down at me with a little too much force which caused us
to topple over into the long grass.  “I love you so much, Paxton Lowell.”

“I never doubted that for a
single second.”  I slid the ring on her left hand ring finger and kissed the top
of it as we laid there gazing at each other.  “I love you too.”

“Alissa sandwich!” Jasper said with
much enthusiasm.

My son’s pile-driving antics
caused us to laugh and Alissa to slide off of me so Jasper ended up wedged
between the both of us.

We spent the next few minutes
tickling Jasper into a fit of giggles that had grown contagious all around.  I
had been the first to get up and assist my beautiful new fiancée
to her
feet who which in turn assisted my son.  I scooped him up from where he stood, wrapped
my free arm around Alissa and walked back toward the house with her cuddled
into my side.  It may not have been the perfect proposal but in retrospect, it had
been perfect for us.

***

Later that evening, I had gone to fetch us a drink
while I left Alissa on the back patio swing by herself.  Upon my return,
something made me pause and observe her.  She was calm, peaceful, but most of
all, I saw the happiness radiate off of her as she tilted her face up to soak
up the sun’s setting rays with her eyes shut.

One step and the creaking of the board below my
feet ruined the magnificent image before me but it had been replaced by an even
better one—that of the one of her with a smile I now knew she bestowed upon me
alone.

Jasper was gone, the dishes were done.  It was she
and I and the calm of the countryside.  As I watched the rays shimmer across
the surface of the pond, I smiled at the memory of a day a few months before.

Leaning against my shoulder, Alissa looked up and
eyed me.  “What’s that smirk about?” she asked.

“I was just thinking about the time by the pond,”
I said and watched as her blush manifested itself.

I ran the back of my hand over her cheek.

“That blush never gets old,” I said.

She laughed and said, “I’m glad because I don’t
think it’ll be going away any time soon, it hasn’t yet.”

I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her
head toward mine, capturing her lips with my own as she melted into me.  She
pulled away giggling and then shot up to her feet.  My brow arched and with one
glimpse into her eyes, I knew the seductress was back.

She backed away with a smirk on her face and pushed
her shorts down her legs and kicked them to the side.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I would say it’s pretty evident my dear
husband-to-be,” she said with a husky laugh.  I was stunned at her statement—
husband-to-be
. 
“Race you.”

She took off running.  Her laughter filling the
air as she pulled her shirt over her head and threw it to the side.

I shook my head at her retreating form.

Would I ever figure that woman out?  It was
probable that I wouldn’t.

Did I want to?  Sure, but what would be the fun in
that?  I have to admit, I sure love chasing after those answers.  I doubt that
a lifetime with her would ever allow me to know everything that made that woman
tick but I was damn well going to be trying to do just that.

My feet set themselves on a path up to where she
had headed.  I hadn’t run after her but I can guarantee you that I did walk at
more than a leisurely pace.

“I’m highly disappointed in you,” she said and
crossed her arms over her chest.  “I guess there’s no more fun left in you now
that you’re about to be a hitched man.”

I shed my t-shirt and dropped my shorts along with
my underwear and smirked at her while she ogled my naked body.

“I’ll show you
no more fun
,” I said and
rushed her as she stood on the edge of the dock.

I grabbed her by the waist, making her squeal and
twirled us around until balance left us altogether and we tumbled into the
water.  We surfaced laughing like kids, my arms still around her as her heated
skin created a contrast between us and the coolness of the water.

“I guess I was wrong,” she said and pecked me on
the nose.

“You’re damn right, you are.”

My smile turned into a smirk as my hands snaked up
and popped the clasp to her bra.  I kissed her shoulder as I slid the garment
off of her and chucked it onto the dock.

I grinned and said, “Your bottoms my beautiful
soon-to-be wife.”

She laughed.  “You’ll have to work for those,” she
said and stayed right where she was.

***

As the candles surrounding us in the bedroom
burned out, Alissa laid in my arms, cuddled and sated as was I.  It was in this
moment that my curiosity from earlier in the day had inched itself to the
forefront of my mind.

“I never got to ask you what brought you home
early,” I said and kissed the top of her head.  I felt the slight tension in
her body and it dissipated just as quickly as it had appeared.  It made me
crook my head in question as I looked down at her.  “Is everything okay?”

She lifted her head and looked at me.  Her bottom
lip held hostage in her teeth again and I groaned which caused a soft chuckle from
her.

“Everything is perfect,” she said.

I wasn’t convinced.  “Then why do I get the
feeling that you’re hiding something from me?”

She smiled shyly and said, “M-maybe because I am?”

Well that wasn’t the tone or the answer I was
expecting but instead of bracing myself for something negative, the smile she
offered with her answer brought forth an excited, almost impatient urgency for
me to hear her answer.

“Well?” I asked and pulled her so she lay over me
and then tilted her chin so her eyes stayed glued to mine.

“
Well
-” she said.

“Come out with it woman before I fuck it out of
you,” I said and laughed.  My free hand ran down the middle of her back until I
reached that bottom of hers and palmed a cheek.

“You might want to do that when I’m done or leave
me altogether,” she said and pulled her chin out of my hand and kissed the
middle of my chest before laying her head on it.

“Now why would I leave you?  You’re the best damn thing
that’s ever happened to me besides Jasper,” I said and cradled her head,
running my fingers through her silken hair.  “I wouldn’t have asked you to
marry me otherwise.”

“That’s good to know, because…” she said and then
lifted her head to look up at me again, “I think I might be pregnant.”

My heart beat at a staccato pace.

Did she say what I think she just said?

“You’re what?” I asked a little above a mute
whisper.

“I might be pregnant,” she repeated, then groaned
and hid her face in my chest, my hand once again cradling her head in its spot
as I stared at the ceiling in shock.