A Boy Worth Choosing (The Worthy Series Book 2) (13 page)

“And I to you. But we
do
need to have faith in one another that we’re both ready for this before we stand before all our friends, family and God saying we do have that faith in one other.” I stand my ground, but feeling worse by the second that we can’t agree on this.

“I agree. Can you have faith in me?”

I want so much to be able to submit on this. But I don’t think we should wait so long. We both have career and personal goals that we need to be able to move on with. Not to mention that we’re already having problems with restraining ourselves physically.

He takes my hesitancy as a sign that I’m having a hard time believing in his gut.

“Maybe I should just go for the night and let you process this. We can pick this all back up later,” he says politely, but he definitely sounds defeated. He scoots back from the table and takes his plate to the kitchen. A few moments later, I stand up and start putting away dinner, making a point to stay outside of his reach. 

I really don’t want him to go, I want to agree on a wedding date and move on. But at the same time, I know I need to calm down and I won’t be able to if he stays and we continue to argue, so I let him go for now.

I stop at the sink and turn to watch him pick up his suit jacket, but hesitates as he catches my eye.

“Just let me ask you this,” I start to ask, “how long do you honestly want to wait?”

He hesitates and for a split second, I don’t know if I should take that as a good sign or not.

“Want to? I don’t want to wait at all. I’d take you to the Justice of the Peace right now, but this isn’t a decision that should be made so casually. Marriage is a big deal, and like I said, I only plan on doing this once. We’ve not really taken things all that slowly, so I just need some time to process.”

I nod in frustration, keeping my eyes down, afraid that tears could betray my true feelings.  I don’t want to wait any longer. I don’t need to wait any longer.

I see the toes of his shiny dress shoes come into my view and I feel his warm fingertips under my chin. He kisses my temple before tilting my head back.

“Give me a couple of days to think about it. If I can’t agree to this fall, I’ll determine a date I can be comfortable with and we’ll revisit. Okay?”

I struggle to be reasonable, but ultimately win. How can I not agree with Mr. Logical? Doesn’t a successful marriage require compromise?

“Okay.” I nod.

“Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.” One side of his mouth tilts up. His breathtaking smirk makes me start to forget why we were fighting to begin with.

“Thank you…I mean…you’re welcome,” I sputter.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He leans in to give me a subtle kiss, but it’s anything but subtle. Sparks start to fly as his hands carefully find my hair and I feel the heat of his breath on my tongue. Suddenly my back is against the sink and there is no space between us.

“I don’t like how fighting with you makes me feel,” he breathes against my neck.

“I wish I could say the same,” I say, breathing raggedly. He groans and leans in further, finding my mouth once again.

“I need to go,” he says in between kisses. He makes no effort to actually back away though.

“Yes, you do,” I say, pulling back. I place my palms on his chest, feeling his tight muscles under his dress shirt. “Congratulations on your case today.” I quickly kiss him one more time and apply pressure, gently pushing him away.

He steps back, but leans in for one more kiss.

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow?”  he asks, not yet stepping away from the barrier of my hands.

“Absolutely.”

He takes one last look into my eyes and steps back, confident that our heated argument has lost some of its fuel. He stops at the door.

“I love you, Jessie.”

“I love you too, Stephen.”

He closes the door behind him and I feel myself deflate a little. I’m proud of myself for standing up for what I want, and even more proud that we could negotiate to come to some sort of compromise. I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign that our marriage is going to be pretty great.

Chapter Fourteen

~Stephen~

I pull the door closed behind me and immediately fight the urge to waltz right back in there, scoop her up, carry her to the car and drive all night to Vegas. But as much as I want to marry that woman, and fast, something about the fall just isn’t setting well with me. At least she’s given up on the pirate magician.

I get lost in thought on the way home and before I know it, I’m tossing my keys and wallet on my dresser. I fall on my bed, face up, trying to figure out what the real problem with getting married in the fall is. I lay there trying to think up a better reason than I want Jessie to have enough time to plan the wedding she wants. That just sounds lame, and I know deep down that can’t be why I have this feeling. Although, trying to plan a wedding in five months can’t be an easy task by any means, I just don’t accept that this is why I’m more than a little apprehensive.

Apparently I fall asleep contemplating the wonders of my doubt because the next thing I know, I’m being woken up by the incessant ringing of my phone.

“Hello?”

“Dude, why are you still sleeping? You totally missed our work out. Wait! Where are you?”

I lift my head up and squint at the bright light shining in from my kitchen. I’m still in last night’s clothes and I haven’t moved from where I landed on my bed last night.

“At home. I must have fallen asleep.”

“Is Jessie still there?”

I try to remember why he would think that Jessie had been here and then everything from last night comes back. Again, plaguing my mind with a bunch of what ifs.

“I don’t think I like what you’re insinuating. And no, she wasn’t even here last night. I just missed my alarm. I’ll see you at the office.”

I hang up on him before he can say something that’s just going to make me more mad. My alarm clock shows that I have about an hour before I need to leave for work, so I opt for a quick run.

***

My phone hasn’t rang or buzzed all morning and I’m beginning to wonder how long this fight is going to last. I contemplate taking her lunch, but I’m not willing to agree to the fall yet and just telling her so will only make her have a bad afternoon. There is no use in both of us being in foul moods, so I decide on with a quick trip to the deli next door instead.

I get up and grab my phone off my desk when there’s a rap on my door. I turn and find, of all people, my father standing at the door.

“Dad? What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry. Tessa wasn’t at her desk so I just let myself in.” Tessa, my assistant, had an errand to run, so I let her take an early lunch.

“Yeah, Dad, that’s fine. How can I help you?”

“Well, I think it might be you who needs my help,” he says very matter-of-factly. I give him a curious look and he continues, “I woke up this morning and something in my gut told me I needed to come have lunch with my son. Your mother wanted to come, but I have a feeling she wouldn’t be very constructive to what you need help with. Is this a bad time?”

I hadn’t ever really believed in divine intervention until this moment.

“Um, no. Actually this is a great time. Did you have some place in mind?”

“Wherever you were headed is fine,” he says following me out of the office.

We make our way down to the deli and order. I grab us a booth in the corner so that we can have some privacy. Dad slides into the seat across from me.

“So, what’s going on?” he asks before inhaling half his Rueben sandwich.

“Jessie wants to get married in the fall,” I say quickly.

Dad just nods as if her idea is actually pretty logical.

“And you don’t want to wait that long.”

“No, I can wait that long. Longer actually.”

“How long?”

I stop to think about his question. I hadn’t really thought of a specific amount of time, just that I needed it.

“A year. Two, maybe.” I throw it out there, still not really sure with how much time I need.

Dad narrows his eyes, seeing right through me.

“You really want to wait two years to marry the woman you’ve been pining over for as long as you have? How long have you been waiting for this? Two years already?”

I just shrug my shoulders. More like twelve years, but telling him that will just help prove his point.

“Why do you want to wait?” Dad asks, changing directions and effectively stumping me here too.

After a moment or two I shrug again and take a bite of my uneaten tuna melt. I have a hard time looking at my father because it’s like he knows what I’m not saying and what I don’t want to hear. He finally clears his throat. When I do finally look up at him, I get his signature I-know-what-you’re-doing look.

“Son?” He hones the look in and I steady myself for whatever he’s about to say. He finishes the last bite of his sandwich, dusts his hands over his plate and dabs a napkin over his face before turning his attention at me.

“You’re scared. You’ve waited for so long for her and now that you have her, and she’s ready to choose you, you are afraid of losing what you’ve always had with her. You guys have always been close, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the chemistry you have now is bordering dangerous. You’re afraid that it’s all chemistry and now that that ship has sailed—“ my eyes nearly pop out of my head at his insinuation. “Or judging by the angry look on your face it hasn’t. Which just scares you even more because when it finally does, you’re afraid you won’t have the best friend you’ve always had in her.”

Okay, so I may be more than a little annoyed that everyone seems to think that we’re sleeping together. But now that he’s put words to the fears, I’m shocked to find he’s hit so close the target.

“Okay, Dr. Phil, what have you done with my father and when can I get him back?”

So Dad doesn’t find me too funny and narrows his eyes at me.

“Listen, I have watched you two for the past twenty years. You two were moving to the same music well before you started dating. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that your mother and I weren’t worried about you during her engagement with Jake. But since the moment we heard about it being canceled, we’ve had a peace that everything would work out for you two in the end.”

My mother’s words filter through my mind again and I can’t help but feel that she’s partially responsible for my doubts right now.

“But Mom—“

“Don’t worry about your mother. She worries about you like you’re still in kindergarten. She will come around, but you shouldn’t take on her fears.”

“But Dad, everything will change the minute we get married. Jessie has these plans and she wants kids and—“

“And you don’t?” he asks, sounding terribly disappointed.

“I mean, yeah, eventually, but not right away. She wants to start as soon as we’re married and I just…I’m just not ready to go there yet, Dad. I can’t.”

The disappointed look my father was sporting has changed to a look full of sorrow.

Back in high school, when Jessie had decided to start dating Jake, I decided to try to move on from her and date a cheerleader named Zoe. Zoe lacked originality and was into everything that everyone else was doing, which really only meant sex. I really hadn’t wanted to, but after a game one night one thing led to another and well, my body got into things more than my heart did. It was a one-time only thing and when I kept rejecting her attempts at trying again, she disappeared. Like stopped showing up at school and everything.

I thought I had broken her heart. I called and called her house trying to apologize, but nobody would talk to me about how she was doing or anything. Turns out the only thing I had broken was her sense of morality. She was pregnant with my child and because she didn’t want to accept the responsibility of our actions, she had terminated the pregnancy. When she finally told me, she explained everything so nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t just ended a human life. My child’s life.

My mother took it the worst, having experienced numerous miscarriages. She would go through these periods of deep mourning for the grandchild she would never have to moments of outrageous anger at Zoe for having terminated a perfectly healthy pregnancy that my mother would have given anything to have had a second chance with. Dad grieved with me, after giving me a very thorough lecture of the consequences of my actions and grounding me until I left for college.  They didn’t have anything to worry about though. There was only one girl I wanted then, and she was taken at the time.

Shortly after that, Jessie and I made a pact that we would save ourselves until we were married. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in sex, especially now that I have the girl of my dreams, and boy is Jessie ever present there, but I didn’t want to get myself in that position again.

“I don’t think you ever have to worry about that with Jessie, son.”

It’s not the fear of Jessie choosing something so horrifying as abortion that scares me. It’s the fear of another lost battle of ovarian cancer that scares me the most. 

“Oh, I know I never have to worry about her making such life altering decisions without me. But what if something goes wrong, Dad. Marilyn—“

“Don’t go there. You’ll drive yourself mad doing so. Stephen, you can’t focus on the what ifs. You will never know where God is taking your life until you’re there. If there is one thing that I’ve learned from all the ups and downs your mother and I have gone through is this: God is in control, always. You can do everything in your power to avoid bad things, but if it’s in His plan for your life to be a roller coaster of the good and the bad, well then there’s really nothing you can do to prevent it. What you can do, though, is figure out how to enjoy it, even if that means sticking your hands up in the air and screaming all the way through it.”

I pick at my half-eaten sandwich and mull his words over while he gets up to get a refill of his water. He comes back and sits across from me again, his eyes searching to see if his words have hit their mark yet.

“Listen,” he continues. “If you are still so worried about not having enough time with just her, make that part of the compromise. Ask her to wait a little for you. I’m confident that if you just tell her what is going on she will work through it with you. That’s what makes having a wife so great, they typically are the voice of reason to our harebrained ideas.”

As if on cue, my phone buzzes with a message from Jessie.

Daphne’s coming over so we can do some planning tonight, any chance you’d be up for joining us?

My dad gives me a challenging look, as if he knows it’s Jess and what she’s asking. Without giving it a second thought I reply.

Wouldn’t miss it for the world

***

“Oo! I love the coral and sage combo. What do you think, babe?” Jess holds up two color swatches from her spot on the floor in front of me. When magazines and catalogues were brought out, the girls moved to the floor so they could spread everything out, so I took advantage and sprawled out on the couch with my laptop.

“I think it could work.”

“Yeah! It could work!!” Daphne exclaims as she grabs a huge three-ring binder from her spot across the area rug. There are at least six open catalogues between her and Jessie. I’ve lost track of what they are even talking about right now. “Especially with the grey tuxes!” She sqeals and I almost decide to leave.

“Okay, so those’ll be the colors we’ll go with for a summer wedding. What about for a fall?”

My ears prick up then. I turn back to my laptop, but I can’t focus now. They shuffle through more color schemes, trying to pair the right color combo, before thoroughly contemplating a rich purple and a deep red mix.

“Is it too Christmas-y?” Jess asks Daphne holding up the swatches and looking at them from every angle.

I get up, needing some air. They both cease talking as I walk across the small dining room to the door to Jess’s balcony. I let myself out and lean against the railing. Letting the last bit of heat from the setting sun warm my face, I take a couple of deep breaths. I haven’t had the chance to try to compromise with her, but my dad’s words keep scrolling through my mind.

A moment later the door behind me opens and arms slide around my waist and a face lays gently on my back.

“I’m sorry, if you don’t want to do this…we can be done for the night if you’d like.” 

I turn around and face my stunning bride to be. A strand of her dark hair flies in front of her face so I reach up and tuck it behind her ear. She exhales at my touch. I lean down and kiss her gently.

“I just needed some air. You do know it looks like a paint store exploded in your living room, right?”

She giggles, causing me to pull her in tighter.

“I don’t want to lose this,” I say out loud before I realize it.

“We will always be us. I don’t plan on changing, do you?” she asks. I shake my head, resting my chin on the top of her head. We just stand there holding onto one another as the sun slides the last little bit behind the horizon.

“I want some time before we go full on baby-making mode,” I tell her after a few more moments. She’s quiet for a moment.

“How long?”