Desperation of Love (27 page)

He shakes his head. “What did you find?”

“I found a closed envelope with my name on it. I figured that my birth certificate was probably in there, so of course, I opened it up. What I found was adoption papers.”

“Babe.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m lucky that I had parents who loved me, right?”

He nods his head. “What happened next?”

“Well, I lost my fucking mind. Called them both at work and went crazy on them. They had no choice but to come home and try to calm me down, but I was so far gone. I was just shocked, hurt, and angry. I didn’t know what to do with myself. They told me that they tried for many years to have a child of their own, but it just wasn’t possible. They decided adoption would be the best route to get them the baby they so desperately wanted.”

“And that’s how they got you.”

“That’s how they got me. I never really got over it. I fought with them for two years after that, demanding that they give me the names of my birth parents. I felt like I had a right to know where I came from and why they gave me up.”

“I can understand that.”

“Even though they’d met my birth parents, it was a closed adoption so they wanted to respect their wishes. This just angered me even more. I rebelled and spent all my time at school, spent my summers at Elle’s house, and only ever came home to sleep. Finally, they gave in and told me the information.”

“Did you find them?”

This is the hard part of the story, the part that breaks me every single time I think about it. As if on cue, the tears start to fall again. “They live in Illinois. It didn’t take me long to find their information. So, I used all the money I had saved up from holidays and birthdays and bought myself a plane ticket. I snuck out one night and left my parents a note. Then, I hopped on a plane to Illinois.”

“It didn’t go very well, did it?” he says wiping my tears away yet again.

“Sometime after they gave me up, they got married. A couple years later, they had another baby, a daughter. I found her birth announcement in the archives of an online newspaper. They have this huge house on the outskirts of Chicago. When I got there, they practically slammed the door in my face and said they didn’t want me to come back. They said they did what they had to do, and didn’t want me upsetting their daughter with my presence. She doesn’t know about me.”

“I’m so sorry, baby.”

“They didn’t even care. They acted like I was an intruder in their perfect little life. Like I wasn’t good enough to be a part of their family. They said that they were too young at the time to take care of a baby and made the best choice they could for me. I get that, I really do, but I honestly thought they’d be happy to see me.”

“They don’t deserve you and you don’t need them. You shouldn’t let them make you feel like you’re not good enough, Jordan. You’re perfect, alright? You’re better off without them.”

“My mom told your mom. It’s why she came to me and told me your story. She wanted me to know that you and I are more alike than I thought we were. Other than them, no one else knows.”

“You never told Ellie?”

I shake my head. “I was too embarrassed, too devastated to tell anyone. I just wanted to forget that it ever happened. I wanted to try and move on, but really, I’ve just been stuck in the past. Until you came along, at least. I don’t know how you did it, but you made me fall in love with you. You made me believe in what we have.”

“I’ll never tell anyone what you just told me, but you should never be embarrassed to tell your story. It’s what makes you who you are. And, babe, what we have is worth believing in. I’ll never let you go again. I swear it. I’ll spend my whole life proving to you that what we have is as real as it gets. That I love you more than anything.” This is his vow. There’s no wedding today, no white dress, no church or priest, no exchanging of rings, but it doesn’t matter. To me, this is perfection. This is the day that I finally give my heart away freely, effortlessly, trusting that Alex’s love will keep me in his grasp forever.

One year later …

It’s been months, but the construction on our house is finally done and the last of our shit has finally been moved in. There are boxes scattered everywhere, but for Christ sake, at least we’re in. I put Ellie’s old house on the market and moved in with Jordan almost immediately after she and I worked things out. We were spending all our time together anyway, so it only made sense for us to consolidate space and move in together. A couple months later, we stumbled on a piece of property that was for sale not far from our beach. We weren’t intending to buy a house together, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we jumped on it and started the renovations on our new house right away.

Business quickly picked up for Victor and I at the recording studio, and we’ve been able to make a name for ourselves as music producers in the industry. It gives us the opportunity to do what we love without having to deal with the hassle of nonstop travel around the world. It makes me happy to see Victor get the life he always wanted and still be able to see his daughter grow. Which reminds me, Ava just turned one year old and, as Jordan predicted, she has every man in her life wrapped around her little finger, me included.

My relationship with my dad is still strained, but it always has been. It’s sad, but I’ve come to terms with it. My mother is a different story. She has pretty much infiltrated herself in her sons’ lives, making a nuisance of herself and showing up everywhere we are … constantly. She has provided hours of enjoyment and laughter for Victor and I, and we get off on giving her a hard time for being around so often, but the truth is, we actually like having her close these days. So much so that she’s now moving into Jordan’s old house as we speak. She’s a mess and has made her fair share of mistakes, but everyone deserves their chance at redemption. For better or worse, she’s our mom, and in the end, she seems to have come through for both of her boys.

About six months ago, Jordan dragged me into New York with some lame excuse about watching a play that I really didn’t want to see but, of course, I went anyway. I knew something was off when we ended up in the middle of Brooklyn. When I asked her what we were doing, she told me that she had been in touch with my birth mother’s parents, my only living grandparents, and set up a meeting for us. I was touched that she would do something like that for me. She knew that I might never be brave enough to do it on my own, so she did it for me, and I’m really grateful that she did. They were ecstatic to see me, which was both wonderful and overwhelming, and they were able to fill me in on everything having to do with my biological mother. We’ve taken it slowly, but I’ve managed to form a really good relationship with them.

Once the dust settled from all of our drama, Jordan and I worked really hard to get to a point where our relationship was what we both wanted it to be. Our love is sometimes intense and we often fight like cats and dogs, but at the end of every day, it’s just me and her together, like we always promised each other.

Although marriage is something that I always thought I wanted in my life, I never pressure her into it. I know how she feels about it, and right now, the commitment that we’ve made to each other is enough.

I stack the last box in our bedroom and make my way downstairs, wondering how the hell I ended up doing most of the work myself today. “Jordan,” I call out, checking in her new office first.

“I’m in the dining room,” she says. I smile to myself. Jordan does not cook. She never has and I’m pretty confident that she never will, so what she’s doing in there is beyond me.

I walk into the dining room and see Jordan sitting on an old comforter she threw down on the floor with a box of pizza and a couple of beers. “What’s all this?” I ask, joining her on the floor.

“What does it look like? It’s our first official dinner in our new house.”

“How romantic,” I say, putting my hand over my heart and laughing.

“Alright, smartass,” she scolds as she shoves my arm. “At least I try.”

“Aww, baby.” I grab her by the nape of her neck and pull her in for a kiss. “You do. You’re the best.”

“Damn right I am.” She smiles and pulls herself onto her knees, looking nervous all of a sudden.

“What’s the matter?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing, I just … I have something for you.”

I tilt my head up and glare at her with suspicion. “You got me something?”

“Yes. Are you ready?”

“Yeeesssss, I’m ready.”

“Alright,” she says, pulling something out of the pocket of her jeans. She smirks at me and puts a ring box in my hand. “Open it.”

I look up at her questioningly then back to the box. I open it to reveal a simple platinum band embedded with a row of small diamonds. “Jordan …”

“Alex, I love you. I still can’t believe how far we’ve come.” She places her hands on my shoulders as if she was trying to gain strength from me. “I know I said that I never wanted to get married, that this was all I could give you, but things between us are different now. I’m not scared anymore. I believe that this is forever and I want to make that commitment to you. Will you marry me?”

I’m floored. She’s absolutely insane, but I want her more now than I ever have. I didn’t even think it was possible to love this girl any more. I don’t know whether to laugh or kiss her. “What. The. Hell … Yeah, I’ll marry you, princess, but I’m not wearing an engagement ring.”

“I don’t care if you wear the stupid thing. It’s a symbol. We’ll throw it on a chain and you can wear it around your neck until we get married, and then you can use it as a wedding band.” She smiles.

“Fine. Does this mean I have to get you a ring?”

“Hell yeah! Don’t think I don’t know about you and your little house flipping business. You’re loaded. You can afford it.”

“You really love to emasculate me, don’t you?” I say, pulling her hair.

She wraps her hands around my neck and straddles me. “If I left it up to you, you’d never ask.”

“I didn’t ask because you said you didn’t want to get married.”

“Whatever, Alex. You push me on everything else under the sun but this topic you’re respectful about?”

“Fine!” I say, wrapping my hands around her waist. “I want a baby, too.”

“That you’re not getting,” she says, shaking her head.

“Fuck yeah, I’m getting a baby. Now that I know how you roll, all bets are off.” I pull her down for a kiss, using it as a tactic to shut her up. She melts into me and I can tell how this is going to end. I break the kiss before we both lose control. “When do you want to get married?”

“Now.”

My eyes go wide. “Now?”

“Yeah. We can see if Elle and Victor can leave the baby with Joe or your mom and we can fly to Vegas.”

I can’t help but laugh. She really is insane, but that’s just how she is lately. She doesn’t do anything halfway. It’s all or nothing. “Let’s do it then.”

“Yeah?” she squeals, tackling me down to the floor.

“Yeah,” I reply, claiming her mouth again and pulling her against me. I hold her as tight as I can. Who would have thought that a chance meeting at a bookstore between two strangers could start a chain of events that would trickle down and eventually lead to me finding my future wife? She crashed into my life like a burst of energy and never quite let go, and even though I was too stupid to ask, marrying her is like coming full circle. Fulfilling our destiny and allowing me to keep a promise to the first man that she ever loved, to take care of her and protect her. I tug at the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head, tossing it onto the floor. I roll her onto her back and pull my shirt off too. “You are the best of me, you know that? Nothing in my life has ever quite measured up to what you’ve given me.”

She blinks away tears and smiles at me with nothing but adoration in her eyes. It’s the look that I live to see every single day. I would do just about anything to keep that look on her face. “You know, when Elle married your brother, I told her that she gave me hope for the future, that maybe I would find someone who would be to me what Victor is to her. I couldn’t have wished for anyone better, Alex. You’re the one I was supposed to meet all along. You’re the love of my life. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my whole life.”

Life is never easy. It’s filled with chaos, crazy families, secrets and lies, and unexpected surprises. One minute, you think you have your whole life figured out, and the next minute, your carefully made plans are blown sky high. With Jordan and I, none of it matters. All the pieces of our past fell away as if it was fated and when it was all gone, what was left was this. She and I together, connected on the other side, stronger for having survived it.