Page 14 of With This Wish

Chapter Eleven

Maya

The room is still dark and JJ is sound asleep in his toddler bed, snoring softly without a care in the world. He has no idea just how much everything in his life is about to change, and I allow myself a moment to envy his blissful ignorance. Meeting up with Jake last night went well, or about as well as could have been expected under the circumstances. We got into things, probably not as deeply as we could have or will need to in order to work out all the issues between us now, but between the crying, the laughing, and the holding hands, I think we came to a pretty good starting point. Jake wants to spend as much time with us as possible, and I want that too, but I also wonder what happens when the few days he’s taking off ends. Will he go back to his other life? Will he stay here? I don’t want to leave Starlight Lake or my brother, but if he asks us to move to be closer to him, I think I would have to at least consider it for JJ’s sake. He’s already gone two years without his daddy. I don’t want him to go any longer than he has to.

There is also the other elephant in the room, and that’s the matter of what is going to happen between Jake and me. We’re both single, and every time he touched me last night, I felt a warm, tingling sensation throughout my body. It was like coming home after a long time away, that feeling of rightness settling in my chest and taking root in my heart. Every time he gazed at me with those deep-blue eyes, I felt my old feelings for him come rushing to the surface. Not that they had very far to travel in the first place. It’s not like I buried those emotions, just sort of put them on the backburner for a bit, simmering on low as I waited for him to come back to me. To us. Well, he’s back now and as much as I would like to explore the connection we shared, JJ comes first.

With a sigh, I roll onto my side and gaze at my little sweetheart as he dreams, hopefully of nothing but good things as he sucks his thumb and grips his stuffed dog, Mr. Buttons. I’m slightly jealous, not only of his innocence, but of his ability to sleep soundly. My night was restless to say the least. I think I dozed off for maybe an hour here or there, but other than that I’ve been up all night with worry. A fair bit of excitement was sprinkled in there too, but it was mostly concern. Concern for what happens next and whether things will turn out okay. Trying to keep an optimistic outlook is my goal, but it’s difficult after so many years of tragedy and disappointment.

Deciding that sleep will be eluding me indefinitely, I quietly get out of bed, narrowing my eyes in a glare when I see the early hour reflected on the clock on my nightstand—as if the clock is to blame for all my fussing and lack of rest. Quietly, I shuffle over to the open doorway and leave my little boy to his sweet nighttime adventures. In the dim light coming from above the stove, I see my rolled-up yoga mat, no doubt dusty from disuse, and decide a little rush of endorphins is just the trick I need to help settle my nerves and maybe relax some of the tension in my muscles. After grabbing the mat, I unroll it and start with a few easy poses, or what used to be easy poses. Apparently, practicing yoga is like speaking a foreign language: if you don’t use it, you lose it. Chasing JJ around all day is a workout, but it has nothing on me trying to move from plank position into downward-facing-dog. Not wanting to disturb JJ or my brother, I stifle a groan as the muscles in my back loosen. After another ten minutes of stretching, I plop down on the mat with a thud and decide that’s enough for one day.

The door to Carter’s room squeaks open and he shuffles out, one eye squinting open and closed as he looks around, scratching his stomach. When he spots me on the floor, he walks over and joins me on the ground. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, though the answer is probably obvious from my very early-morning yoga.

“Nope,” I say quietly, grimacing in the near dark. “Sorry if I woke you.” Both of us had much later than usual bedtimes. As soon as I got back from meeting with Jake, I gave Carter a shortened version of events just to keep him in the loop. He’s been our biggest support over the years, and I feel it’s only fair to keep him up to speed. There was also the matter of my needing a sounding board, wanting to hear whether I was making smart decisions as far as my son is concerned.

Carter shakes his head and leans back on his arms, palms on the hardwood floors. “It’s fine,” he says around a gigantic yawn. The action contradicts his previous statement, but I’m far too tired myself to call him out on it. “I wasn’t really sleeping well anyway.”

My brother probably can’t see it, but I frown at him. “Why not? Is something bothering you?”

He shrugs a shoulder and looks away for a moment. “Not really,” he mumbles. He’s trying to hide it, but I know when my brother is lying and he is definitely holding something back. Carter hasn’t always tried to keep his problems to himself, but since losing our parents, it seems as though he doesn’t want to burden anyone with his feelings. No matter how much I tell him that I want to know how he is feeling, he tries to keep a tight lid on things.

I grab his shoulder and shake it a little until he looks at me. My eyes have already adjusted to the dark, so I can see the somewhat pained look on his face. “Car,” I say sternly. He may be the older brother, but I know when to bust out a commanding tone. When we were younger, I would use it to get him to spill the beans about school drama or his dating life. It always worked then and I’m not above using it now.

His head tilts to the side, lips pursed. “Fine,” he admits. He shoots me a withering look while moving his arms forward to rest on his crossed legs. “I’m happy that Jake came back, truly. I want JJ to know his dad and I want you to be happy.” I give him time to gather his thoughts and wait as he takes a deep breath. “It’s just … I’m a little worried that you guys are going to leave. I know it’s super selfish of me, but I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

My head nods. “You don’t want to be alone?” He doesn’t have the courage to say it out loud, but he nods his head in confirmation. My heart pinches at the thought of having to leave my brother and I know he’s feeling the same, so I scoot closer to him and knock his shoulder with mine to reassure him. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Carter scoffs and even in the low light of the family room I can see the wry expression on his face. “Come on, Mai. I know you’ll do anything to make sure JJ has a good relationship with his dad, and I want that too,” he tells me emphatically. “I guess I’m just a little worried about what life will look like after you guys are gone.”

I swallow thickly to push down the emotions that threaten to rise. Honestly, I worry a little about what would become of my brother if we left too. Not because I think he’d do something to harm himself or anything close to that, but he has a hard time letting people in, even more so after our parents died. He could easily become a recluse, focusing only on his work, and losing himself to loneliness. “Well, we aren’t gone yet,” I tell him, a sad smile on my face. “There could be a chance Jake doesn’t want to have anything to do with us. Or me at least.” That thought makes my chest clench, and I rub at my sternum, trying to get it to subside. Shaking my head to try to banish the thought from my mind completely doesn’t work either. It’s still there in the back, wriggling further down into my brain and making itself right at home among my other neuroses.

Carter scoffs again. “Please. That man was looking at you like you single-handedly created everything good and magical in this world. There’s no way he is leaving without you.” He exhales slowly. “And I only observed for a moment, but I could tell he was already falling in love with Little J. Not that it’s hard to do. The kid is too damn sweet for this world, I swear.”

I smile despite my earlier misgivings. I’m not sure what my brother said about Jake and me is accurate, but he’s right about JJ. Jake had nothing but love and affection in his gaze for our little boy when he looked at him and again as I told Jake all about him last night during our meet-up. “Well, I’m not at all concerned about myself now, but I am glad to hear you think he’s taken with JJ. He is a very sweet boy.”

“Just like his mama,” Carter says, bumping my shoulder. He squints at the clock and sighs. “Damn. Only five in the morning.” He stands with a low groan and offers me his hand, which I gratefully accept and am up on my feet in no time. “I’m going to get the coffee going. It’s going to be a long day.”

“It is,” I agree, walking with him over to the kitchen. It’s going to be a long, stressful, but possibly wonderful day, and I couldn’t be less ready for it if I tried. The stress of it is eating away at me. Hopefully I’ll feel better once we’re all together. It’s something I’ve always wanted, but now that it’s here, I can’t help feeling like another shoe is going to drop.

Chapter Twelve

Jake

My eyes are tired and dry from lack of sleep, my back is sore from the less-than-stellar pull-out sofa in the cabin, and my mind feels like it’s trying to run through mud despite my already having had two cups of coffee this morning. Even with all that going on, my heart is full of joy, and I am beyond excited to meet my little boy today. Yes, I saw him last night, but that was all too brief and I didn’t get to interact with him beyond us having a silent staring contest. I was cataloging his features, the reality hitting me that I have a child, and him looking at me like a science experiment gone awry.

Maya texted earlier to let me know he’s a little leery of strangers, so that helped explain some of it, but it still sucks to have your kid look at you without a hint of recognition or desire to know you. He’s two, I remind myself, trying to cut the poor kid and myself some slack. After spending a good half hour filling Billie in on everything, the rest of my night was spent in a fitful sleep, alternating between berating myself for not coming back sooner and the other trying to make plans. Plans that will include Maya and JJ.

Those plans are still a bit up in the air since I’m not sure where Maya’s head is with all of this, and there are a few logistical problems I’ll need to solve first, but hopefully we’ll be able to get on the same page before I head back to Denver for work. The word “work” has me remembering the conversation I had with my father this morning after dropping Billie off at the small airport in town where she had her dad send a private plane to come get her. Even I have to shake my head at that. I may have a good chunk saved up and more in investments, but I don’t have that kind of stupid money to throw around like the Kochevs do, not that they didn’t earn it. I know Billie’s dad worked hard in Bulgaria before coming to the US and partnering with my dad, but still. My dad isn’t quite as showy with his money as Billie’s dad is, preferring to squirrel most of it away for a rainy day that hasn’t come yet. From his tone on the phone earlier, however, he thinks that day is today.

“You’re taking a vacation now?” he asked, his tone incredulous. My father never met a vacation day he didn’t think would be better spent in the office, a sentiment I shared for far too long. “The accounts need tending to, Jacob. A vacation wasn’t in the plan.”

“Plans change,” I informed him. My voice tried for casual, but that only irritated him further. I may not have ditched my ability to plan completely, but after seeing how badly my blind adherence to them has messed things up for people who are important to me, I see that flexibility is also a necessary trait.

“Well, they shouldn’t,” he insisted. “At least without due cause. Tell me again what is so important that you must take two weeks off.”

“I already told you, Dad. I will tell you when I’m ready, and that isn’t right now,” I had said with a heavy sigh. Just once I wish he could let me do what I wanted without giving me the third degree, but until today, I had always marched to the beat of a drum he understood. My veering off path has probably thrown him as much as it has me. While I don’t want to tell him about JJ until I know more myself, I still want to ease his mind a little. “Just know that it is extremely important and will enrich all of our lives.” My life has already felt brighter since finding out I have a son, and while my parents weren’t exactly all cuddles and warm smiles, they did a good job. I’m sure they’ll take to being grandparents better than expected.

“Fine,” he said, voice clipped. “Just be sure to send the necessary emails to your team and Human Resources.”

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