Page 80 of Hold on Tight

“Jake.”

“Don’t.Don’t.”

She touched his face. Stroked her thumbs over his eyebrows, then his cheekbones. Leaned close. Her breath moved across his face like a benediction. Like an invitation.Here is where you can breathe again.

“Mira. Mira.”

She held him tight while the sobs worked their way through him, and when the first wave had broken and he surfaced into the world, she kissed him and he breathed her, and then her hands were on him, sheathing him with another condom, her body over his, and he was sinking, sinking into grief and warmth and comfort. She said his name over and over again, and he clung to it and let himself be washed away, washed clean.

Chapter 25

When they pulled up outside Mira’s house late the next afternoon, there was a car parked outside, a white midsized Chevy that screamed rental. A dark-haired man—around Jake’s age—sat behind the wheel, iPhone in hand, and as they cruised past the car to turn into Mira’s stubby little driveway, he looked up from the phone and waved hello.

“Oh,shit,” Mira said.

“Mommy!”

“Oh,shoot,” she amended.

“Who is it?” Jake asked, just as Sam demanded, “Is thatAaron?”

The look on Mira’s face said Sam was right. Jake’s gut gave a sick squeeze. “What’s he doing here?”

“I have no idea,” Mira said.

“It’s Aaron!” Sam said, bouncing in the backseat. “I wonder if he brought me Legos! Aaron always brings me Legos,” he explained to Jake. “And he helps me put them together.”

So that was where Sam’s twenty-gallon tote of Lego pieces had come from. It figured. Jake had sat on the floor with Sam the day he’d babysat, assembling complicated visions from his son’s imagination, according to Sam’s detailed directions.No, theblueone. No, not there, there.

Aaron had done the same, apparently. Probably many more times. Over many more weeks, months, years, even. And how many times had Mira spent the night in Aaron’s arms?

A lot more than twice.

Jealousy burned in his chest, sending a bile taste to the back of his throat, a testosterone shot to the groin.

As dismissive as she’d been when she’d told him about Aaron, he knew there was history there. Maybebecauseof how dismissive she’d been. And he knew she’d left Aaron in anger, after he’d hurt and betrayed her, which meant that there was still strong feeling. Which meant that she might be only a sincere apology away from regretting ever leaving.

Was that what this was? Had Aaron come to deliver an apology? To reclaim what was his?

She’s mine now, thought Jake, but then another, deeper and older part of his brain said,You didn’t say she was yours when you had the chance, did you?

The driver’s side door opened and a tall man emerged. The sort of guy who would wear a suit and work on Wall Street or as a lawyer. The sort of guy who could play the leading man in a romantic comedy, opposite Mira, who would be played by Drew Barrymore, maybe, or, in a pinch, Kirsten Dunst.

This was a guy who was committed. Who was in the world. Who had made a decision—I’m going to get her back—and a plan, who had flown across the country to claim what was his. He had a job, light behind his eyes. A little swagger, but not so much Jake hated him on sight. This guy had made mistakes in the past, but now here he was, making things right.

And who was Jake? What had he done to rejoin the world? He still had no job. Still hadn’t committed himself one way or the other to returning to active duty, still hadn’t actually signed up for the triathlon he was theoretically planning to do. A guy in limbo. A guy who’d latched on to Mira and Sam because he needed a sense of purpose but hadn’t yet been able to find one of his own. A parasite on their lives, a lurker, a hanger-on.

Aaron had something to give Mira and Sam, and allhe’ddone, all hecoulddo, was take.

On top of the rest of it, on top of the grief and the longing, on top of that emotion he was too fucking scared to name, the one that had reached out to her last night through the discomfort and the awkwardness, that had connected straight to the center of her through all the messy, uncomfortable meaty bits of being human, on top of all that, he was dying of jealousy. And it was too much. Too much feeling. If there was one thing he knew about himself, it was that he made the worst decisions when he felt the most.

“I’m sorry,” Mira told Jake. “I have no idea what he’s doing here. I’ll get rid of him.”

For a moment, the part of his brain that had cried outShe’s mine, nowgained the upper hand, and he almost said,Yes—get rid of him. Get him the fuck out of here. But he looked at Sam and he looked at Mira—so beautiful, so smart, so gutsy—and he thought,Do the right thing. For once.

“Maybe you should find out what he came all this way to say.”

She gave him a confused look. “I guess.”

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