Page 78 of Please, Sir

The line goes quiet. I don’t try to explain that innocent men aren’t typically arrested in a small town for taking a hostage and assaulting them. I no longer see a point in trying to convince my parents of reality. “Okay,” I say, because what else is there to say?

“Brian said his son charged down to your school, held you against your will in your office and demanded you two get back together,” my father says, my mom murmuring lines to him in the background. “Yeah, and mom tells me that Michael admitted he put his hands on you. That he choked you and held his forearm to your throat.”

He had to admit it because there were witnesses, and there are marks left on my body. “It would be true if he admitted or not, just like last time,” I say, no emotion in my tone whatsoever.

I want to put all this Michael shit behind me, and that’s what I wanted months ago when I came here. Tonight, in all his idiocy, Michael finally helped me get what I want. “I’m getting a restraining order,” I add, filling the awkward silence.

This exchange is not awkward for me. I’m not the one who didn’t have the back of the person that has loved me my entire life. That’s on them.

My mom gets on the line. “Are you okay? Where are you? Do you need us to come down?”

I can’t help but think that good parents would’ve shown up without a call, and been there to support and protect me. “No, I don’t. I’m... staying with a friend. I’m fine.”

“We’re sorry, Ry Ry, that we didn’t believe you before,” my mom ambles, her voice wobbly with emotion she doesn’t deserve to have.

“You’re crying?” I gasp just as Jake approaches the driver’s side door, his brow pinched in curiosity. He gets inside the truck but doesn’t make a move to drive. He looks at me, waiting patiently for me to wrap up my call.

This man has given me more grace in a handful of months than my own fucking parents in as many years.

“You have no reason to be crying. I should be crying. I should be crying and sobbing that my own parents believed and chose a fucking piece of shit over their only child, their loyal daughter. I’ve been there for you guys through everything! I’ve done everything you wanted me to do and the only thing I ever asked you both to do was believe me. And you couldn’t do it.”

“We believe you, Riley, that’s why we’re calling. To apologize and tell you, we believe you,” dad chimes in, sounding exhausted with the entire thing, as if he has any right.

“That’s great. But unfortunately, that came about six months too late. Listen, I gotta go. I’ll call you guys… sometime. I don’t know.”

“Riley–” mom makes a weak attempt but I end the call.

“Parents?” Jake asks.

I nod. “You got a good relationship with yours?”

He shakes his head. “No, maybe that’s why they live on the East coast. We were never close. They were functional parents, got me through school and kept me fed. But theyweren’t really emotionally attached to much, including me. They didn’t fly out when Janie passed. They haven’t seen Jo Jo since she was three.”

I shake my head. “That really sucks, I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “I used to be hung up on it. In fact, I went through a solid year where I was so angry at them for not being there for me and Jo Jo when Janie passed. I obsessed over how selfish they were and how much I hated them almost every waking moment.”

My nostrils flare as heat stings my eyes, an emotional cramp forming in my gut. “How’d you get past it?”

“Dr. Tanner,” Jake says, unashamed of the fact that he’s in therapy. Getting help when you need it just may be sexier than muscles and a big dick. Fortunately for me, Jake’s got all three. “I eventually worked myself through the stages of grief in terms of my relationship with them. Letting go of expectation and emotion really set me free.”

A tear slips through my lashes, and Jake’s eyes tenderly trace it until it rolls beneath my chin. He takes my hands in his, pulling me across the bench seat to his lap.

“It hurts that they aren’t who you thought, but it will hurt for a lot longer if you keep hoping they’ll be someone else.” He smooths his hands up and down my legs and forearms, pressing my head to the crook of his neck. “C’mon, let’s get back home and unwind.”

Jake dishes upice cream as I sit by the fire, warming my toes and face. He comes to sit down next to me, passing me a bowl of raspberry cheesecake. I take a bite.

“You know, I’m usually a chocolate girlie but this is pretty good.”

Jake nods, licking ice cream from the corner of his mouth. He’s wearing sweats now, black and loose, and a gray t-shirt that isn’t meant to be tight but his muscles allow nothing less. He strokes a hand through his dark hair. The fire flickers gently against his swollen profile. My stomach squeezes and my body grows warm, though not from the fire. Butterflies take off in my chest, and I have the sudden urge to fall to my feet for him, this man who saved me today, who loves his daughter with his entire being, who faithfully supports his community, and who takes care of those around him. I want to strip to nothing, bow my head and be his, absorbing his angst and pain, turning them into his most heightened orgasm, his deepest desires.

Before I do that, I need resolution from what happened between us recently.

“Jake,” I start, “I just want you to know, I understand why you asked me to leave that night. I understood it completely. It devastated me, and the next two weeks without you, without hearing from you, that’s when I realized…” I trail off, not intentionally teasing out my thoughts but feeling suddenly insecure to put words to what I've been feeling.

He sets his bowl of ice cream down, giving me all of his focus. I love the way he does that, to both me and Jo Jo. He’s so good at making the people he loves feel cared for and special, and I never realized that was something I was starved of until now. “What?”

“I realized that I’m falling in love with you. And so while I understood needing time to work things out with Jo Jo, every day that passed that I didn’t hear from you, I started to think maybe it was all in my head. Maybe you didn’t feel the same way.”

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