Page 104 of Work with Me

“The way you drive, it’d be no wonder.” I smiled, but he didn’t. He only stared like he was trying to consume me with his eyes. My cheeks burned. “I sent everyone out to breakfast and a movie. I figured it was time for us to talk.” I crossed the threshold into the kitchen and pulled out my chair.

He set a cup in front of me and sat in Noah’s chair, shoving his hands between his knees. His face had gone a little gray. “Talk?”

I lifted off the lid and sniffed. Earl Grey. He’d gotten it right every time. “I can’t believe you noticed my favorite kind of tea. The first day, I thought it was a coincidence. But you brought it every day.”

“You drank it every morning in the office. Except that one day I pissed you off by finishing our module on my own. You drank something sweet that day. But Earl Grey every day after. I’ll never—” He gulped and shut his mouth.

“It was kind of you to bring us breakfast. The pastries earned you points with Noah. He doesn’t usually get sweets in the morning.” He’d gotten so jittery I’d made him drink a giant glass of water and then jog around the block.

“Oh.” He winced. “Did I fuck up?”

“No, it’s the holidays. A few extra treats are okay. But why did you do it? Guilty conscience?”

“I—I wanted to see you. Know that you were all right. I let you down. And I’m sorry. I wish I could go back and—but I can’t. This was the only way I could think of to show you that you deserve someone who stays. I was a brainless ass to leave in the first place and let you think anything else. But I won’t leave you again. I mean, unless you tell me to go. I’m not a stalker.”

Each cup of tea, each kolache or bagel, was a stone rolled away from the fortress around my heart. After a week, I couldn’t stir up enough anger at him to scowl at the arrangement of breakfast foods Esmy laid out on a platter. And after two weeks of showing up, of putting up with Mom’s forbidding silence and Noah’s taunts, he’d cleared a way to my heart. All that was left was for me to invite him in.

“If I told you to go and never cross my path again, would you?” I held my breath.

“Of course I would. I care about you, and I don’t want to hurt you ever again. Is that what you want? For me to leave?” Those brown eyes of his rounded, pleading with me to say no.

“I asked you to leave. That first night I came home and found you waiting on my porch. In the rain.” I’d thought for sure I’d hallucinated him. I’d thought about him so often that I could’ve conjured him there.

“I didn’t think—I hoped you didn’t mean it. But if you ask me to leave now, I will. I promise.”

“You’ll leave. You’ll go back to California, and I’ll never see you again.” He’d done it once, and it’d broken me. Even speaking the words made my heart wring itself out in my chest.

“Is that what you want?”

I thought about lying. It’d be easier. It would confirm what I’d thought for years. And I loved being right.

But then Melissa’s voice whispered in my brain.Ask for what you want. And then take it.

“No. I want you to stay. I want to trust you again. Can you earn my trust?”

His cheeks went red above his beard. “I made a mistake. I thought I was bad for you. That you shouldn’t want me. And then I remembered how smart you are. That you know what you want, and I shouldn’t decide for you. I was a dick. And I’m sorry. I’m not good enough for you. I know that. But I want to try.” He reached across the table but stopped before he could touch me, his palm facing up. “You showed me how to be a better man. And I want to keep working at it. Because I love you.”

A fizz started at my scalp and cascaded down through my body. I laid my hand over his, and he clasped it. “You were already a good man, Jackson Jones. You just needed to see it.” I thought back to what he’d said before, on the porch in the rain. “What were you going to tell me the other day? Something you set up?”

A new spark lit his dark eyes. “Yeah, I started a foundation for neurodivergent kids. Like Noah. Like my sister and me. I want to try to set up some coding camps. But first I need someone to run it. Like, the day-to-day stuff. I don’t suppose you’re interested?”

“I don’t know the first thing about nonprofits or leading a foundation. Besides, I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing, running my own business.”

“I know. And you’re great at it. I wish…” He looked down at our joined hands.

“What do you wish?”

“I wish we could work together again. We were better together. You taught me how to lead.”

I squeezed his hand. “You’re a good leader all on your own. You only need to believe it. And I’m the one who got a masterclass in coding.”

He locked his fingers into mine. “I don’t want to talk about work. Or the foundation. I only want to talk about you and me. I love you. Will you let me love you?”

My heart beat like it wanted to leap right out of my chest and into his. It knew what it wanted. The rest of me hesitated. Accepting him mean opening up every part of my life, including Noah. Could I trust him? I sipped my tea, the familiar scent wafting over my face.

I scanned Jackson Jones from his anxious, hopeful expression to his polished boots. He’d probably screw up again. So would I. But we’d figure out a way through it. Together.

“Okay. Let’s try it.”

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