Page 84 of Stay for Me
“Yeah, and with Austin and Sebastian being friends, I just want to be careful not to hurt him in the process.”
“I’m sure that they all appreciate it,” Jacob says as he continues to look around.
“Were you friends with Jasper?”
“Not really. He was older than me, and I didn’t know him much more than being Devney’s older brother.”
It’s crazy to me how many degrees of separation we actually all share in this world. “Did you know Luke?” I ask, wondering why I’m bringing him up. “I only ask because he didn’t talk much about his childhood or Sugarloaf.”
“I can relate to that,” Jacob admits. “I try to avoid thinking about this place and avoid coming back whenever possible. But I knew Luke in a casual way. We weren’t friends, and I didn’t run in that circle—the baseball guys. I hung out with my brothers, and that was it. I didn’t want to bring people around my home.”
“Well, hopefully being back this time is better.”
Jacob grins, his eyes flaring with heat. “Oh, this time there is something in this town that makes it infinitely better.”
“Really?”
A small dimple that only comes out when he makes a particular smile appears. “Absolutely.”
“And is it something or someone?”
He stands in front of me, brushes the hair back from my forehead. “It’s you, Brenna. You make being back here better.”
I bite my lower lip as the heat floods my cheeks. “You’re making it really hard to behave.”
His fingers grip my hair, gently sliding down the strands. “You’re telling me.”
I take a step back, knowing one of us has to do it and I’m the one with the most to lose if someone walks in. I clear my throat and then Jacob walks around the room again.
He stops in front of the small memorial my mother-in-law asked us to put together. I didn’t want to. In fact, it was probably the first fight that Sylvia and I ever had. In the end, I agreed to have it out for one year, after that, we weren’t going to have a shrine to Luke in our living room.
The folded flag from his funeral is in a wooden box on the small table. There are a few photos of him, his parents, and then the photo that Jacob seems to be staring at. “That was his last homecoming.”
“Was he gone a lot?”
“Yes.”
The photo is of the four of us, and we all have varying degrees of emotions on our faces. Luke is smiling, holding Melanie tight against his side. I’m on the other side of him while Sebastian stands in front of us. There’s a sense of relief that is evident on my face, but I can see the strain in my smile. Sebastian is staring up at Luke as though he can’t really believe he’s there in the flesh again. Melanie is her normal sweet self, just happy her daddy is home. What’s the most striking is the way that Luke is staring at me. I know he loved me—that was never a question—but there’s a mix of awe and so much love in his expression as he gazes at me while I stare forward, not able to look at him.
“You don’t look happy,” Jacob remarks as his thumb grazes my cheek.
I lift the frame, remembering that day. “It was the longest deployment we had ever done. I remember getting dressed to go and not caring about anything other than beingdone.”
“What do you mean?”
I hated this deployment. I hated everything. “Homecomings are a mix of emotions. There is so much uncertainty, frustration, relief, and anxiety.”
“I figured they were a big party. That’s what it was like when Connor returned.”
I shake my head and give him a small smile. “For single guys, they are. For the married guys, so much changes while they are gone that it’s an adjustment for everyone once the joy wears off. He was so ready to come home and have everything be normal again, and I just couldn’t muster the energy to be happy about that. Every time Luke left, we all had to learn to deal. Our daily routines were thrown off, and we had to find a way to make it through. We’d settle into it, get our home running, and then he’d come back, once again, throwing it off. This deployment was supposed to be six months, but then he got stop-lossed twice because of issues with other squadrons, and it ended up being eighteen months. As the kids were bouncing in their seats to see their dad, I was dreading it.”
His hand finds mine, and we lace our fingers together. A simple gesture that offers the support I need to get through this. The emotions of that day were ones that I struggled with admitting to myself. With Jacob, I don’t feel guilty. It’s as if I know he won’t judge me and maybe he’ll even understand it.
“Because you were tired.”
I look up, his piercing green eyes with yellow flecks stare back at me. “Yes.”
“And you felt guilty about it?”
