Page 26 of Jasper
Damn, it is even worse than I imagined. I knew the roof was a hot mess, but I didn’t know it was this far gone. I should have climbed up there and had a look for myself.
I don’t say anything else. I just turn and go back inside, feeling a little defeated.
In the kitchen, I lean on my kitchen counter with both hands. It sometimes feels like every facet of my life is falling apart. What with my gran being sick, getting fewer shifts at the diner, and worrying about the curveball thrown my way over the surrogacy, I’ve had my hands full lately. And I’m constantly dropping the ball.
My frustration starts to get the better of me, and it comes out in the form of nervous energy. I need to do something to take my mind off it. Cleaning and cooking are usually my go-to activities for dealing with anxiety. I begin wiping counters that are already clean. The cabinet doors get organized, then reorganized. The fridge is next.
After a couple of hours, I’ve got bread rising on the stove and a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven.
My mind keeps going back to Jasper just dropping down on me like Batman and doing very expensive home repairs—ones I could never afford on my own. The thing is, I don’t want to owe him anything, especially control over me or my life. My ex always made it seem like he was doing me a favor, one I couldn’t turn down without hurting his feelings, but all his unasked-for favors came with strings attached. The strings usually involved controlling me in some way.
I don’t want that, especially with a man like Jasper. He’s a virtual stranger, and I don’t want to cede that much control over to him. Why should he be making decisions for me when I’m perfectly capable of making decisions for myself? After him and then the Whitmores, I’ve had enough of people—and especially men—who act like they know what’s best for me. Jasper doesn’t raise his voice or throw his weight around, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t trying to take control. Even though he’s doing something kind, I still feel like he’s running over me.
I stop removing food from the pan long enough to haul in a few deep breaths. Suddenly, most of the annoyance drains from my body. Jasper isn’t my ex, or Mr. Whitmore, or his exceptionally controlling wife. He’s just a guy who wanted to do me a favor out of the kindness of his heart. And I got annoyed with him when I should have thanked him.
When lunchtime rolls around, Jasper and his club brothers haven’t slowed down once. They’re fast, loud, and jovial as they work. I’ve been watching them through the kitchen window, climbing down to pick up more supplies at a steady pace all morning. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t impressed.
I’m not reading anything into it because he’s just doing a good deed for the woman carrying his child. If I’m being honestwith myself, it’s a gigantic favor because he’s paying for the supplies and providing the labor for free.
So, I decide to thank them by making two big platters of sandwiches, stacked high with meat and cheese. I fill up a gallon jug full of sweet tea and load up glasses with ice. Lastly, I fill up a container with my fresh-baked cookies and throw it all on a tray with a pile of napkins. Then I tote it all out to my back patio and set it on my six-person patio table.
Chapter 10
Jasper
Iget busy with a crowbar, pulling up the tiles from Tessa’s roof, only to discover that it’s a dry-rotted mess up here. We’ll have to pull everything down to the frame and likely have to replace some of the wood there before adding the plywood, felt, tar, and shingles. It’s shaping up to be a long, arduous process for me and four prospects. But at least it’ll give me time to process getting dressed down by the mother of my child over showing up with a fuck-ton of supplies and a crew without bothering to notify her of my plan, much less bothering to ask if it was okay.
The sun’s already burning off the morning dew. Sweat gathers around my collar and begins to run down the center of my back. I don’t mind, though, because a little hard work has never bothered me.
The prospects are working like a well-oiled machine, and I’m up here doing what I said I’d do. Fixing her roof is a priority for me because I want to make sure the mother of my kid doesn’t have fuckin’ mold in the rafters or rain leaking in over her head. But after doing some deep soul searching, I realize that none of that changes the fact that I messed up.
Tessa told it to me straight the minute she saw what I was up to this morning. She was bold, articulate, and a little peeved at me, but she didn’t lose her shit like some women do. There was no screaming, or accusing me of being an asshole, crying to get her way, or any of the other dramatic bullshit. She just spoke herpiece and left us to it. That’s what I call respect—for yourself and for the other person.
I’ve always been nursing some kind of fucked-up hero complex. I think if a woman needs something and I rush to do it without asking, she’ll swoon over how take-charge I am. When in reality, women these days don’t want a man to take charge. Hell, maybe they never did? She wanted to be treated like an equal and participate in decisions that affect her. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
But instead of doing that, I showed up with a truck full of supplies, a crew of prospects in cuts, to execute a plan I never ran by her. Because in my world, I’m used to just gettin’ shit done. You see something broken, you fix it. You don’t wait around to ask permission and wait while they fret about whether accepting your help is the right thing to do.
But Tessa’s not part of my club. She’s not a brother who knows the rules. She’s not one of the club girls or hang-arounds, happy for whatever attention and favors I see fit to bestow upon them.
She’s a woman who’s going through some shit—with the Whitmores, and her gran being sick, carrying my kid. I didn’t even think to knock on her door before turning her driveway into a construction site.
I shove the last of the shingles off the roof. My jaw’s tight. The sun’s high enough now that it glares straight into my eyes, but I don’t shift. I have to figure out how to make this right again. I don’t want a pissed-off pregnant lady on my hands. And she doesn’t deserve to be rubbed raw by the headstrong VP of an MC most people consider terrifying.
Some small, stupid part of my brain still wants to argue with her that I did the right thing. That I showed up, I’m putting in the work, and the house is gonna be safer because of me. But the cold, hard truth is, I took control and expected her to be okay with it. Yeah, I’m fucking stubborn that way. I like getting my own way. I’ve also been taught that talk is cheap, so I got into the habit of proving myself through actions rather than words. And that shit might fly in the club where I practically rule the roost, but not when it comes to soft, pretty outsiders like Tessa.
I know what it’s like to be boxed in by good intentions. To have someone step up and take the wheel because they think they know best. Hell, that was my whole lived experience growing up with Rock as my dad. He ran roughshod over everyone because he was club president and the father of our household. I should know better than anyone what that feels like. Maybe it’s because I grew up this way, it’s a blind spot for me. Or fuck, maybe I just lack empathy full stop.
Whatever my malfunction is, I’m gonna fix it real damn quick. Tessa fought to keep my child when the Whitmores wanted her to get rid of it, and then, against her better judgment, agreed to be a surrogate for a big fuckin’ scary biker. She went out on a limb for me. That means I owe her my fuckin’ best.
Trigger calls out from a few feet down the ridge. “This beam is in bad shape. Looks water damaged. It’s brittle, and I don’t know how long it’s gonna last. We need to replace the whole beam.”
“We’re doin’ this job the right way,” I say, keeping my voice even. “When it comes to Tessa, we don’t half-ass nothin’.”
He nods and gets back to work without questioning or second-guessing me. That’s because I’ve proven myself andearned their respect. The prospects and my club brothers trust my judgment and decision-making ability. Unfortunately, I haven’t earned shit from Tessa. So naturally, I’m gonna have to work on that.
The first step is to apologize. No half-assed jokes or awkwardly rushed ones either. I need to discipline myself to sit her down and do it right. I want to be the kind of father this kid needs. And the kind of man she doesn’t have to worry about being a bad role model or someone she looks at like he’s another problem to manage. I need to respect her the same way she respects me. Show her that I’m adaptable and she’s safe talking to me about real-life problems.
I run my hand down my face, grit clinging to my palm. The heat is making everything feel dry, and my throat is parched. I yell down for one of the prospects to toss me up a bottle of water from our cooler. I frown when I get a weird bottle of sparkling water in a club bottle. Cursing under my breath, I twist the top off and take a long swig of the ice-cold water. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, so I stand there two stories up and drink the whole liter down.
