Page 124 of Next Time I Fall (Excess All Areas 2)

Adrenaline flooded his system.

Waves.

It was getting easier and easier to withstand them. But this was a big one. He caught up with Jimmy before he reached the toilet door. “Jimmy. Can I have a word?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

Jase took a breath, calling to mind the look on Cerys’s face when she’d first arrived. “Look. I know you want to look out for Cerys. I can’t blame you. I want to look out for her too. But I need you to stop being this devil on her shoulder whispering about how I’m going to fuck her over.”

“Jase,” Jimmy said, putting his hands up. “All I can go on is what I know.”

“But here’s where you are ... misguided. You don’t know me. What you’re doing is projecting. I didn’t hurt her. I’ve never hurt her. You have. Repeatedly, for quarter of a century. That’s on you, not me.”

A pulse throbbed on Jimmy’s temple. “And I’m trying to make it right. I worked with her. I’m investing in her career. I’m doing everything right to make sure I don’t hurt her again. You think I build recording studios in other countries on a whim?”

He didn’t want to fight with Jimmy, he wanted him to understand. “So, you get the right to try and rebuild a relationship with her after fucking her over. But I don’t get a first shot to have a relationship with her after never hurting her? What would happen if I started poisoning her about you? Telling her you’ll let her down again. How it’s too far to maintain a new relationship across and ocean? How she’s just your current project, but you’ll get bored with her? Would that be fair?”

“Christ, Palmer.” Jimmy looked devastated.

“You need to cut me some slack. I’m not ready to call you Dad yet, but at some point in the future, we’ll be related. When she comes to see you, it may well be with me. You want to come see her here, I’m likely going to be around. I don’t have a dad. Never had anything close to a father figure. And as they go, I think you’d be a half-decent one if you just pulled your head out of your arse.”

“You’re that serious about her?”

“More serious about her than anything else in my life. I love her, Jimmy. One day, I’ll come see you on my own again and it will be to tell you I’m marrying her.”

“You’ll come and ask,” Jimmy stated.

Jase shrugged. “Whether I ask you, tell you, or just fucking do it, will all depend on the relationship you and I have. How much we respect each other. Not the relationship you and her have.”

Jimmy sighed and offered his hand to Jase. “You’re right. Let’s start this over.”

Jase shook it. “Deal.”

“Just, for god’s sake, don’t call me Dad.”

“Daddy? Pops? Oh, we could go formal with Father, or—”

“Shut up, Jase.”

Jase grinned as he walked back into the restaurant.

Later that night, as Cerys fell apart beneath him and he claimed his own release, he realised his words to Jimmy had been sincere.

Him. Cerys. Rings and vows.

“Fuck, Cerys,” he gasped, savouring the way she clenched him, the way she knew instinctively whether he needed her nails down his back, or her palms holding him close.

Palms, tonight. And the feeling of there not being a millimetre of air between them.

As he buried his nose into her neck, he sucked in air, gaining control of his breath again. “I’m going to marry you one day.”

Her hands stopped moving on his back. “You are?”

Jase took his weight in his arms and kissed her. “I am. I’m going to enjoy every single first until we get to that moment, but I’m just cluing you in to my plans.”

Cerys smiled up at him and placed her palms on his cheeks. “There are firsts?”

“Yeah. First holiday. First Christmas. First big tour, first production studio opening. Lots of firsts.”

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