Page 19 of Next Time I Fall (Excess All Areas 2)

When he returned, he placed the wine in front of Cerys. “Probably not as nice as the stuff you were drinking earlier.”

Cerys looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you, Jason.”

Jason.

Hardly anybody ever called him that. His nan when he was in trouble. His teachers at school. For a second, he thought she might see him, all of him, but then he chased the thought away.

Nobody did.

Not his own family. Not Matt. Not Izabel.

Definitely not Izabel.

His stomach curdled at the thought of how he’d fucked that up.

But then he looked back at Cerys with her soft smile, and the pain that had pierced his chest dissipated.

“You were about to tell Ben why you were alone on your birthday.”

Cerys shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. My dad was a no-show.”

Alex scowled. “Did he have a good reason?”

“Didn’t even call her,” Jase said.

Alex slowly turned his pint glass. “Well, that’s some fucked-up shit.”

Jase saw Cerys’s shoulders lift and drop. “It’s complicated. And it’s very unprofessional of me to speak about him with you. Let’s just chalk that slip up to one too many drinks.”

“How come you’re Welsh and your dad’s American?” Ben asked.

Cerys turned to him. “Let’s not hold back on the personal questions there, Ben.”

“Okay. I’ll go first. Me and Alex are brothers. Our mum, Patricia, is named after our Nan’s brother, Patrick, who died in a mining accident when a pit collapsed. My mum’s sister, Jase and Matt’s mum, is alive but isn’t around. Our dad is a dickhead who, thankfully, spends half his time on an offshore rig in the Irish Sea. No one’s family ever makes total sense.”

Cerys turned her attention to him. “Your mum isn’t around?”

Jase shook his head. “She’s been gone so long that I only have vague memories of her, so you can lose that puppy-dog eyes thing you’ve got going on. Nan’s the best, even though she has me and Matt to deal with.”

Alex threw his arm over Jase’s shoulder. “And believe me, she’s had a lot to put up with.”

“Fine. My mum is Welsh. She was a backing singer back in the day, a great one, with a beautiful voice. Dad met her at a session, he was eleven years older. Wooed her, got her pregnant, then went back to the States. He’s been back in my life exactly thirty-five days since I moved here to connect with him and work with him for three months.” She shrugged and smiled, but Jase could feel the effort it took. “We’re just learning how to coexist.”

God, he’d been such a shitty individual, saying those things to her about her dad as she’d made her tea.

He wanted to reach for her hand, and felt compelled to offer her something. Anything. “Well, far be it for me to call your dad a dick,” Jase said. “But you can’t learn how to coexist if you don’t show up.”

“I have an idea,” Ben said, raising his glass. “The three of us will show up for Cerys’s birthday. And we’ll coexist over many more rounds until this birthday is properly celebrated. Happy birthday, Cerys.”

Two hours later, while Alex and Ben were at the bar chatting to a couple of girls, Jase watched as Cerys closed one eye and then the other. “You okay there?”

Cerys groaned. “The room is starting to spin.”

Jase eased out of the booth and offered her his hand. “In that case, we should get you bundled up and home.”

Once she was on her feet, she stumbled and placed both palms on his chest. “Oh, your chest is very solid.”

He bit back a grim smile. “You can thank my anger management strategies for that. I work out. A lot.”

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