Page 91 of Next Time I Fall (Excess All Areas 2)

“It feels like five minutes since I ran you over, and yet—yes, everything you just said makes absolute perfect sense. And, even crazier, is that falling in love with you seems to be inevitable.”

Jase’s eyes softened. “Unexpected, right?”

Cerys sighed. “Very unexpected.”

“So, I move in tonight. Move out to fly home. And sometime during the month after that, you tell me where you’re going to be living, and we figure out how to make it work, yeah?”

“That’s quite some morning you laid on me, Jase.”

“Yeah, well. Not sure waking up to you snoring in my armpit was how I imagined it was going to go, but there’s a rightness to it I’m not going to fight. Feels like I spent the last twenty years fighting shit that didn’t need fighting.”

Cerys laughed and shook her head. “I’m still baffled by how you can say something that shouldn’t make me feel good about myself, yet does. I was not snoring in your armpit, but I’ll agree with the rightness of it.”

A black town car with the band in it pulled up by the entrance.

“We should go in,” she said.

Once they’d gotten their bags from the car, Cerys hurried to the studio door to get in ahead of the band.

“Morning, Cerys,” Ben said as he tugged his coat collar tight around his neck.

“Morning, guys,” she said.

“Oh, and Cerys,” Jase shouted from where he leaned against the trunk of the car.

“Yeah.”

All eyes turned to look at him. “Little Jase agrees with the rightness of it too.”

Even as her cheeks flushed, and whoops of laughter filled her ears, she grinned as she let herself into the building.

“Cerys, do you have a minute?” Jimmy asked.

“I do. What’s up?”

“Two things. I spoke to my parents about you.”

Since her maternal grandmother had passed away three years earlier, she’d gotten used to a world that was just her and her mum. “How were they?”

“I’ll save you the full play-by-play. Pissed at me. Anxious to come meet you. I’ve got them a flight next Saturday. We need to get this album finished without distraction.”

Despite her racing heart and the ticking clock of Jase’s departure, she agreed with his logic. “Makes sense. Once the band are gone, I’ll have a bit more time to spend with them.”

“Yeah, distractions are tough in this game. To both you and Jase. He really needs to focus, here. And you’ll need to focus on finding work when you get home while he goes to promote the album.”

“I know what you’re getting at, Jimmy. I’m glad I’m going to meet and learn more about my grandparents. And I hear your concerns about Jase. I’ll keep them in mind.”

It was hard to reconcile how in five minutes, she’d gone from being on cloud nine— that Jase and she were going to spend the rest of their time here together—to hearing a warning from her father that it might be all they had.

15

The bed was empty. And it hadn’t been for the last three days since Jase moved in. Usually, his body crowded hers with his morning wood tucked tightly up against the cheeks of her butt.

She patted his side of the bed. The sheets were cool.

“Motherfucker.” The muttered curse and the clang of pots from the kitchen made her smile.

Slipping out of bed, she reached for his T-shirt and pulled it on over her head.

---