Page 51 of A Journey For Jasmine

Then he reminded himself he had to do that to make this successful. Not just for him but for his mother too.

“You left early yesterday. I assumed you had plans with Jasmine,” she said.

He should have figured that was what she was coming to talk about.

“I did,” he said. “You’ve told me more than once to not be all about work and get out and play.”

She laughed at him. “I have. I’m glad to hear you are finally listening to me. You shouldn’t be working seven days a week as it is.”

“I won’t do it forever,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve got much more going on. Though it was nice to have the afternoon with Jasmine.”

“Things are going well?”

“They are,” he said.

His mother tilted her head a little and he hoped to hell she didn’t ask him if they’d been intimate. There were just some things you didn’t discuss with your mother. Not even as a teen.

Hell, he’d been on his own more than most in his teenage years.

His parents were divorced by then. When he was spending time with his father, it wasn’t like they were doing much. His father had another wife and family. Wesley felt like the redheaded stepchild with warts on his nose and pimples all over his face.

The older he got, the more activities he had in his life and his visits were fewer and fewer and he didn’t have that headache anymore.

When he’d started to move up in his career and was making a lot more than his father ever would, then his father would show up and be nice. And hint toward things being tough having kids in college now.

He tried to be the better person and not comment. It’s not like his father had paid for his education. His mother did.

And when the lawsuit over Noelle’s death was settled and he’d found out how much he was getting, his father started to get even cozier than he’d been the years prior while he knew there was the potential of a big payday.

Wesley didn’t want or need anyone around for money.

“Can you safely say you’re dating?” his mother asked.

He laughed. “I thought we’d established that already.”

“True,” she said. “How are you holding up?”

Now he knew what this was about.

The same thing that made him pause when he was putting his bathing suit on yesterday.

He’d seen Noelle’s picture on his bedside table and quickly put it in the drawer.

There was a moment of panic and pain in his heart, but he knew it wasn’t right to have his late wife’s picture there looking at him when he was planning on getting in bed with another woman.

He’d had to stop and think if he had other pictures of Noelle hanging in the house and realized he didn’t. He’d packed them all up in boxes and never took them out when he moved.

It was too painful, he’d told himself. But then he started to wonder if it had more to do with him really needing to move on.

Subconsciously, he was ready. Or so he hoped.

No, he was.

Jasmine had been wonderfully patient with him. He couldn’t have asked for a better person to introduce him back into the dating scene.

But when he thought of it that way, he didn’t want to be in the dating scene. He liked what he had with her and wanted that to continue.

“I’m fine,” he said.

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