Take Me 01 - Love Me

to a pop song he'd often heard playing at the hospital. Violet and Sam were dressed in ribbons and fabric and Janica was holding their hands and spinning in a circle.
    He swore to God he'd never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in his entire life.
    He loved her.
    Nothing had ever been so perfectly, blatantly obvious.
    All these years he'd tried to tell himself she was all about taking. But he'd been blindly, stupidly wrong about her.
    She'd given and given to him, never once asking anything for herself. And looking at her with her niece and nephew, seeing, knowing how completely open and joyous she was with them, the truth hit him like a ton of bricks.
    He'd lied to himself all those years—wasting each and every one of them—to try and keep himself safe. Safe from losing someone he loved again.
    When it turned out that the only true safety he'd known since he was ten years old was with Janica.
    It didn't make any sense. He wasn't at all sure how—or if—she would fit into his world, but none of that seemed to matter anymore. If the two of them had to go live on a remote island to make it work, that's what they'd do.
    Travis came around the corner just then, clapping him on the shoulder. “Hey bro. Just in time for the grilling to begin.”
    That was when Janica looked up and finally saw him, her eyes going wide, her face flushing an even deeper shade of rose.
    He didn't answer his brother. Instead, he walked straight over to the woman who meant everything to him. The woman who had given him her heart again and again.
    “I—”
    The part of him that still couldn't believe he was going to say it—to Janica of all people!—made him pause.
    Damn it. What was wrong with him?
    She needs to know how you feel. And then maybe, if you're the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet, she'll take you back. Just spit it out already. You might not have picked her, but that doesn't matter anymore. It wasn't your choice to love her, but that doesn't change the fact that you do.
    It isn't going to kill you to say it, to admit the way you really feel. Maybe it will even save you.
    “I love you.”
    The kids continued to dance around her as the song played on, but Janica just stood there and stared at him.
    Why wasn't she throwing herself in his arms? Why wasn't she saying the words back to him.
    “I love you,” he said again. “I can't help myself. I've tried for so hard, for so long to stop feeling what I feel for you, but the truth is I've never been able to help myself, Janica. It shouldn't have taken me this long to figure out that I love you. So much, sweetheart.”
    The tension between them grew so palpable that even the kids stopped dancing. Lily, Travis, and both kids stood in silence, all of them waiting for what came next.
    Finally, Janica dropped the children's hands and moved toward him. His heart had just started to beat again when she said, “Thank you for letting me know.”
    And then, instead of walking into his arms, she walked past them.
    All the way out the door.
    And out of his life.

    * * *

    He heard Travis say, “Take the kids, Lily,” and then his brother was right there in his face.
    “What the hell was that?” His twin was incredulous.
    “I love her.”
    And he'd lost her.
    Travis shook his head, looking more confused than he ever had. “I don't get it. You and Janica? How? When? Where?”
    “A few weeks ago. I went to her apartment.”
    He'd been in pain and she'd been the person he'd turned to. The only person who could give him what he must have known he desperately needed.
    Not just her body.
    But her heart too.
    “She's right, you know. I don't deserve her.”
    “Look, Luke. I don't know what the hell is going on with the two of you, but you've got to see that it could never have worked between the two of you. I mean, Janica is—”
    He had his brother's shirt in his hands so quickly neither of them saw it coming. “Janica is what?”
    After thirty-five years of Travis playing the tough guy and Luke playing the nice guy, everything switched in an instant.
    “Say it,” Luke dared his twin, wanting nothing more than to pound his brother's face into the pavement.
    Clearly seeing the raw violence pounding through Luke's veins, Travis backed down. “I'm sorry, man. I like her. You know I do. I'm just surprised by your coming here and saying that to her.”
    Luke forced himself to drop his brother's shirt. “Tell Lily I'm sorry I can't stay.”

Chapter Twenty-two

    An hour later