The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,43
I went limp in protest, dropping my arms to my side like noodles, and it made him laugh harder.
“You just don’t realize the effect you have on musicians, Sloan Monroe. So…when do I get to musically assault you?”
I narrowed my eyes, but he kissed me, smiling against my unresponsive, protesting lips. Normally his close proximity made me swoon, but his laughing made me just indignant enough to hold my ground.
“I come bearing gifts,” he whispered, an inch from my mouth, still cracking up.
“It better be good. I’m about ready to throw you into the laundry room with Tucker.”
He let me go, picking up a plastic bag from the steps, and handed it to me, his eyes sparkling. I looked inside and gasped. It was full of tiny creamers.
“I bought five coffees for these,” he said. “When I hit the creamer station, I felt like a Viking on a raid.”
I beamed. “Jason, you pillaged for me? This is so sweet!” But when he leaned in, I turned my face to the side. “Where are my five coffees?”
“Gas station coffee? For a connoisseur like you? I wouldn’t dare.” Then he reached down, around the side of my front porch flowerpot with the petrified geraniums in it, and produced a warm Starbucks cup.
I looked at it and held my breath. “That’s so thoughtful.” I raised my eyes to his. “But I can’t have caffeine this late.”
He smiled. “I know. It’s decaf.”
I had to clutch a hand over my heart. “You realize that repeatedly bringing me my favorite coffee is comparable to feeding a stray cat, right? You might never get rid of me now.”
“Good,” he said, pulling me close to kiss me with an enormous grin. “I was hoping for something like that.”
* * *
After dinner, we watched Top Gun. I rolled my eyes in the right place. Jason had his arm around me and we were snuggled deep into the sofa with a blanket over our laps. Tucker was curled up next to me, sleeping.
The living room was clear. I’d spent last night packing everything into the car. This morning I’d dropped it all off at Goodwill, bracing myself for the punch in the heart, but it never came. And I realized it was actually a relief to let it all go, like I’d been carrying it on my back all this time.
Then I washed my car, because, you know, my car. I couldn’t let Jason see one more unattractive thing about me. I was sure he had a limit somewhere, and my Corolla was enough to make any man run screaming from the garage—not that Jason seemed to care what kind of dumpster fire I was. He’d never met the best version of me, and for some reason he still seemed to want to be here. I was a ghost, wandering the rooms of a museum of the person I used to be, and Jason was like one of the living who could somehow see me and decided to wander the place with me.
I liked that he was willing to wander the place with me.
He twined his fingers in mine on top of the blanket, and I put my head on his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, and I could feel him looking down on me long after he finished. I smiled to myself.
Being with Jason in the house I’d shared with Brandon didn’t feel strange. I’d lived here alone four times longer than Brandon had ever lived here with me. But I think the biggest part of it was that even when all his stuff had still been here, this place didn’t feel like Brandon’s. It didn’t even feel like mine.
I’d realized something in the past two days. This house was a mausoleum. And not for the man I lost—for myself.
Once I took out everything that belonged to Brandon, all that was left behind was remnants of me—and it wasn’t the me of now, it was the me of back then. The happy me who’d hung shadow boxes and cooked in the kitchen. The one who painted actual, dignified works of art that I was proud enough to hang on walls. These little mementos were all around me, small reminders of a woman I hadn’t seen since Brandon took off on his motorcycle that morning and never came home. And the thing was I wanted to be that whole again. I missed myself.
I missed being happy.
Tonight was the first time I’d cooked anything that actually required effort