Pretty Sweet - Christina Lee Page 0,97

but something was missing, something still didn’t feel right, and I knew exactly what that was.

“You should talk to him,” Mom said.

“How did you know I was thinking about him?” Mom and I had talked about Jake more than once over the week. I didn’t give her all the details, but I told her that he was trying to protect me when I wanted to take care of myself. The last thing I needed was for her to think the Underground was dangerous.

“You got that dreamy look on your face I used to get when I thought about your dad. God, I loved him.”

Hearing her admit it was a shock to the system. I pulled her into a hug, which she returned. “I know you did. I’d like to…maybe I can make a trip home before school in the fall. I haven’t been to Dad’s grave in a long time.”

“I’d like that.” Mom wiped a single tear from her eye. I was surprised she’d even let that one out. “But…back to you and your current situation. I don’t know what happened between you guys, of course. And I’m not trying to tell you what to do here. It’s just mother-son advice. I can see you miss him. You love him. You should talk to him. I know he didn’t give you what you needed in that moment, but from what you’ve said, it’s clear he loves you. And I guess…well, I guess I get that because I’ve been far from perfect, but I love you very much. That isn’t an excuse. It doesn’t mean we should accept people hurting us, but—”

“I know what you’re saying, Mom.” Jake was a good man. A caring man. And God, I missed him. I also loved this moment, having this conversation with my mom. “Are you ready to go?”

Mom chuckled. “Okay. I’ll mind my own business.”

We were driving back to my apartment, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Jake, about what my mom said, about Saturday night, about everything. When I pulled into a parking spot, I didn’t turn off the car. “Mom, I…”

“Go on. I don’t want you to be like me. I was angry at your father for days before he passed. I was stubborn and didn’t speak to him because he wasn’t doing what I wanted him to do, and then he died. It’s one of my biggest regrets—that I didn’t tell him I loved him. That the last words we spoke were in anger. One would have thought I’d learned that lesson, but I didn’t, not until coming here and talking to you.”

“He knew you loved him.”

“He still needed to hear it,” she said, the same thing I’d told her about myself. Mom leaned over, kissed my cheek, and got out of the car.

Ridiculously, my hands were shaking as I drove to Jake’s house. I didn’t know what would happen when I got there. I just knew I needed to see him, needed to tell him how I felt.

I was even more nervous when I got out of the car at his house, when I knocked on the door. His truck was out front, and I knew he would have gotten home from work not long ago.

A moment later, he pulled the door open. He was wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt, his hair wet, probably just having gotten out of the shower.

My words caught in my throat and my heart pounded as we stood there looking at each other.

“Hey,” Jake finally said.

“Hi. Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Jake stepped aside, and I went.

The second he had the door closed, we turned to face each other. “I’m sorry,” we said simultaneously, then chuckled.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” Jake lifted his hand as if to cup my cheek, then dropped it, as though unsure he was allowed. That one gesture reinforced everything I already knew about him.

“We are.” I reached over and twined our fingers together. I loved the feel of my smaller hand in his. With a gentle tug, I headed toward the couch, and Jake followed.

“I think I need to explain my reactions from the other night.”

“I get it. I overstepped—”

“We both could have done things differently,” I told him. “These past couple of months with you have been the happiest of my life. It sparked something inside me I’d been searching for and didn’t know it. I started to come into my own in ways I never thought I would, started wanting to be…more, if that makes sense.