Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,135

must have heard something in his tone, because he sobered right up. “You would make a great father.”

“Did you know that children who come from abusive situations are thirty to forty percent more likely to become abusers themselves?”

“I did not, but I’m not surprised. Shit that happens when you’re a kid can fuck you up.” He laughed, but this time there was no genuine mirth in it. “Look at me.” Before Jay could protest that Cam seemed to be getting his act together, he added, “Which is funny because of the two of us, you have way more cause to be a fuckup. They were both gone before I was born.”

They referred to Jay’s father and to Cam’s father, Angus, who’d left when their mom was pregnant with Cam. After years of emotional abuse and manipulation, he’d hit her one day—in front of eleven-year-old Jay—and she’d finally sent him packing. Cam’s dad shoved their mom so hard that day that Jay had worried constantly about the fate of his unborn baby brother until the moment his mom came home from the hospital and placed him in Jay’s arms.

It was funny. He had one emblematic memory of each man, and in both cases, it was the day he left. Jay’s dad had not left after a fit of physical violence like Angus, but in some ways the wounds he had left ran deeper. That day was still crystal clear in Jay’s mind. His dad and mom had been fighting—more than usual. His dad had packed his shit into his truck, shrugging off his mom’s pleas to stay and try to work things out.

“What about Jay?” she’d said, once she’d finally accepted that he was going.

His dad had asked for a word with him alone, which his mom had granted.

Jay had tried so hard not to cry. Crying in front of his dad was never a good idea. It was a sure way to earn his disgust.

So he had been shocked when, despite the tears he could not hold back, his dad looked him in the eye and said, “Sorry, kid. It was inevitable. We Smiths are leavers. My dad left my mom. I guess it’s my turn now. So how do you want to play this? Do you want to pretend that we’re going to have a relationship? And I’ll see you one or two more times before I tap out? Or do you want to just call it here?”

“I want to just call it here,” he had responded. It had been a lie. Even though his dad was an asshole, he was still his dad. But, ironically, Jay had thought that was the answer that would make his dad think more highly of him.

Jesus, that was fucked up. As an adult, he could see just how much.

He consoled himself that he was ending that cycle. If you didn’t have kids, you couldn’t leave them. That’s what people like Stacey didn’t understand.

“Anyway,” Cam went on, pulling Jay from his memories. “You’ve always said you don’t want kids. So what’s happening?”

“Nothing.”

It was the truth. Nothing was happening. What was the matter with him? Okay, he had a crush on a woman who was too young for him based on the rules he’d established for himself. But how had he gotten from that to this overwrought stroll down memory lane?

Even if he allowed something to happen with Elise—not now, but when she was done with the job—it was still nothing. If he allowed this attraction to go somewhere, it didn’t mean they were going to have kids.

He thought of Elise’s tendency to scrape her teeth against her lower lip.

He had been thinking about that a lot lately.

Maybe Stacey was right. Maybe he could relax his rule just a little. Just this once.

“You’ve met a girl!” Cam the mind reader said triumphantly, sounding every bit the annoying younger brother. “What’s her name?”

“Never mind.”

“Never mind? Hmm. Jay and Never Mind sitting in a tree…I don’t know, dude, it doesn’t sound too good. Maybe you should keep looking.”

Shit. Now that he had given the idea a few seconds of airtime in his mind, he couldn’t shake it.

He couldn’t shake her.

And suddenly he didn’t even want to try anymore. He just wanted to give in.

But not now. Not while she was still working for him. He was willing to bend one rule, but not that one. He wasn’t the kind of man who exploited his position of power like that. So he would have to wait. Exercise