Eye of the Storms (Eye of the Storms #1) (11 page)

Considerately, Jack gave me a rundown of the food choices, and I found it difficult to select while being too engaged by the sound of his voice.

“Cool,” was his acknowledgment when I finally spoke. Then, “What to drink?”

“Tea. Unsweet.”

“Unsweet?” His exclamation rebounded without pause.

“Yes please, if they have it.”

“I thought sweet tea was a South thing. You sure you’re a southern girl?”

My already growling stomach rumbled for reasons non-hunger related at that husky barb. “Last time I checked, I cud still get a y’all on better’n any gurl in this neck o’ the woods.”

The stress over Tristan was obviously mixing with nerves due to Jack’s presence. What seemed like mild flirtation between us also had me edgy. Before I could blurt anything else equally ridiculous, I bit my lip.

His response was not disappointing; his voice dropped another pitch and decibel. “That’s for damn sure, Mariss.”

My stomach lurched again. Although I was not sure what he meant, or if he even meant anything, his comment seemed sexy and flattering.

And until now, the last time I had heard him say Mariss had been five years ago…

In the pause that followed, the sounds of the cafeteria filtered through. I heard him phrase a polite thank you to someone, and then he spoke back into the phone. “Want dessert? Never mind. Stupid question. Everyone wants dessert. See you in a sec.” And with that sweet promise, he dropped the call before I could refuse whatever sweet delectable goodness he was looking at.

A prickle of awareness was becoming familiar, and several minutes later, my vision turned from absent-minded ‘people watching’ back to the hallway. I savored his approach with as much hunger as I had devoured his exit– an appetite that had nothing to do with the containers of food he balanced in both hands.

The moment his attention swung my way, I averted my eyes to the television, hopefully before he saw my mouthwatering stare.

Side by side, we flipped opened Styrofoam lids, and before the steam even fully escaped, I forked my first bite of lasagna, swallowing it whole. Jack was tearing up a hamburger and french fries as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

Putting a straw to his lips, he pulled a long sip from his drink and winced. “Either our drinks are switched, or this is the worst tea ever.” Sweet tea was obviously his preference. Mentally, I ticked off another fact about him that I had been too flustered to absorb during the cafeteria phone flirtation.

Barely pausing in the shovel of another bite into my mouth, I passed him the cardboard cup that I hadn’t touched since placing it on the tiny table. We made the exchange. As long as it was in my hand, I took a drink, and with one swallow, felt the intimacy of drinking after him. Every tiny detail where he was concerned was becoming major, and with determination, I set the distraction aside and bit off a chunk of garlic bread.

Jack ate the last of his fries, three or four at a time. He finished his meal way before I was done, and he passed over a small, round container of peach cobbler before digging into and wiping out his own dessert of the same. My taste buds screamed with delight, and my brain screamed in reproach, calculating every calorie of every bite.

After our meal, I gathered the trash and tossed it into a receptacle on the way to the restroom. Once the immediate need was out of the way, I stood at the vanity, taking in my reflection. The outfit flattered all the right curves, and although my face looked pinched with worry and fatigue, this was a good hair day. Immediately, I felt guilty for caring. This was a hospital, not a hang fest.

Jack was in the hallway on his phone when I pulled open the door, possibly having come from the adjacent lavatory before receiving or making the call. He was walking away, but his husky drawl clearly carried in his wake. “Love you too.”

Pivoting, I retreated to the bathroom and tiredly braced my hands on either side of one of the sinks as I steeled myself against what I’d just heard.

Nothing he had done today would suggest he was still interested enough in me, that he would invite me to LA all over again, and that he would want to raise Tristan with me. These things had subconsciously become my fantasy over the last few years, my ‘what if’ over the last few weeks, and my hope in the last few hours.

Taking out my phone, I sent a belated text to Olivia, letting her know Tristan had roused, was well, and I would talk to her later.
Or cry on her shoulder.
The amendment came into my thoughts as the recollection of Jack’s deep voice reverberated the disturbing words. Words that likely meant my only future with him was in my fantasies. And words forcing me to acknowledge a flicker of hope had somehow manifested during the last few hours.

Love you too.

Pasting a bored expression on my face, I returned to my seat and bent to wipe breadcrumbs from my chair before sitting. Jack’s admiring gaze seemed to discreetly hover on my chest area. Again, my memories tumbled back to the sex with him, the feel of his teeth, tongue, lips, callused fingers…

Taking up our phones, we stayed quiet, intermittently pecking at the glass screens while watching a sitcom on the television screen. Before long, I noticed Jack had fallen asleep.

A new voyeuristic side of me emerged. Without shame, I studied the sleeping planes of his face. My previous fatigue dissipated as his breathing evened out and his muscles relaxed deeper into the chair cushion.

The trance I fell into, while studying dark brows against a tanned forehead and taking in equally dark lashes against ruddy cheeks, felt oddly familiar.

There were piercings in his ear but no adornments today. The ponytail had worked its way out of the back of the jacket and now fell over the hanging hood. My eyes touched over his clothing, knowing too well what it covered, and came back to his face. Yet again, my heart felt a touch of recognition and a tug of tenderness although I had never seen him sleep.

It was then I realized I had seen this every night for four and a half years– the child version of those eyebrows, cheekbones, and jaw. When his mouth fell open, just slightly, the way Tristan’s often did in slumber, I gawked in awe. Ripping my eyes away, my focus fell to his phone, which rested on the arm of the chair.

Withstanding the temptation for all of ten minutes, I finally broke and, with a furtive look at the slight twitch beneath his eyelids, rotated the device around to face me. Double-checking his sleeping status, I powered on the screen. Finding it unlocked, I quickly clicked ‘Recent.’

The last call was incoming, from ‘Mom.’

Naturally, he would “love you too” to his mother. My breath whooshed out in relief, and as I was about to spin the phone back his way, I saw the most recent text. Also to ’Mom,’ but it was outgoing with no message, only an attachment titled ‘SD1101.jpg.’

The photo tag was familiar because I had sent it to him only a couple of hours ago… The requested picture of Tristan and Bally.

At first, I found it endearing that he wasted no time sending the photo to his mother, Tristan’s grandmother. For some reason, Jack’s family had never crossed my mind, and I wondered if they were curious about Tristan. In that moment, terror seized me.

What an idiot I had been! With a legal letter indicating custody interest tucked into a folder at home, I was carelessly showing off pictures of a handsome pre-schooler while volunteering cute stories and bragging how well behaved and clever he was. A smart mother would have fibbed about what a handful he was, how horrible the tantrums were that he threw fifty times a day, and maybe a lie that he stayed sick with a snotty nose that never stopped!

As I stewed in my thoughts, Jack began lightly snoring, drawing eyes, and a few snickers. It hit me once again how tired he probably was, and no matter what, I couldn’t let him become entertainment to the other occupants of the room.

He was Jack Storm.

What if paparazzi jumped out, or some teenager recognized him and uploaded a video onto You Tube of Jackal’s lead sawing logs?

“Hey, Jack,” I whispered and then remembered I probably shouldn’t use his name just in case there were metal ears around. “Hey, wake up…”

“Yeah?” Jerking upright, he shook his head as if shaking sleep off. “What is it? Tristan?”

“No. I, uh. Well, you were snoring a little, and I thought… I know you must need sleep. You should go to the hotel, get some.”

“I didn’t fly all this way to sleep the day away in a hotel room.” Softly and sweetly, he assured, “I’m waiting here with you.”

“You don’t have to is all I’m saying. I know you’re tired.”

“As you are. Am I right?” Gently, he made the insightful observation, and it was accurate. My night had not been spent traveling, but I had certainly spent it unable to sleep, so I said nothing to contrary. Carefully, he continued, “If you don’t want me here though, I understand. I’ll go if it’s stressing you, me being here.”

This was the chance to get rid of him. To make sure I didn’t stupidly trust him again. I didn’t think he was tricking me out of information about Tristan. Nor did I think he would deviously sit with me, lending moral support today and then at a later time, drag Tristan, from me, back with him to LA. Yet, I couldn’t discount that he would fall as deeply in love with our son, as I had always been since before birth, and act accordingly.

“Thanks for being here.” When I opened my mouth, words from my heart and not my mind spilled. “I don’t want you to go.”

♪♫¨♫♪

“Mr. and Mrs. Duplei. Mr. Duplei… Mrs. Duplei…”

Awareness infiltrated my sleeping state, of my last name spoken repeatedly, and of a warm solid pillow beneath my cheek. A slight weight rested against the top of my head, and when it eased away, my pillow shifted.

Husky from sleep, and accustomed to being addressed in that manner for the last sixteen hours, Jack’s voice answered the summons. “Yes? Sorry, uh, yeah?”

My eyes opened to blue scrub-covered legs, white sneakers, and from somewhere above, a woman’s voice explained, “Tristan is awake.”

Jerking my head from Jack’s shoulder, I swiped a finger around a dry, scratchy eye, and pushed stray strands of hair from my face while shoving to my feet.

“They’re moving him in about thirty minutes, and he should get to his room on pediatrics just in time for a breakfast tray. So just go on back when you’re ready.”

Desperately, I needed the bathroom, but I was more than ready, and I was unwilling to think of Tristan awake and alone.

“Hey, Marissa…” Jack came to his feet as I was about to move away. “I’m going to head to the hotel. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Although my brain was still foggy from sleep, in a moment of clarity, I understood his reasoning. Just as before, it was not the right time for Tristan to see him.

Nodding, I replied lightly, “Sure.”

“Mariss?” His hand shot out, and his fingers warmly closed around mine just as his head dipped.

The kiss lasted no more than a couple of seconds, a lingering touch of his lips to mine, a light comforting brush back then forth and the slightest suction, before he eased away. In that instant, dark eyes melded to mine with a mental connection as intensely as we’d had years ago, in the first second of our ultimate physical connection.

Without a word, he loped off.

I was trying to be realistic. Trying not to be stupid and think we could have a future. But he was making it really hard…

T
he hallway ahead was my main focus, and I moved my head in an auto nod to anyone who made eye contact. I forced myself not to turn around.

Where the hell had that kiss come from? I’m not sure I’d ever spontaneously kissed any woman unless I was in the middle of sex with her—and rarely had that spontaneous kiss been on the lips. The drive behind this kiss had been altogether different—some emotion that was not passion.

After hours of wanting to smooth the furrow from between Marissa’s brows with my thumb, and after an entire afternoon, evening, and night of noting a glimmer of fear in her sleepy eyes, I’d felt a need to comfort.

Yet now as I left her behind, I felt a need that went way beyond comfort. I wished I’d touched my tongue to her lips. I wish I’d tasted her.

Get a grip. Hospital. Son in ICU
.

As I crossed the parking garage, I made a phone call sure to cool me off. “Hey, Mags. Mom said you wanted me to call.”

“Uh, yeah, Little Bro. Why am I hearing the news through Mom and Dad when I’m the one who lives in your zip code?”

“Sorry, Sis. The phone is beginning to graft to my ear. I had so many calls to make before I left, and I meant to call you. I really did.”

My sister could be a real bitch, and like always, I inwardly cringed as I awaited her response. In the next few seconds I relaxed when she didn't bite my head off.

“So you’re there now? How was the surgery?”

Unlocking my rental, I slid inside, cranked the motor, but then let it idle as my thoughts swept over the last sixteen hours.

Random thoughts.

The way Marissa’s parents and friend had eyed me with recognition as I approached them. Not in awe or surprise as if they were seeing a celebrity in an unexpected place. In familiarity.

Marissa screaming at me for being an ignorant son of a bitch. Which I knew I was, but she wasn’t blameless in the way she’d handled things either.

Mostly, standing at the foot of a bed, looking at a four-year-old-me. I had made this trip intuitively knowing the boy was mine. But until that moment, he hadn’t been a real being. Thinking of him had been like thinking of a some-
thing
and not a some-
one
. Until I’d seen him for myself.

Something had happened to me in that moment. A complete connection that I still felt even now.

“Did I drop you? I’m on the canyon road and—”

“The surgery went fine.” I shook myself from the fugue I had fallen into. “A little trouble with anesthesia, and they have him in ICU. But it’s a precaution thing.”

My sister grilled me a few more minutes. After ending the call, I pulled from the parking garage with plans of hitting a drive through for food, and heading to the hotel for a few hours of sleep.