Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series) (15 page)

He leans up and gives me a kiss on the lips. “I understand,” is all he says. He walks to his bag on the floor and pulls out a shirt and puts it on. He stands by the doorway and says, “Call me if you need anything. Oh, and Elizabeth, please don’t be mad at Ella. She is a special woman who solely thought of your baby.” With that he has walked away. I hear the front door shut and the sound of his truck pulling out of the driveway. I roll over to Grant’s pillow and pull it into me. It doesn’t smell of Grant anymore, it smells of Jacob and with his smell, the tears pool out of my eyes and onto the pillow. After a good cry I call Kate. “Kate, I am in a desperate need of girl talk. Can you and Ella come over tonight?”

“Bethy-baby, you ok?”

“Just stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

“Let me see if my mom can watch the girls, I have news of my own to share with you two. I’ll call Ella, too! I love you, hang in there!”

It’s Wednesday late afternoon and I just left Elizabeth’s house. I’m so fucking pissed with myself for rushing her and spilling my feelings to her. I know I went way too fast, and I seriously need a good kick in the ass. Knowing who can do it and put some sense into me, I pick up my phone and dial his number. He knows what I want by the timing of my call. “What is it, son?” My father asks in his concerning tone.

“I’ve fucked up … help me dad! Help me make it better.” I rarely get emotional with my dad and I can feel my chin start to quiver. I can’t lose Elizabeth. She was just starting to come to me and now I open my fucking big mouth and have possibly lost her.

“I’m off work in an hour, you want to meet for dinner and we can talk about what is bothering you. Is it Elizabeth?” He goes quiet and I know this is his way of making me talk and he just listens. He has always been the father that makes us understand what we’ve done wrong.

“Dinner sounds great Dad. I’m going to go home and change and then I will meet you at our usual place.”

“Sounds good, Jacob, see you shortly.” With that he ends the call and I continue to drive home nervously tapping my thumbs against the steering wheel. I wonder what Elizabeth is doing. I just pray that I didn’t leave her in tears. It pains me to see her cry, especially for the stupid shit I just handed her. Smashing my palms against the steering wheel, I reach over and crank up the radio louder.

Sitting at the high top booth, I am sipping my beer and waiting for my father to come. Peeling the label off the beer bottle I look up to see my father walk into the restaurant. My father and I are built alike. I have his height and build, yet I inherited my mother’s hair and eye color. My father has chestnut brown hair, speckled with gray hairs and hazel eyes. Walking towards our table I can already see the shit eating grin he is giving me. I know by the end of dinner he will have me be kicking my own ass and he will watch in enjoyment.

Standing up to greet him, he pulls me into a hug. I pat his back and pull apart from each other. “You look like shit, son. What the hell did you do to acquire a face like this?” He says as he gently taps my cheek.

“You want a drink, dad?” Trying to change the subject before he lets me have it.

“Sure.” I get the attention of the waitress and order my father’s beer. “So are you going to tell me or do I have to beat it out of you?” He says with a smirk.

“I just moved way to fast with Elizabeth today. We had a great day at the beach and along the way I told her that I wanted us to buy a house, that I was falling in love with her, and that I wanted to be a dad to her boys.” I say sheepishly to him and bow my head. I know I fucked up, I just don’t want him to say it.

“Why in the hell would you go and say that to a woman who is pregnant first of all. You know better than any male not to stir up any pregnant woman’s emotions. Second, she buried her husband how long ago?” He says, waiting for me to fill in the missing pieces. Taking a sip of his beer he just looks at me and raises his eyebrows.

“Her husband died seven months ago.” I mutter out the words.

“Jesus Christ son, what the fuck were you thinking? You know if some woman said all that shit to me seven months after I buried your mother I would have shown her the door and told her never to come back. She buried her husband, Jacob. She didn’t end her marriage because she wanted to. He was taken from her, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. You of all people should know this.” He gives me the same look he gave me any time I did wrong as a teenager.

“Dad … God do I know. It’s just I can feel it with her. I know that she is the one that I have searched and waited for. I want it all with her, now. She is the answers to my prayers. I want a home, Dad. I want a wife, and children. I want to start traditions with my family. I want the family vacations. I want the little league games with my kids. I want it all now, I’m thirty seven years old and I feel I have waited long enough. I’m tired of being alone. It’s just that I know Elizabeth is the one. I just needed her to realize it first that she is the one. I jumped the gun, and told her too soon.”

Taking my palms, I rub them against my face, then through my hair. I want to call her. I need to hear her voice and know that I didn’t hurt her. I pull out my phone and start to dial her number. “What the …?” I say to my dad as he pulls the phone out my hand.

“Son, the only way she is going to realize anything is on her terms. Give her time, Jacob. Let her sort out her emotions along with the overwhelming hormones she has. Time, Jacob, is what she needs. She certainly doesn’t need you up her ass. Be damn lucky that she has given you the last seven months. Most women wouldn’t have given any man a hello let alone a relationship. She sounds like a very brave and strong woman. I would like to meet her one day. Only when she is ready, though!” He exclaims.

Taking the phone out of his hands, I place it back into my back pocket. I grab the waitress attention and tell her we would like to order. Looking into my father’s intelligent eyes, I tell him he is right. “You know son, we all have been asses one time or another and one day you will have this talk with your son. Guarantee it!” He smiles to me and pats my back. Once our food has arrived we eat and chit chat about sports and work. When we are done eating, we walk towards our vehicles; I ask him the one thing that has been on my mind. “Dad, if that woman did come to you seven months after mom died and told you she believed you were the one, would you believe her and give her a chance?”

Leaning against the car, he looks at me and says, “Son, I really don’t know. I can’t tell you one way or another because what you are talking about is only felt here.” With that he touches my chest where my heart beats desperately for Elizabeth. “So, if I felt it here for her, then sure I would believe her and give her a chance. But, only Elizabeth can decide that, no one else.” He leans into me and gives me a hug. “Jacob, I’m truly sorry you are going through this, but I assure you with time, something good will come out of this.”

I squeeze him harder and tell him. “I know, Dad … I know. Thanks for dinner and I will see you at the office.”

Watching him get into his car, I know it will be a long time until I hear from Elizabeth. I will be the man she needs me to be and I will give her the time she needs. I won’t like it, but if this process is what needs to happen for her to be mine, then I will get through it. Hopping into my truck, I drive home slow for I know it will be a long night.

Around seven that night Ella and Kate come to my house with take out from our local bistro. We have salads and sandwiches. Kate and Ella chug the wine, like it is going out of style, while I pick at my food. I have no appetite.

“Ok, spill it girlfriend, what happened between you and Jacob?” Kate, says while pouring her third glass.

“Honey, you know I’m not driving your drunken ass’s home.” I point to Ella and Kate as they slowly becoming trashed.

“Beth, don’t worry. I’m savoring every drop in this one glass, so I can take home the lush.” Ella says as she raises her glass to Kate.

“Jacob and I had a great day. He took me to the beach. I saw him surf. He is an amazing surfer. Holy Shitballs! He has a body to die for. Then we had lunch at the port. Somewhere between lunch and this afternoon he told me he wanted to buy a house together. That he loves me. Oh, and that he wants to be my children’s father.” I say, as I pick apart my sandwich.

“He what?” Kate shouts to me in her buzzed state of mind.

“Beth, you knew this was coming. That man has clearly loved you since the beginning. Why wouldn’t he want to be a part of the boys’ lives, he’s been there since day one?”

“I think I will have this conversation with Kate, I like the drunken stupor advice over your practical shit. Ella, do you realize what a clusterfuck my life has been in the last seven months?”

Ella gets pissed. She slams her wine glass down and pushes her chair back. She leans over the table, grabs my face with both of her hands. “LOOK at me and listen real hard. What I have to say is the best damn advice I will ever give you. You apparently have not been listening to Jacob or me. I don’t know if it’s due to being pregnant or just damn stupidity.

“Beth, NO ONE knows more of the hell you have been through in the last seven months than I do. I have been there every step of the way. Hell, I have been more connected with you these last seven months than my own husband. I am so God damn sorry that Grant was killed. But, there is not one damn thing anyone can do with it. You have mourned, grieved, and cried for him. You have got to move on.”

I slap her hands away. “You are such a bitch! How can you say to move on, he was my fucking husband and the father of my children? Our children will never know him! Nine years Ella. I was with that man for nine years!”

“Beth, I know I am being a bitch right now, but if you let the best thing in your life right now walk away because you are hanging onto a ghost, you’ll be considered the bitch. God took away your husband, but gave you multiple loves in return. He has given you three children and a man that is over the moon in love with you. A man that will do anything for you! A man that is willing to step up to the plate to raise and be a role model to your boys.”

I look at Kate and she is just nodding her head in agreement with Ella.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” I ask in a whisper. “Yes, I like Jacob, I am happy with him and yes I can see a future with him, but way down the road. Things are moving too fast, I’m scared. I just want to do right. I want to do right by Grant, right by Jacob, and right by my sons. Right now I’m just confused and scared.”

“Bethy-baby, Ella is right. I know the timing with everything has been fast, but you need to look at it this way. Would you accept everything Jacob has said and done for you if he appeared in your life five years from now?”

Wow, Kate is logical when she is buzzed. “I guess I would accept it, I would have been on my own for five years. Of course I would want to be with him. Grant has been gone for seven months. I kissed another man four months after he had died. I feel like I am being dishonest to him. Dishonest to the nine years we were together. As if none of it really mattered. I loved him and I’m scared to have those feelings for another man.”

Ella grabs my face again. “Just like there in no magic parenting book, there is no magic time over loss book. Sometimes you know when it is the real thing. You know love when it slaps you in the face. It could take a moment, a day, or years to finally know love. Hell, I knew at sixteen who my love was. I knew Chris and I were in it forever, even though everyone thought different. Jacob knows you are the real deal, and I think you do, too. I think you are just scared.”

Ella holds my face tighter. I think of Alexis and Brooke, and feel sorry for them when their mom gets stern with them. “Will you stop holding me down as if I was your child … get your hands off my face!”

Watching her place her hands back in her lap, she looks at me with those big brown eyes of hers.

“Beth, I have told you since day one with Jacob take it slow. Don’t shut him out. We don’t want you to be alone, you don’t deserve to be alone. Yes, it’s not fair that Grant won’t be there for his kids, but the boys do need a father figure and you are lucky you have a good man who wants to do it.