Our Time (26 page)

"Yes, Joss. He is fine. I
called Chris and he said that he is at his bar taking some time to think. I
guess he went over there earlier and Chris chewed him up one side and down the
other."

I placed my hand to my heart, willing
it to slow the hell down. He was okay. He just needed to think. That was
understandable. I wished everyone would stop making him feel worse, though.

"I think you should go get
him, Joss. I don't know if he has been drinking, but if he has… maybe I should
call Chris back and have him--"

"No! I'm going to get him.
It should be me." I caused this. If I had just been less selfish…
"This is all my fault."

"Yeah right," she
scoffed. "He's a grown man, Joss. You just asked him to leave the room,
that doesn't give him the right to act like a child about it."

"Doesn't matter. I'm going
to get him. Can you bring Liv back in the morning?"

"No problem. She is asleep
and doing just fine. Just let him in, okay? You both need each other now more
than ever. You are just both too damn stubborn to admit it."

I was out the door a minute later
after getting directions and hanging up before the tears could return. I was
tired of crying.

I had been scared the first time
I was diagnosed. Terrified. But David made me feel like I
wanted
the
cancer to beat me. I wasn't leaving very much behind and I pretty much did it
on my own.

Now?

Olivia, Andrew, Madison, Tyler,
Monty. The list had grown from Ben and Linda and the kids and now I was more
than terrified, I was lost. Olivia would grow up without her mother, that was
the worst part. She had already lived without a father. How could I leave her
now? And Andrew had wanted to take away some of the burden, and I brushed him
off. How could I do that?

There's a chance that everyone is
just overreacting, Joss. Even you.
This whole thing could be simple. The tumor could be benign, and if the damn
blood work didn't take so long we might have that answer. I still needed to
have the surgery and there was a good possibility that it could be completely
removed. No reason to react just yet.

Andrew didn't know that, though.
In his eyes, I was just strong and this whole thing could really be the end. I
knew him well enough to see that.

The rain was coming down even
harder and the windshield wipers could barely keep up. I tried calling Andrew
again, but it went straight to voicemail this time. Maybe this wasn't such a
good idea. Maybe he needed some space and me showing up was just going to make
things worse.

No. He needs to face this
with
you, Joss. Let him. No
more trying to guess what he is thinking.

I pulled up to the desolate
looking building that Chris loved so much and could barely see the neon sign
hanging above the door. Andrew's car was one of three in the lot.
Good. No
audience.

I opened my door and before I
could even get out and shut it, I was almost soaked. Cold water splashed onto
my jeans and soaked them up to my knees as I ran to the front door, making me
shiver. I hoped no women were around because I knew how awful I looked after
seeing my reflection in the glass. Maybe it was better if Andrew was drunk.

Andrew

"How many times do I have to
tell you, Megan? Go. Away!"

"Oh, honey. You need to
finally take that shot that's been sitting in front of you all night and loosen
up. I'll show you a good time and make you forget all your worries." Her
voice… how did I not hear that annoying squeak before?

Yeah, I had decided not to take
the shot. I just stared at it all night and waited for an epiphany to hit me.
Something telling me how I could fix this mess for Jocelyn. Megan had been
hanging around for the last two hours trying to sneak her hands on me, but I
was too distracted to do anything serious about it. I hid in the bathroom for a
while hoping she would get the hint, but when I came back out, she hadn't moved
an inch. The woman had to have a hearing problem because even the bartender
told her to get away from me.

The alcohol on her breath was too
much to bear so every time she spoke I had to turn away. I wanted to leave, but
really had nowhere else to go. I know she was just trying to play a game with
me, get drunk enough to guilt me into driving her home or something.

I tried to ignore her as she
replayed everything we ever did back to me as if it would make me see that we
'belong together'. She said that about twenty times already and was in the
process of saying it again. I was too busy praying for my own hearing to go
away before her voice made my head explode.

She kept trying to lift the shot
glass to my mouth and I was on the edge of deciding whether to throw her across
the room and watch her slam into the shelves full of pictures and trophies or
just knock her out with my fist and watch her fall to the floor in a heap of
all her sluttyness.

"Come on, Andrew."
Again with the hand on my thigh. My hand couldn't push her away fast enough.
"Let me take care of you. I know you miss me. We had fun and there wasn't
a whiny kid to interrupt anything. I know you miss that. I can see it in your
eyes."

"Andrew?"

That was the voice I had been
dying for. The voice that made me pray my hearing
never
failed.

Jocelyn.

I whipped around in my stool and
nearly sent Megan off of hers. Jocelyn was standing in the doorway, soaked from
head to toe. Pale. Confused. Sad?

"Jocelyn? What are you doing
here?" I stood on shaky legs and took a step toward her but her hand shot
up and she backed into the heavy door.

"No. I'll leave. I just
wanted to make sure you were okay. I can see that you are." Her eyes
flicked over to Megan who was now standing next to me with her hand on her hip
and her evil eyes glaring at my sweet Jocelyn.

"Ugh, looks like someone
just dragged themselves out of bed," Megan sneered.

Evil bitch.

Jocelyn flinched and immediately
ran a trembling hand through her wet hair. The lightest shade of pink warmed
her smooth cheeks and almost sent me to my knees. She was perfect. More
beautiful than I had ever seen her and she was mine.

I must have taken too long
running my gaze all over her because she quickly turned and pushed through the
door. My body immediately went into action and lunged for her, but the psycho
slut snagged my arm and pulled me against her.

"You aren't going to choose
that over this are you?" She rubbed her body against me and I swear I
nearly choked on some vomit.

I gripped her shoulders and
shoved her away from me. "There was never anything to choose. It's
always
been her." I turned away from her shocked expression.

What a psycho!

By the time I burst out into the
rain, Jocelyn was already climbing into her car. My feet were moving faster
than ever, but not fast enough. She pulled out of the parking space, rain
pelting the roof of her car and sending thousands of drops into the air.

"Jocelyn! Wait!"

She peeled out of the parking lot
before I could get to her door.

"Damn it!"

I pulled my phone out of my
pocket planning on calling her a hundred times if I had to. The battery was
dead. How long had I been gone?

Water was dripping down my face
and my hair was plastered to my forehead. I gripped my keys and flew to my car.
No way could she possibly think I was with that woman intentionally. Not
possible. She knew me better than that.

I navigated my way through the
little traffic there was and tried to find Jocelyn's car on the way home,
hoping I could catch up to her. Where was Olivia? And why the hell did I leave
her in the first place? The rain had filled all the dips in the road to
overflowing and the road was slick.

My worried bumped up a notch at
the thought of her driving upset and getting into an accident, so I pressed my foot
to the gas a little harder.

I turned onto our street and saw
two brake lights just turning into her driveway. "Thank God!"

She was getting out of her car
and hurrying to the front door just as I pulled in. I almost snapped my door
off trying to push myself out of the car. "Jocelyn!"

She stopped just before her porch
and I let out the breath I had been holding since she walked out of the bar.

"What?" she replied and
I could barely hear her voice over the fall of the rain.

"Please don't think that I
was there with her. I swear to you, she showed up and wouldn't leave me alone.
I tried to get her to leave but--"

She whipped around to face me and
her dark, drenched hair slapped her cheek and stuck to her face. Even though
her face was wet from the rain, I could tell that her eyes were filled with
tears and rimmed with red. How could I do this to her?

"I know, Andrew. This isn't
about her."

Oh, good!
"Then what--"

"This is about what she made
me realize." Her voice was louder, stronger. She had made some kind of
decision, another decision without me.

I shook my head in confusion and
took a cautious step toward her. "I don't understand."

The rain only fell harder and the
chill of it seeped into my bones. Her bottom lip trembled and her hands shook
as she wrapped her arms around herself. My entire body itched to hold her. To
tell her that she could trust me. To drag her into the house and out of the
rain so she wouldn't get sick.

"You deserve a great life,
Andrew. And I love you too much to strap you down to mine. I'm eventually…
going to die and Olivia is going to need someone to take care of her."

"Jocelyn--"

 "Please, Andrew," she
shouted. "Just let me finish."

My mouth snapped shut and my
teeth ground together with the frustration of not being able to stop her from
driving a knife into my chest. This must be what it felt like, to be out
control, out of options.

"I realize now that asking
you to do that is going to change your entire life and hold you back from all
the things you want to do. I can't do that to you. It may be hard to cut off
what we have, but it would be harder to make you go through
this.
You
could spend the rest of your life with any woman you want, Andrew. A healthy
woman."

That was it. I wasn't going to
listen to her tell me goodbye any more.

My socks squished in my shoes as
I took the few long strides toward her, my legs moving faster than ever before,
and she gasped when I gripped the sides of her face and forced her to look at
me. Her long black eyelashes held onto the tiny drops of water that splashed
onto her delicate face and she blinked several times before they finally
dripped down her cheeks. Her eyes glistened with tears and the sight made my
heart pump faster than I thought it ever could. I could smell the intoxicating
scent of lavender coming off of her wet hair and my stomach clenched, I wasn't
going to let that go. Our noses were almost touching and her warm breath fanned
my lips and smelled minty and sweet. This woman was mine. And I was hers.

"The only woman I want to
spend the rest of my life with is
you
!" I wiped the hot tears away
from her cheeks and felt her lean into my hands sending jolts of relief through
me.

She clutched my forearms and the
familiar shock of her touch sent heat to my chilled limbs. She let out a quiet
sob as she trembled and looked into my eyes. "I- I don't know if
I'm--"

"You are
everything
.
Everything I want, everything I need. And you're stuck with me whether you like
it or not."

The rain turned colder as it
showered us, but I didn't notice. My body was smoldering being this close to
her again and imagining the life we would have together.

We
would
have a life
together.

She didn't pull away from me and
her eyes were locked on mine, filled with uncertainty. "I'm scared,
Andrew."

 It was the first time she said
anything about being afraid and her confession made me that much more
determined. "I know, love. I'll make it better, I promise."

I couldn't hold back anymore. I
covered her mouth with mine in a desperation I didn't know existed. My body and
soul craved this woman in every way and I was anxious to show her. I lifted her
and wrapped her legs around my waist while making my way inside.

We were soaked and water dripped everywhere
as I kicked the door shut. I held onto her with one hand and gripped the hem of
her shirt with the other, our mouths separating just long enough to tear it
over her head before I turned and pressed her against the door making her gasp.
Before I knew it, my shirt was off and flying into the wall. Her skin was hot
and slick against mine and I pressed against her harder, desperate for the
friction we both needed.

"Please," she begged
and I didn't need an explanation.