“So we’re really having this birthday party at Pizza Hut?” Stuart grimaces.
“Stop being a snob,” I say, laughing. “Pizza Hut is important to Jake and me.”
“Ah yes, the teenage-dream years.” He places his hand over his heart, teasingly.
“What’s this?” Carly asks.
“It was a tradition when Jake and I were younger. We used to celebrate our birthdays at Pizza Hut. When we got back in contact, the first thing Jake did was take me out to dinner at Pizza Hut.”
“He hired the whole place out for her,” Stuart adds. “It was really sweet. I was genuinely impressed with him.” He smiles at me, giving me a secret wink.
“Have you picked out his gift?” Stuart asks, cutting into his steak.
“I have.” I smile proudly, biting down on a stick of asparagus.
I was stuck what to buy Jake. I mean, what do you buy the man who has everything?
Then I remembered Jake’s old guitar, the first guitar he ever had that my dad bought him.
When he left for the States, he left his guitar behind, and my dad has kept it all these years. It was packed away in the garage, so I asked my dad to get it out and have it reconditioned.
He’s shipping it out to me this week, and when it arrives, I’m going to have some artwork done on the back for him.
I definitely think it’s thirteen birthdays’ worth in the thought alone.
“So we’ve got the guest list settled, then?” I say, peering down at my notepad on the table, reaching for my water.
“Actually, you need to add a plus one…for me,” Stuart says, looking sheepish.
I put my glass back down without taking a drink. “A plus one.” I smile. “Might this be the mysterious man you’ve been keeping from us?”
“Yes, and he isn’t mysterious. You know his name.”
“Josh the hot doctor!” both Carly and I chime together. “And yes, he is,” I add. “You haven’t let any of us catch a glimpse of him, let alone meet him.”
“Because I didn’t want you lot scaring him away. He’s shy.” He bites the steak off his fork.
“But he’s coming to the party?”
Stuart smiles, chewing. “He is.”
“Yay!” I clap my hands together.
This guy is important to Stuart, I can tell by the way he is about him. I cannot wait to meet the guy who is putting that gorgeous smile on Stuart’s face.
I scribble down hot doctor Josh’s name on my list and underline it.
“Are your mom and dad coming for the party?” Carly asks.
“Yes.” I press my lips together.
“Your mom is okay with Jake and the baby now?”
Carly has been the listening ear to my venting. Even though Mama has accepted the fact that Jake and I are having a baby, and she’s looking forward to being a grandma, she is still somewhat frosty when it comes to Jake. And I know for a fact she thinks I should move back to England to have the baby.
“She’s almost there,” I say with a nod, picking up my water again. “I think the visit at Christmas will do it. Jake will win Mama over. I’m sure of it.”
Okay, maybe not sure—hoping.
Mama can’t see past Jake’s history. But I’m not perfect either. She doesn’t see how I hurt Jake when I was stuck between him and Will, and how he fought for me. How much he loves me.
No matter how many times I tell her that Jake and I have hurt each other enough to last a lifetime and he’s not going to hurt me like that again, she thinks what she thinks.
It can take a while for Mama to change her beliefs.
I know deep down she knows Jake loves me, but she’s worried Jake will screw up, and I’ll be left alone, broken and hurt.
I’m not worried for a moment. I know Jake. I know what us being together, having this baby together, means to him.
I hope that Christmas will make her see this; then all will be good, and she’ll relax on Jake.
“I gotta give your mom kudos, though, gorgeous,” Stuart says. “She is the only woman I have ever known who Jake can’t get eating out of the palm of his hand in five seconds flat. Not only that, I think he is actually scared of her. I think I may be in love with a woman for the first time in my life,” he muses, knocking my elbow with his, chuckling.
“That’s Mama,” I sigh, putting my glass down. “A force to be reckoned with.”
I just hope she fully comes around soon. She will. I think.
After dinner, Dave drops Carly at home, then brings Stuart and me back. Dave is now my personal bodyguard. Jake has gone all superprotective, more than normal, now that I’m pregnant, and I’m to have Dave with me at all times.
Honestly, I can barely pee without him there. Seriously, it’s a good job I like Dave, because I’m with him more than I am Jake nowadays.
Jake ramped up my security when the news of my pregnancy broke. I’ve been receiving hate mail from some of Jake’s more “overenthusiastic” fans.
They think I’m trying to take him away from his rock lifestyle by having his baby. Turn him into a family man and away from his music.
Yes, some people are that crazy.
The overall reaction from the public has been really positive, though. I think the normal, sane people are glad to see Jake happy. I couldn’t be happier to be the one who brought him to this place in his life.
So now Jake has Ben with him, and I have Dave permanently attached to my side.
Dave pulls up on the drive, and I climb out of the car, saying good night to him.
Stuart sees me to the front door, leaving me with a kiss on the cheek, and heads around to the back to his place. I don’t hear Dave pull away until I’m safely inside the house. He is nothing but thorough when it comes to his job. And currently, for the foreseeable future, I’m Dave’s job.
The house is in darkness.
Not bothering to turn on the lights, I head straight for our bedroom, figuring Jake will already be in bed.
When I enter, I find it empty.
He wasn’t outside having a smoke, as I would have seen him when I passed through the living room. I wonder if he’s in his studio.
I put my purse on the dressing table, kick off my heels, and set about finding Jake.
As I walk down the hall, I hear the piano playing in the library.
The door is ajar.
I push it open and find the room in darkness, lit only by the bright moon coming in through the windows.
Jake’s seated at my piano, playing a song I don’t recognise, wearing only a pair of black pyjama bottoms.
He cuts a solitary figure.
I listen to the song he’s singing so very softly, but I can’t make out the actual words. He sounds beautiful.
“He plays piano in the dark,” I say, leaning against the door frame.
He instantly stops playing and glances over his shoulder.
“Hey.” He smiles. But even from here, I can see something is off in his smile.
He turns from me, back to the piano, and starts to play the chorus from Brenda Russell’s classic “Piano in the Dark.”
This is my mum’s favourite song.
I have so many memories of it from my childhood. I remember listening to Mama sing along to it on her stereo while she was in the kitchen fixing dinner. I wonder if Jake remembers.
I love how music can elicit memories.
And I love how even now it still binds Jake and me together. It’s our connection. It’s how we talk.
Jake continues to play as I walk across the hardwood floor to him.
I trail my fingers over the back of his neck, running them into his hair, and kiss his temple before leaning over the piano, resting on my elbows.
No matter where we are, or what he’s singing, Jake’s voice does incredible things to me. It’s like pure, hot sex listening to him. His voice touches parts of me I didn’t even know existed. Parts of me that belong only to him. That will only ever belong to him.
Watching the way he moves his fingers over the keys makes me want his hands on me so very badly.
I press my thighs together.
“Jake…” I trace my fingertip over the smooth surface of the piano. “Will you ever one day write a song about us? About me?”
He stops playing and stares at me. “Every song I’ve ever written was about you in some way.”
“Really?” My eyes widen.
His gaze is steady on me. “How do you think I wrote about love, Tru? You were the only person I ever loved. Every message of love in those songs came from you…because of you. Every line of loss came from losing you. Listen to them and you’ll hear it. I’m surprised you didn’t before now.”
He glances back down to the keys and starts tinkering with them. I’m getting the distinct impression he’s disappointed that I didn’t know.
I shift, uneasy. “I guess when I was listening to your music, I thought you didn’t care about me.” Turning away, I rest my back against the piano and stare across the darkened room.
“I hate that you thought that.” His voice is soft behind me. “It couldn’t have been further from the truth.”
Turning back to him, wanting to stop this conversation before it starts, I say, “I liked the sound of the song you were playing before. Is it new?”
He nods.
“Will you play it for me now?”
He stares at me for a long moment and shakes his head. “It’s not finished. I’ll play it for you when it is.”
“Okay.” I reach over and touch his face with the tip of my index finger. I draw a path across his cheekbone, up over his nose, then trace the line of his brow.
Jake closes his eyes, breathing shallow. Then he reaches up, taking hold of my wrist. He draws me to him, putting me between him and the piano.
He rests his forehead against my stomach. I run my fingers into his hair, holding him to me. His deep breaths are hot on my skin through the thin fabric of my shirt. In and out he breathes.
Something’s bothering him. I knew it before in his smile, but I know it more so now.
I can see it in the tense line of his shoulders. Feel it with every deep breath he takes.
“How was your night?” Jake asks, muffled, into my top.
“Good, we had fun. How was yours?”
He lifts his shoulders. “Standard.”
“Baby, what’s bothering you?” I press my fingers into his tense shoulders.
Lifting his head, staring up at me in the darkness, he grips my waist.
Without a word, he stands and picks me up, sitting me on the piano. The keys tinkle as I rest my feet on them.
Leaning into me, he buries his face in my neck. “I don’t want to talk.” He surprises me by taking a shaky breath. “I just need to be inside you, Tru. Deep inside you.”
His words shiver through me. I know that whatever is bothering him right now, he needs to forget, in me.
His hands push my skirt high up my legs. He groans at the sight of my hold-ups and runs a finger around the edge of one, then roughly pushes my thighs apart and grabs my ass, pulling me to him. He kisses me.
My breathing stutters at the intensity of him, the feel of his erection pressing against me, his tongue hard in my mouth. It’s a heady combination.