Key. Chapter Twenty-four: Moving Ahead

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Chapter Twenty-four: Moving Ahead

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Sunday morning, I didn’t want to leave. Friday and Saturday were heavenly. We had so much sex I would probably need a week to recover from it all. Covered in bruises and hickies, I had to wear a high-necked t-shirt to hide them all and long blue jeans instead of shorts. I didn’t mind. My thighs and ass were burning from the intense workout. I definitely got my cardio in. Even my lips were a little swollen. We made out in the water for maybe two hours the evening before.

Jasper ended the scene when we woke up after thanking me for my submission and telling how much he worshiped and adored me. And he said he couldn’t wait to serve me for a weekend away. The idea played in my head as we got ready to go.

“Do you think you could do it for the whole weekend?” I questioned as I cleaned up. We had a small breakfast on the porch, enjoying the morning before it got too hot. After we dropped our stuff off at his hotel, we were supposed to have his birthday meal with his parents and Mamaw. They wanted to go after church. 

Thankfully, we would get to skip that. I couldn’t have walked into the building without being struck down by a lightning bolt, if his grandmother didn’t embarrass me to death first. I couldn’t sit next to the woman while thinking about how only hours before my man, her sweet grandson, ate my ass like a cupcake. It would be hard enough to have a meal.

He chuckled softly, putting his dirty clothing in a plastic bag. I would wash it all later when we went to my place. “I think so. It might be tough. But it was difficult to stay in the control mindset the entire time with you this weekend, too. For a few hours, or even a day is fun, but I like my feisty girl.”

“Do you-” I crawled towards him on the bed, but his phone started to ring in his pocket. “Who’s that? Isn’t it kind of early?” I questioned as I sat back on my bare feet.

Pulling it out, he frowned when he saw the number. He closed his eyes and licked his dry lips. “It’s the DA in Albany.”

“Oh,” I mumbled in surprise. We had only been away for a month. My throat tightened.

“Hale,” he answered, bringing the device up to his ear. Jasper looked up towards the ceiling, his mouth turned down. “No, it’s fine. You didn’t wake me. What can I do for you this morning, ma’am?” Pausing, he listened to what she had to say. His tongue ran over his teeth in his mouth as he chewed on the information. “I see. Yeah. Okay. Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “Thank you for letting me know. You, too. Have a good day.” When they hung up, he said nothing. Tension filled the air.

“What?” I pushed as I reached for him.

He scratched the back of his neck. “They set the trial date on Friday. It’s starting in two weeks.”

Adjusting my legs, I sat on the edge of the bed. “Wow. That was fast. So much faster than I was expecting.”

“Both sides are pushing to move ahead as quickly as possible, though I don’t fully understand why. And they want me to be up there for the whole thing.”

“Why?!” I loudly demanded.

He grimaced. “I’m one of the star witnesses. They may call me to the stand more than once. It’ll probably be at least two months, but sometimes these things go on for longer, even years-” Jasper sighed, slipping the phone back into his pocket before pushing his hair away from his forehead.

“I’m going with you again,” I informed him. It wasn’t a question or a request. I didn’t want to be without him, and I knew the stress and memories would take a toll on him. He was getting better with his PTSD, but it still affected him. There was no way I would let him breakdown like he did when I first arrived before.

Swallowing hard, he bit his lip as he glanced away from me. After closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. Finally, he nodded and gazed at me again. “Good.” He smiled. “They’ll call you to the stand, too. It’ll make it easier if you’re up there, anyway.”

“I just want to be there for you,” I remarked as I stood, swiftly closing the distance to hug him. He brought me into his arms, kissing my lips lightly. “It’s okay. Back to the shabby little apartment?” He unhappily nodded again. “Yay!”

Softly, he chuckled. “I guess we’ll have that pod shipped back up there. If you wanted, you could pack a lot more stuff to bring with us this time.”

“Then just ship it again when we’re done?” I sucked on my lip as I thought about it. I would make that place so much better. There were quite a few things I could bring to make the whole trip more pleasant. Items from my kitchen. Also, I could pick up some pantry goods we could only get in Texas. Like his favorite hot sauce and my preferred ketchup. “Oh, that’ll be nice! Will we stay in the same place?”

“Probably. She’ll be sending the official paperwork tomorrow to my boss. She just wanted to give me a polite head’s up. That poor woman is working twenty-hour days.” Jasper made a face, shaking his head.

I squeezed his waist. “I don’t envy her.”

“Neither do I,” he agreed. Gently, he laid his head on top of mine. “What about the house? What are we going to do about that?”

“Hopefully, we can do the paperwork before we leave, and it’ll be waiting for us when we get back.” I shrugged, peeking up at him. “It’ll give us time to shop online for furniture and find what we want.”

“Yeah. And we could have any work done we want while we were away, too. My mom wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on that for us, I don’t think.”

I giggled. “If you give her a key, she’ll make one of those rooms into a nursery while we’re away.”

“So, I don’t think Rose would mind keeping an eye on it for us,” he restated, making me laugh loudly. I pushed my face into his chest. “I’m pretty sure we have a few vanilla steps before we get to that.” His arms pleasantly squeezed me. “Crazy woman. I know we just turned thirty-five, but damn, we have time. Calm down, or you’re only getting grand puppies.”

“I prefer cats,” I teased. “I don’t know if I want any pets. I want to travel around with you for a while, and that might make things complicated.”

“Yeah, you’ll probably have to do a book tour once Rabbit gets published anyway,” he whispered seductively in my ear. I giggled at his flirting. It was stupidly effective on me. His fingers twisted with my hair, pulling me into a kiss. “Everyone will want to know about the sexy new author with her amazing novel. Mm, I definitely have to be your bodyguard. It’s perfect for me. I can’t take my eyes off of you, anyway.”

“Oh, my god,” I laughed as he spread it on extra thick. “You’re already going to get laid. You don’t have to heap it on like that.”

He charmingly grinned, throwing me down onto the bed before he hurriedly crawled on top of me. For a long minute, we kissed. “This is okay. We will be fine,” he breathed when he pulled away. He was saying it to reassure himself, not me.

I pushed his hair behind his ear, smiling as I did. “Yup. All is well. And if it’s not, we’ll figure it out together. We’ve already got a head start this time.”

When we got to the restaurant Jasper picked out, Caroline hugged me like she hadn’t just seen me the week before. I didn’t mind, though. She smiled at her son, kissing his cheek. She knew how much he disliked being smothered with attention, especially while in public.

“Did you enjoy your romantic getaway?” She asked pleasantly when she pulled back to look at me. “A cabin by the lake seems so sweet. We should do that, Justin,” she said, looking at her husband over her shoulder. Her blond hair was extra curly and stiff for church.

It was so hard not to cackle in her face, especially because it made her boy cough in surprise. He was trying to cover up his snorting laugh. I nudged his side. Jasper wasn’t helping. He was so terrible at controlling his reactions around her. She knew how to push all of his buttons in the funniest ways.

“He thinks you’re too old for that,” Mamaw grinned, coming to put an arm around my waist. “Hi, sugar.” She patted my forearm with her soft, warm, wrinkled hand.

“Hi,” I giggled.

“I don’t. I just don’t want to think about it,” he answered honestly. She loudly snorted. “You’re a mischievous old broad, you know that?”

She laughed at his attitude. “I’m going to knit that on a sweater.”

“Make me one,” I whispered to her. She snickered and slapped my back. Playfully, she winked at me.

“Y’all are both bad,” he remarked, shaking his head.

Caroline ignored her. She took her son’s arm and walked inside the restaurant. “So, what did y’all do?”

Mamaw leaned into me. “I feel like she’s feeding me straight lines. Everyone knows what you did this weekend,” she uttered only loud enough for me to hear. It made tears spring to my eyes as I tried to keep from laughing. I was so grateful we didn’t agree to go to church.

“Good Lord above, I hope not,” I answered.

She chortled, throwing her head back. It made her cough. The smell of cigarettes perfumed the air when she did. “Aw, I miss birthday sex.”

“I can hear you, Mother!” Justin commented with clear discomfort in his voice.

“Well, good for you then. I guess I don’t have to speak up,” she sassed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. She sniffed, looking over at Jasper. “Boy, you picked a great place.”

He smirked at her. “Y’all took me here when I turned seventeen, too. Remember? I think that was the last one before Papaw died. He loved it, too.” He smiled at the memory. “That was a nice birthday. He would have liked you,” he told me as we sat down at the table. My boyfriend pulled my chair out for me like a gentleman, giving me a light kiss on the cheek as I did.

“Yeah, he would,” Justin agreed with a grin of his own. He sat across from us, his wife beside him. Mamaw sat at the end between the two men.

“He’d love your cooking, that’s for sure. That man could eat,” he recalled before looking down at his lap into his hands. “I had a dream not too long ago actually where you made meatloaf, and we had dinner with him. It was so nice.”

“You got a visit from heaven,” Mamaw sighed with a soft smile. “He visits me a lot, too.”

I didn’t believe that, but it was a pleasant thought. All throughout the month, I dreamed about all the times I moved as a kid and all the places I lived. I understood why. Briefly, I wondered if he had those. He traveled so much it probably blurred together.

“Would you like me to make you some meatloaf soon?” I offered. He nodded quickly, grinning for a second before he bumped his forehead to mine. “It’s one of my favorites, too.”
After our meal, Jasper shifted uncomfortably in his chair. I knew what he was building up to, and he wasn’t looking forward to doing it in the least. He saved it for the end to keep the guilt to a minimum. “So, we have something to tell y’all,” he began slowly, each word carefully spoken.

“Did you get engaged?” Caroline asked excitedly, leaning in to look at my hands that were resting on the table. Self consciously, they dropped to my lap as I straightened my shoulders.

He sighed, attempting to not roll his eyes. Jasper should have seen that coming. “No.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. She was making it worse without even trying. “We’re going back up to New York state for the trial. We’ll have to fly up there by the middle of next week, probably.” My boyfriend took my hand under the table to squeeze it lightly.

“Oh no,” she pouted, her whole body sinking in her spot. “For how long?” He shrugged in answer, making her frown grow. “But we just got you back! You said you were coming home!”

“I know. I’m sorry. Hopefully, it won’t be for as long. But I can’t make any promises. Trust me, if I could skip this, I would. Neither one of us wants to be there.”

She looked over at me. “And you’re both going?”

I opened my mouth to answer. Once again, Jasper’s phone rang. It was a Texas number I didn’t recognize. I leaned in to peek at it. “I’m sorry, let me take this real quick. It might be work.” He brought it up to his ear. “Hale?”

I was close enough to hear the other side of this conversation. “Hi, Dr. Hale? This is Maria. I work for Realmax,” she said brightly. She worked for the realtor we were using. She was her secretary if I remembered correctly. “I wanted to call and let you know that the paperwork for the mortgage came through. When would be a good time to sign the papers?”

A quick smile flashed over his face. “Can we do it this week?”

“Yes, sir. Any time this week. We are open from seven to seven, seven days a week. It takes a couple of hours, just to let you know.”

“Yeah. Okay. That’s fine. Um… I have to arrange for some time off. Can we come in on Tuesday? Noon?” He looked at me. I grinned, nodding my head vigorously.

“Perfect!” she replied. “Okay, I’ve got your appointment down. Please bring your ID with you and call me if you need to change it.”

“Thank you,” he breathed before he hung up. Right away, Jasper kissed me with his hand wrapped around the back of my neck. “Yeah. Everything will be just fine,” he whispered when he pulled away.

I wanted to cry, but I kept it in. I was so happy. “Yup. Sure is.” When I turned to look around us, his family was all curiously staring. I laughed because I had forgotten they were there. “We got a house! So, when we get back, we’ll have a home that’s all ours.”

“Wonderful!” Caroline warmed up.

“I think you’ve had a good week there, son,” his father teased lightly. It was very sweet. He had a big smile on his face.

“Yeah, it has been,” he happily agreed. 

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Thanks to Gina for proofreading!

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