Ashley’s smile faded as it clicked into place. My heart was trying to break out of my chest, my hands were sweating and my whole body was cold. This was where it ended. Four weeks with her and she was going to dump her drink in my face and scream at me. Ashley clicked her fingers and pointed at Minnie as if she suddenly remembered something interesting. “Oh, I remember now! Sorry, I didn’t recognise your name. Jace and I just refer to you as ‘rebound girl’. Sorry, I should have remembered your name, that was rude of me,” she said, nodding and looking at Minnie with an apologetic face. Minnie glared at her hatefully. “Freaking bitch!” I pulled Ashley behind me slightly in case Minnie tried to hit her, but Ashley just laughed and nodded. “Uh huh. But I’m the bitch with the man you want. Stop trying to cause trouble. I don’t think he’s interested.” She turned to look at me with one eyebrow raised. “Or are you?” she asked, looking a little worried, as if she suddenly
“I am gonna die. Seriously, I’m drowning in my own fluids right now! You don't know how freaking painful this is to watch and know that I can’t do anything about it. She’s killing me!” I complained, watching as she ran her hands over her stomach. She’d moved to the side slightly, and I could see her face now, she was smiling happily and talking with Anna. “Maybe you should be releasing some of that strain by yourself then,” Seth suggested, shrugging. “I do! It doesn’t work! She’s tempting me to death. I always thought blue balls were a myth thought up by guys as an excuse to masturbate. It’s fucking not a myth; my balls ache like a bitch!” Bryson snickered and shook his head. “I remember those days.” He grabbed my wrist and held my hand up, tapping the back of it. “This right here is your new best friend, as is a cold shower. You’ll be fine.” He winked at me. I groaned and shook my head as the last of my restraint went out of the window. “Rip into me all y
The following morning, I made the couple of hours drive to my parents’ beach house. When I pulled into the drive, I smiled up at the house. I loved coming here. The smell of the air, the white house that I grew up in, the tree that I used to use to climb out of my bedroom when I wanted to sneak out… it brought back happy memories. I headed inside, grinning. Immediately, my mom tackled me into a hug. I laughed as she squeezed the life out of me. “You lost weight!” she griped, patting my back and sides. I pulled back shook my head. That was always the first thing out of her mouth, followed by… “You really need to find a girl to look after you and feed you properly, Jace!” “I missed you,” I said honestly, ignoring her comment. I had a nice girl, and my mom was going to flip when I told her about Ashley! I’d been holding off telling my family in case I screwed it up and got dumped. She smiled and linked her arm through mine, pulling me into the kitchen where s
“Oh!” she squeaked, as she looked at the picture. She was full on crying now. “She’s so beautiful, and look at you two together! Aww… this is…aww…” she stuttered, swiping at the happy tears that continued to fall. I laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, she’s awesome,” I muttered, stuffing down the rest of my breakfast as they all passed my phone around. When my dad looked at the photo, he whistled appreciatively. “Nice job there, Jace!” he congratulated me, patting my shoulder proudly. My mom was beaming at me. “So, when do we get to meet her? Why didn’t you bring her with you today? Oh, Jace, go home and get her and bring her back with you!” my mom begged, looking at me with the pleading eyes that she used on my dad all the time. I laughed but shook my head. I would love to do that, but Ashley was probably nursing the hangover from hell. Besides that, she had DJ this weekend. “I can’t, she’s busy today.” I shrugged, ignoring my mom’s disappointed face. “Well, what about
As it had turned out, my three adorable, loving, sweet sisters had all grabbed pens at random as soon as I was asleep. Lisa was apparently the one that designed the ‘Ashley’s bitch’ slogan with the arrow pointing to my crotch. Unfortunately for me, she’d grabbed a black sharpie. The guys were going to rip me to shreds at work on Monday if it wasn’t gone by then. I narrowed my eyes at her accusingly. I’d get her back though later, when they were all asleep, they’d all get theirs! I already had a plan, I just needed to wait until they were least expecting it. Paige moaned, clutching her stomach. “Please can we stop talking about it?I can’t laugh anymore, I hurt all over!” she complained, still chuckling. I pulled out a piece of lettuce from my burger and threw it at her, scowling. “As eldest girl you should have been responsible for the pens!” She just laughed harder, shaking her head. “Oh, Jace, I wish you came here more often.” Suddenly, from the corner of
Unfortunately for me, I had forgotten about the secret smiles my parents were shooting each other before bed, so I had no idea I would burst into their room screaming about a cell phone emergency, while they were in the middle of, what can only be described as, ‘the worst sight I have ever seen in my life’. No child should ever have to see parent sex. Ever. The image of it seemed to be burned on the inside of my eyelids, and I couldn’t shake it off. Even now, two hours later, it still just kept popping back in there, making me shudder and wince. It was all incredibly embarrassing. I’d stood there practically screaming “Sorry,” over and over again, with my hands pressed over my eyes, while they both tried to cover themselves up with the sheets. It was, hands down, the most awkward moment of my life. If a bolt of lightning had come down and struck meat that exact moment, I would have been grateful. My dad had just thrown my mom’s cell phone at me, ordering me to leave,while I j
I pulled out of the kiss just as it was getting a little heavy. Ashley chewed on her lip as she looked up at me a little nervously. “I, er, just wanted to say thank you for the other night,” she mumbled. “Toni told me that she heard me begging you to stay and talk dirty to me. Apparently there was something mentioned about spanking. And I, kind of, vaguely remember trying to get your clothes off…” she trailed off, wincing as a blush covered her cheeks. I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, you’re one horny little school teacher,” I admitted, blowing out a big breath as I remembered her saying those things to me. “Sorry,” she chuckled. “I just wanted to say thank you for not doing that. I really appreciate it, and I know that was probably hard for you to walk away from if I was throwing myself at you like that.” I smiled sheepishly. She had no idea how hard that was for me! “Yeah, you made it pretty hard.” “I can imagine.” She giggled quietly before looking at
As I suspected, my workmates found my newly acquired body art extremely hilarious. Even now, four days on, they were still ribbing me about it. On Thursday we were called out for a job. We were briefed on the way there. Eight men had gone into a bank intending to rob it, but the robbery had gone wrong when one of the clerks managed to press the silent alarm. Now, seventeen hostages were inside, and they were currently in negotiations to get them out of there. The on-site Captain had called for backup and I had a gut feeling that things weren’t going to go our way with this one. I sat on the edge of the van, across the street from the bank, listening to the officers all talking about how best to approach the situation and get the hostages out unharmed. A couple of things that the lead perpetrator had said, led them to believe that they had no intention of letting all the hostages live. They had already shot one hostage to prove they were serious, and were threatening to kil
I was shaking. No, that wasn’t right, the bed was shaking. Or someone was shaking me which was making the bed shake? “Daddy!” I cracked my stinging eyes open to see DJ bouncing on the edge of my bed with a grin stretched across his face. Groaning, I rubbed my eyes and pushed myself up on one elbow. “Hey, Kid. What’s up?” I rasped. “Momma saids I needed to wake you up,” he replied. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Where is Momma anyway?” Yawning, I glanced around the room. I usually got a better wake up than that if I’d been on sixteen hour nights all week! He beamed up at me. “She’s going out to buys a new dress for the party tonight. You gots to look after me.” His smile told me he was pleased about it. I remembered Ashley mentioning something about having to buy a new dress. “I do? Well maybe we should think of something fun to do today then, huh? How about we go play catch at the park or something?” I offered, knowing he wanted to test ou
She giggled and gripped my shoulders, rolling me over onto my back as she sat up on top of me, holding one arm across her chest, keeping her dress in place. “You didn’t have to get me anything; it’s not a tradition or anything. I just really wanted you to have this tonight,” she assured me, bending and kissing my lips softly. When she pulled back, my hands instinctively tightened on her waist. I didn’t want to let her go, I felt whiny and needy and I just didn’t want her to get off me even if it was only to get something from her bag three feet away from me. She smiled and pushed my hands off her, climbing out of the bed and heading over to the bag. While she was busy, I took the opportunity to slip off my shoes. As I pulled it off, something white caught my eye on the sole of it. I turned it over to see I had two big letters: L and P, written on the bottom of one of my shoes in white marker. Frowning in confusion, I grabbed my other shoe and looked at the sole of that one
“I love you, Mrs Roger,” I whispered, looking into her eyes. My whole future was mapped out before me. It didn’t matter what happened from here on out, as long as I had this girl in my arms every single day I could cope with anything. Instead of replying, she just crashed her lips back to mine again in a scorching hot kiss that was seriously inappropriate for people to be watching, especially standing at the front of the church. The vicar obviously thought so too. “I think your guests are getting impatient,” he said tersely. Ashley broke the kiss immediately and stiffened, as if she forgot where we were and that we weren’t on our own. She blushed and hid her face in the side of my neck as I wrapped my arm around her tightly. “We’re just starting as we mean to go on,” I joked, winking at the vicar. Ashley pinched my stomach playfully as she giggled against my neck. That was a typical Jace and Ashley moment. In my eyes, if the wedding had gone beautifully, then it wo
I didn’t feel nervous at all. Not when Seth started talking about never sleeping with another girl again. Not when he was teasing me that half of all marriages end in divorce. Not when he was telling me that once you got married you only had sex on birthdays and anniversaries. I didn’t even get nervous when Bryson started humming the wedding march. But as soon as I stepped into the church, my legs weakened and my throat seemed to close up as my tongue felt like it swelled to twice its normal size. I was getting married today. I was actually terrified of that thought – not because I didn’t want to marry Ashley, but because every single person from my family was going to watch me stand up the front of the church congregation and say my vows. I’d heard it was normal to get cold feet, but that wasn’t what this was; I was just terrified of screwing it up for Ashley. This was her one and only wedding day, because there was not a chance I was letting her get away from me to marry som
“Are you sure it’s straight?” I asked, frowning at the homemade banner with the words ‘Welcome Home’ emblazoned across it that was now tacked to the wall of the lounge. “It’s straight. The same as it was straight before you climbed on the chair and started fiddling with it. Will you stop stressing?” Anna teased, chuckling. I hopped down off the chair and nodded, forcing myself to take a couple of deep breaths. I’d planned this day out for the last two weeks that Jace had been stuck in the hospital for, I just could hardly wait to have him home so I could fuss over him and treat him like the hero that he really was. Seeing him for an hour at a time at the hospital just wasn’t enough for me. “How much longer do you think they’ll be?” I asked, checking my watch for the hundredth time today. I could barely wait another second. Anna shrugged, selecting a cupcake from the table that was laden with buffet style welcome home afternoon tea we’d made. “Shouldn’t be too much longer, Bryson sa
After a couple of minutes of us just sitting on the bed, talking about what pictures I was going to ask Anna to draw on my casts, Ashley poked her head in the door. She looked a little nervous as she chewed on her lip. When I smiled reassuringly and waved her in, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “You two okay in here?” she asked, stepping in. DJ grinned and nodded. “Momma, Jace wants to a-dot me and Woody. He wants to be my daddy,” he boasted. “We all getted new names!” Ashley laughed to herself, her eyes sparkling as they met mine. “He wants to adopt both of you? Wow, that’s nice of Jace, huh? Roger is a pretty nice name,” she said breathlessly, heading over to sit on the bed with us. She took my hand and I interlaced our fingers, grinning. “DJ likes the idea of us getting married,” I told her proudly. “That’s a coincidence, because I like the idea too,” she replied, blushing. She sighed and nodded towards the door. “My parents want to come in a
After a little while, Ashley had to excuse herself to go back up to DJ. My parents and Bryson kept me busy, fussing over me for a few hours, before they left too so I could get some rest. Once I was alone, I tried my hardest to sleep, but sleep didn’t come easy, and even when it did, I was plagued with dreams of the fire. Memories flooded my brain, images of Ashley shaking and mumbling words that I couldn’t understand while she was standing by the ambulance. I dreamt of DJ and the look he gave me when he understood that we were going to die. Thankfully, the hospital was busy, so I was woken often by talking or doctors banging around. The noises brought me out of my nightmares before they reached the climax. That afternoon, after I’d finished choking down some hospital garbage that they called ‘food’ the door opened and my beautiful girlfriend stood there with a huge smile stretched across her face. “Hey, you,” she greeted. I smiled, happy to see her again. “Hi.
I took a deep breath, willing myself not to mess it up. “As soon as you said those three words to me, I was going to drop down on one knee and propose to you.” I said it quickly before I wimped out and didn’t do it. She didn’t react how I thought she would though. She didn’t gasp and look at me shocked. Instead, she burst out laughing, shaking her head. “That’s a good one,” she replied around her giggles, settling herself back down onto the bed next to me. I remained silent, waiting for her to catch on that I wasn’t joking. Slowly, I saw it sink in. The giggles stopped, and the smile slowly faded from her face as her eyes widened. “Oh God, seriously?” she asked breathlessly. I nodded in confirmation. “Seriously. But your timing ruined that for me too. I can’t exactly get down on one knee right now because one’s busted and the other leg’s broken, so that plan’s out of the window.” I laughed at my choice of words. Out of the window – yeah, it literally was. “Jace, wh
I pulled the mask off my face so I could talk. “There goes my dancing plans this weekend,” I joked, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. The doctor laughed quietly. “Because of the burns to your legs, we can’t cast it straight away. We need to let the skin heal a little before we can cover it. We’ll have to leave the temporary one on for a few days, then see how you’re getting on after that. You’ll have to stay here for a few days, I’m afraid. The burns need monitoring, and you’ll be started on a two week course of antibiotics to ward off any infections.” I frowned. I really didn’t want to stay here, I hated hospitals. “Will the burns heal or…” I trailed off, wondering what my legs were going to look like after this. The worst of it was on my right leg, covering most of my shin. He nodded. “We’ll move you to the burns centre as soon as we’ve dealt with your other injuries. They’re more equipped to deal with it there. You were very lucky though. The dampness of your cloth