I was dumbstruck. ‘Hasn’t got my name yet’ seriously, was he thinking about that kind of thing? Was he insinuating that there was even a slight possibility that I would have his name one day? Or was I reading too much into this? Dawn clearly didn’t think so – her eyes were shining after what Jace had said. This would have to wait though – a game of volleyball wasn’t the time to start grilling your boyfriend about his intentions. I looked around the group feeling like I was totally stuck in the middle; I did a mental count of the people. With Coraline’s dad and two brothers, there was actually six guys and six girls standing there. Perfect. “Why don’t we just go for girls versus boys? That’ll stop the arguing,” I suggested. Jace pouted. “Fine, but you still get Robert, he’s a girl anyway,” he chuckled, shoving Robert towards us playfully. I laughed as Robert grumbled in protest but came to stand with us anyway; I think he was too scared of Jace to say anything b
The rest of the afternoon passed almost too quickly, Ashley was just so much fun to be around that the time flew by. My family loved her. The way my mom was looking at her was enough to make Ashley run for the hills, but she didn’t seem to mind, in fact, she seemed to like it. She was happily chatting away to my mom, and joking around with my sisters as if she’d always been a part of us. When the party drew to a close, my family stayed on the beach and lit a fire, sitting around eating the last of the food up so it didn’t go to waste. I pulled Ashley onto my lap as we sat on the sand around the fire. My hands seemed like they had a mind of their own when I was around her, I couldn’t even stop myself from tracing my fingertips over up and down her legs, loving the feeling of her skin under my hand. A couple of hours ago she had donned my shirt, and holy fuck, the girl somehow managed to look hotter in my clothes than in that cut out little bikini thing. For a joke, I’d made her
I closed my eyes as she traced one finger around the tip of my dick before gripping it in her little hand. I puffed out a big breath because of how nice that felt, but suddenly it was gone. I snapped my eyes open to see her frowning, pushing on my chest to get me off her. Immediately I started to panic, not knowing what I’d done wrong. “Jace, what the? You have a piercing?” Her mouth dropped open in shock as her gaze flicked to my crotch. Oh shit, I guess she wouldn’t know about that considering I’d not let her touch me yet! I looked down at the three little piercings that I’d had on the underside of my shaft. They were metal bars that ran under the skin with a small silver ball at the end of each one. “Er, yeah. Is that a problem?” I asked, praying with every bone in my body that she wouldn’t have a hatred for them. She didn’t say anything, just pushed me onto my back, bending closer to look at them. I held my breath as she reached out a finger, touching each of t
I laid there with my mouth open in shock while she just stared at me with big wide eyes, looking like she wasn’t sure what to say or how to respond. I gulped. What the hell was that? Did I really just say those words? Why the hell did I say that? Why, Jace, Why? I’d just said the three words that I had never said to a girl in my life. I’d just told her that I loved her. What. The. Fuck? Seriously, how do I make this right? Quickly, Jace, think of something. Take it back. Rewind. Rewind! Shit! “I… I… sorry… I…” Fuck me, stuttering is NOT helping! She pulled back slightly and sat next to me on the bed, clutching the sheet and pulling it to cover her chest. She looked like she was terrified, like she was literally scared motionless. Oh God, help me! “Ashley, I-I haven’t been with a girl for a long time and that was just… I was… er…” Where the hell was I going with all this stuttering? I groaned and closed my eyes, wishing that a big bolt of lightni
We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out on the beach with my sisters, and, of course, Robert, who seemed to have somehow wangled an invite, yet again. “You think we should head home, Stripes?” I offered, looking at my watch, it was already almost four in the afternoon, DJ would be back for half past seven and we had to get back first. She pouted a little but nodded at the same time. “Okay yeah. I had a really great time here with your family. They’re all really nice. Thanks for bringing me,” she agreed, smiling happily. I grinned and stood up off our lounger we were laying on, and pulled her up too. “Thanks for coming. Maybe we could bring DJ next time; I bet he’d love swimming in the sea,” I suggested. She frowned. “We can definitely bring him, but he doesn’t swim too good.” Slipping my arm around her shoulders, I led her back to the house, wishing we could stay here forever. “DJ doesn’t swim too good?” She shook her head. “Nope. I can’t swim, so I neve
The following two weeks passed quickly. I was hanging around Ashley and DJ like a bad smell; I literally couldn’t get enough of their time. The kid seemed to like me more and more each day. We hung out, laughed, played and joked around, it was fun. Even though it wasn’t his turn to have him, Josh had kept true to his word and had picked DJ up for a few hours, taking him to the park to play ball the following weekend after I’d given him the money. Although it was nice to get some alone time with Ashley, deep down I didn’t like the fact that Josh was making an effort. I knew that I should like the fact that he was trying to turn over a new leaf, but part of me wondered how long it would last for, and if he would hurt them both again in the long run. DJ especially would be hurt if he suddenly changed and stopped calling him every other night and turning up when he was supposed to. Ashley had obviously hardened herself to it because they’d been apart so long, but the kid would be
Oh fuck. Nice one, Kid! I winced and looked at Ashley. She hadn’t liked it when I did that either – until I explained that it was empty and that the safety was on anyway. I’d even removed some of the inside parts so it couldn’t shoot; it was basically just a worthless piece of metal when DJ held it. George made a snorting sound in the back of his throat. “Very responsible.” Ashley stepped forward and slipped her arm around my waist. “Yeah, we all had a go. It was an old gun that was out of service, so it wouldn’t shoot or anything. I asked Jace to bring it around because we’d never seen a gun up-close before. Right, Jace?” she lied, smiling at me, telling me to play along. I nodded, wondering why she’d just said that. “I still don’t think that handling a real gun is something that you should be allowing,” George countered. Ashley shrugged. “Wasn’t your decision, Dad, it was mine. Jace said it was safe, so that’s good enough for me.” She held up the flowers to show
As I headed back to the group that I arrived with, I heard Ashley doing the introductions between our parents. I had no idea what George was going to think of my mother and all her craziness. I stepped to Ashley’s side just as they all finished shaking hands. Ashley turned to me and smiled. “You’re mean to him,” she whispered, slipping her arm around my waist, nodding at Seth. I laughed and shook my head. “No I’m not. He hit on your mom,” I replied. I looked back to my mom who was still crouched on the floor next to DJ, looking at him like he was the best thing since sliced bread. “Don’t scare him with your weirdness, Mom.” She beamed up at me happily. “I’m not scaring him, we’re doing stickers. Right, sweet pea?” She nudged DJ gently. He grinned and nodded, pulling out more of them. Bryson wandered back with Seth next to him. I stifled my laughter at Seth’s disgruntled face as he complained about the security. “What was that about?” I asked, nodding back to the do
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