Already Home Read online

  Soon.

  “Be ready by five.” He stepped away and winked at her, walking straight to his truck, mentally high-fiving himself with what he had up his sleeve.

  Time was no longer going to be his enemy. He was going after her, and Rocio would soon know she belonged to him.

  ROCIO

  As I lay in bed, sleep was pretty much illusive. But it had nothing to do with the uncomfortable summer heat.

  It was all my big mouth and Jason Somers’ fault. I grabbed my cell from the nightstand and scrolled down to his number to cancel whoever he thought would be the perfect guy for me. But before I got to his number, my phone dinged.

  Jason: Are you up?

  Maybe this perfect guy couldn’t do it? Maybe he was going to let me out of whatever crazy thing I had gotten myself into?

  Me: Yeah

  The bubbles popped back up, letting me know he was responding. They suddenly stopped, and I frowned. I was just about to write back to ask what he wanted when my phone came to life, and his face flashed on my screen.

  “Hey,” I whispered into the phone.

  “You should be sleeping.” The depth of his voice made the base of my spine tingle.

  “I should be, but I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “My AC is acting up again,” I lied. “You should be sleeping. You get deliveries on Thursdays.”

  “Jax is taking care of it tomorrow.”

  “He is?” The younger Somers brother, Jax, was the carefree one. Though he had recently tied himself to a woman, and they were inseparable. I couldn’t see him volunteering for the early delivery they received on a weekly basis.

  “He is.”

  “He volunteered?”

  “Baby, I don’t wanna talk about Jax,” his voice rumbled, and there was that dang baby that always left me breathless.

  “Oh.” I bit my lower lip and somehow found the courage to ask, “What do you want to talk about?”

  “You,” he answered without hesitation, and my breathing picked up slightly.

  “Me? I’m not very interesting, Jason, you know that.”

  “I beg to differ, Row,” his voice rasped deliciously, and goose bumps covered my skin, making me shift in bed.

  “I’m sure you know everything about me.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can give you a mile-long list of things I don’t know.”

  “You could?” I was unable to hide the surprise in my voice. “That’s not even possible. We’ve known one another half our lives.”

  “Row, I got a feeling I could spend every day with you for the next forty years and still not know everything about you.” His words sounded so sincere and achingly sweet, it was close to impossible not to let myself believe.

  “I don’t know what to say.” I sighed.

  “Nothing to say when it’s just the truth.”

  “What’s going on, Jay?” I asked, wondering what his change in character had to do with.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t remember the last late-night phone call we shared,” I said softly, turning to my side, my arm under my pillow.

  “Really? Because I can.”

  “You can?” I whispered, trying to remember.

  “Your mom was just out of the hospital, a couple months ago, and you were worried.”

  “Jay.”

  “Before your mom got sick, it was when you broke up with that dumbass Matt. About two years ago.”

  “Max.”

  “Whatever his name was, he was the biggest dumbass you’ve dated.”

  “He wasn’t a dumbass. We just wanted different things.” I wanted monogamy, and he didn’t believe in the concept.

  “He let you go. He was a dumbass.” He’s tone was gruff, and his words left me slightly speechless.

  I cleared my throat before I continued our conversation, “You’re being sweet, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Are you going to wear purple tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Why purple? How do you even know he will like—“

  “Love,” he interrupted me, and my heart started to thunder away in my chest. “He will love you in purple.”

  “He will?”

  “Oh yeah.” His words sounded almost like a moan.

  “Who are you setting me up with, Jason? I thought all your guys quit.”

  “I bet you love your neck being kissed.” My breath caught in my throat, and my heart did a somersault. “Bet that’s what would get you to purr like a damn kitten.” A guttural sound escaped from the back of my throat. “Fuck,” he groaned, and my breathing picked up. What was going on? “Those little sounds are going to kill me, Rocio.”

  “Jason,” I whispered almost breathlessly. A familiar ache grew between my legs.

  “Do you ever think about us?” he asked, and my heart stilled, afraid to soar.

  “What?”

  “I do. All the goddamn time,” he confessed, and I licked my lips, trying to think of something witty or smart to say, but I couldn’t seem to string two words together. “I fucked up.”

  “Jay…”

  “Fucked up not stepping in and claiming you when I could have.” His words made me sit up in bed, one hand at my chest, the other pressing the phone to my ear. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

  “Jason.”

  “Fucked up before then. I should’ve done something about my feelings for you before I went to college, but I was too stupid and young to get it.”

  “Jason”

  “I’m done fucking up.”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered, my skin covered with goose bumps.

  “Been done for a while, Row. I know you don’t know this, but I have been done. Just had to straighten shit out. I couldn’t straighten shit out and do what I was doing and have you in my life like I wanted.”

  “Honey, you’re not making sense.” My heart pounded.

  “Good night, baby.”

  “Jason, I don’t understand—“

  “I know,” he cut me off and sighed. Both of us were silent, and all I could do was wish he were next to me.

  “But you will,” he ominously broke the silence, and my heart fluttered like it had grown wings inside my chest.

  “Jay,” I whispered his name, hoping he didn’t end the call when he suddenly asked, “Why did you break it off with Brad?”

  Brad.

  Brad had been the one man who had almost been able to help me forget Jason. He was a good man. Steady and reliable. We’d met in our late twenties. Both of us had been settled into our lives, careers blossoming. We’d dated for three years. When he’d proposed, I couldn’t get myself to say yes. He wasn’t Jason. I think he knew it, too, and maybe that was why he’d walked away so easily when I’d ended things shortly after.

  “I… I don’t know…”

  “I could have bet money he was going to put a ring on your finger,” Jason added roughly, and I exhaled. I had never told him—or anyone, other than my mom—that Brad had proposed, and I had said no.

  “It wouldn’t have worked.” The heart wants what it wants, my mom’s words repeated in my head. My heart had always wanted Jason Somers.

  “Like I said, I fucked up.”

  “Come over,” I exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “This is stupid!” I said, biting the tip of my thumb. “Are we really talking about this? Us? For the first time ever? Doing it on the phone like some kids with a crush?”

  “Rocio—“ The tortured sound of his voice made me wake up completely. Everything suddenly cleared.

  “This is because I told you I was moving.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense, and you’re not moving,” he bit out, and I frowned. Whatever hope I was starting to feel quickly faded.

  “If I do, what does it matter?” I asked. If he cared like he was insinuating with all his I fucked up talk, wouldn’t he straight up tell me?

  “You can’t leave me,” he said, but all I he
ard was how he couldn’t lose his friend. His buddy. His Row, row, row your boat.

  “You are willing to lie to me, throw all this shit around in the middle of the night, all in order to what? Keep your best friend?”

  “I would be willing to walk straight into the depths of hell and back and anything it took, all so I wouldn’t lose my best friend,” he shared, but I was too angry to hear the honesty and emotion in his words.

  “Seriously? You throw this at me the night before I’m supposed to meet one of your guys for a night—“

  “Don’t,” he clipped, and it only riled me up.

  “Don’t what?”

  ”Don’t twist this into something ugly, Rocio.”

  “I’m not the one being a dick, laying this on someone in the middle of the night, over the phone, instead of face-to-face, Somers!”

  “You want face-to-face?”

  “What?” I scowled. Like he would actually come over here.

  “Open your goddamn door, Row,” he growled, and I froze, sitting ramrod straight in bed. Silence filled my room.

  “What?” I finally whispered. He was messing with me. There was no way he was outside.

  “Open. Your. Goddamn. Door.”

  “Jason, it’s after three. It would take you, like, fifteen minutes to get here—“

  “I’m at the door. Don’t make me use my key, Row. You won’t like the consequences,” he threatened, and my body took it like a promise.

  “Jay…”

  “One.”

  “Jay…”

  “Two.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m not kidding, Row.”

  “I said fine!” I huffed, getting off my bed. Sneaking a glimpse of myself as I passed the mirror over my dresser. “Just warning you, though, Somers—“

  “Don’t call me that,” he muttered, but I ignored it.

  “If I hear one little thing about how I look like a hot mess, I’m going to remind you it is after three, and I was not expecting company!” I snapped into the phone just as I reached the front door, opening it in one long swoop, not believing he was actually there.

  But he was.

  “Fuck,” his whispered curse made me jump. Olympic gold medal-worthy teams of butterflies flitted to life. I took a small step back, still holding on to the doorknob.

  “You’re here,” I stupidly pointed out, wincing at my awkwardness.

  “I told you I was.”

  “Since when?” I found myself asking.

  “About an hour before I called you.”

  “Oh.” Oh? That’s all I could come up with? I shook my head. “I mean, why?”

  “A driver isn’t coming tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “I’m shit at this,” he muttered under his breath, running his fingers through his dark curls.

  “At what?” I asked nervously.

  “I’m your man.” He stepped forward, and my hands clenched around the doorknob—not to hold him back or because I feared him, but to help keep me standing.

  “You’re not making any sense—“

  “That look in your eyes tells me I am. I was a fucking idiot kid when we met. I’m still not sure how we ended up friends, but fuck me, I’m glad we are.” He stood inches away from me, his body visibly tense.

  “Jason—“

  “The friendship we have… I can’t regret that. Even if it means I lost out on time with you. Row, you know everything about me.”

  “Jay…”

  “Everything,” he repeated, and his eyes turned soulful. “The good and the dark, ugly shit. You know it all. Every single thing.” His hand moved up to my face, and the tender way he touched me made me tremble. He made me feel like I was made of delicate, priceless porcelain. “You know what I’ve done and why.”

  “Jason.”

  “At first, I didn’t see your beauty, and when I did, you were dating, and I thought we were better off friends. I thought it would be too much to risk losing. When Brad came into the picture and you guys stayed together for so long, I freaked out, Row. Then you ended. I thought I could get in there, show you I was worth taking a shot on, even if I was living in New York.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “My grandpa died, and I came back. Fuck, in those early days, baby, I almost thought it was a sign. It was time to stake my claim.”

  “But?” I pressed, slightly scared of his answer. That had been ten years ago. My heart clenched in my chest at his words.

  “The shop was a mess. I had to invest what I’d made in New York into it, and by doing that, I didn’t have anything to offer you.”

  “What?”

  “So, I waited, and two years ago, the economy took a shit, and I had to make a decision.”

  “To whore yourself and your guys out?” I sarcastically asked and watched him flinch.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “I bet it was a tough one to make, Jason. All those women...”

  “Rocio, it wasn’t like that.”

  “I bet. Not like the idea of countless easy women paying you to give them what you probably would have given for free.”

  “Baby—”

  “You’ve told me about every woman,” I reminded him.

  “Like I said, you know everything. Good and bad. In return, baby, I know everything about you.”

  “He did want to put a ring on it,” I confessed, looking him straight in his eyes. My heart dared me to fall and drown in those endless blue pools.

  “What?”

  “I said no,” I shared, and his eyes darkened as his hand clenched on my hip.

  “Why?” he asked roughly.

  Dropping whatever common sense I had left, I opened my mouth without a second thought, all the while thinking my mom would probably do cartwheels at the nonsensical courage I was suddenly donning.

  “Because as wonderful as he was… he wasn’t you.” I didn’t have a second after the words had slipped out of my mouth before he moved completely into my space. His hands pulled me into his body, and I didn’t think.

  As I stood on the tips of my toes, my hands immediately searched for the back of his head. I let my fingers savor the feel of his hair, as our lips crashed into one another.

  Fierce, demanding to the point of almost punishing, was the only way I could describe our first kiss.

  It was perfect.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JASON

  SHE TASTED AND FELT BETTER than he could have imagined. And he had been fantasizing for a very long damn time.

  She was fucking perfect.

  When she told him what he had been waiting too long to hear, his control broke. He swooped in and finally kissed her. He had wanted a small taste, something to tide him over until their date, but the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

  One small taste exploded into so much more. One of his hands roamed south, cupping her ass, while the other moved north, tangling in the softness of her hair. With her body flush against him, his fingers clenched and lightly tugged on her silky tresses.

  “Fuck,” he cursed against her lips, pulling away. Everything inside of him yelled not to stop. To drag her inside, slam the door behind them, and take her on whatever flat surface was closest.

  “Jay.”

  “So fucking perfect,” he whispered. His voice was like gravel in his own ears. He gripped her ridiculously plump ass tightly in his hand and loved the sweet pink tinge on her face.

  “You’re hard,” she pointed out, her voice slightly raspy as she rubbed her sweet little body against his. Jason’s cock ached to get closer, and the sensation made his eyes shut. He took a much-needed cleansing breath through his nose.

  “I’m always fucking hard around you,” he admitted once his eyes were open and on her.

  “You are?” Her pretty eyes popped up, wide in surprise.

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow.”

  “I should go,” he groaned, not moving from her doorway. Leaning his forehead ag
ainst hers, he couldn’t get himself to move.

  “Or you could stay?” she suggested, and he cursed again as he fought the temptation of how good staying sounded.

  “You shouldn’t offer that.”

  “Why not?” Her hands cupped his face and moved him away, so he could look at her.

  “Because I’ll take you up on it. I’m a man who’s been starving for the last two years, baby.”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t touched a woman since I decided I was done fucking around. You have to know you are it for me, Row.”

  “What?” She let his face go and took a step back. The expression of her face, he knew she didn’t believe him, and he couldn’t blame her. “What about The Meat Market? The dates?”

  “I didn’t fuck those women. I didn’t even kiss them, baby, unless you count Mrs. Baxter’s cheek.”

  “Mrs. Baxter?”

  “She’s the only date I’ve been on when it comes to the other side of the butcher shop. It’s a standing appointment. She likes to cook me dinner and talk. But I never let her pay. I always leave her envelope on the dinner table.”

  “She’s, like, eighty.”

  “Eighty-five,” he corrected, and Rocio looked at him like she was looking at him for the first time.

  “So, The Meat Market escorts, you didn’t get paid to…”

  “The women paid for companionship. Friendship. A date. What the guys did after was their choice. They were escorts, not hookers,” Jason shared and rubbed one hand on the back of his neck, wondering what she was thinking. Thankfully, she didn’t leave him hanging for too long.

  Her hand extended to his, and he grabbed it. Their fingers intertwined. His heart slammed hard against his chest.

  “Stay with me,” she repeated her tempting offer.

  “I should take you on a date,” he told her, holding his body tightly. “If I walk into your place knowing what your lips taste like, I can’t promise to keep my hands to myself and not take my fill of other parts of you,” he confessed. He knew himself. He was too weak to try otherwise. He watched and felt her shiver, her skin covered with goose flesh, and his mouth watered to lick each and every one.

  ROCIO

  My chest heaved—rising and dropping. I didn’t know how I was still breathing. Nerves from being here like this with him. My best friend. The person who knew everything there was to know about me.