Page 17 of Beauty and the Grease (Midlife Meet Cute #4)

Chase

I knew bringing the kids was a risky move. But Ben had time to drop us off on his way to a sales call, and sure, the kids are old enough to be at home for a few hours, but I’m being selfish. I want my time with them.

And yeah, maybe I wanted to risk a chance at seeing Jenny. My kids are my proudest achievement, if I’m allowed to take any credit. I wasn’t trying to be manipulative, but I wanted her to see the me she hasn’t seen outside of my company.

Owen and Emma remind me they’re starving. There’s a restaurant across the street, so we leave my car behind the shop for now and hoof it. The kids are already going through the restaurant door when I hear my name.

“Chase!”

It’s Jenny. She jogs across the street holding something out to me.

I wave for the kids to go on inside and meet Jenny at the curb. She hands me a photo.

It’s us, on the beach in Mexico. I remember every moment of that day.

Her white sun dress. The flower crown tucked into her wild red curls.

The freedom we felt taking a trip we’d paid for with free travel points.

It was Jenny’s first time using a passport.

The exhilaration of deciding the most spontaneous act I’d ever done—let’s get married.

This week, here. We’d been dating over two years.

It was never a question if we’d marry, only when.

There on that beach, my mother’s increasingly negative comments were thousands of miles away.

I believed our love could prove them wrong.

I see it all over my face in the photo. I loved Jenny. Love like that never really disappears.

“You kept this,” I say.

“Of course. It happened. We happened.”

“I know. Annulment doesn’t mean it didn’t.”

“But it erases what happened.”

“Legally, maybe. Not here.” I tap my chest. “I have regrets too.”

She looks past me to the restaurant. “I know you have to go. I found this—no, I looked for this photo, and I couldn’t seem to put it back in the box. It’s stupid, you were leaving and I wanted you to see it—”

“Jenny.” I take her hands. I go for it. “Join us for lunch.”

Her breathing comes quick and shallow. “What? No, I couldn’t.”

“It’s just lunch. And before you tell me it’s never just lunch, I promise you, it’s just lunch. It’s one step, not ten.”

Her lip trembles. All I want is to comfort her. To tell her this will all be okay, someday. But I don’t know it will be okay. Neither of us does.

She steps tentatively toward me. “Chase, I can’t lose myself. I say I can’t a lot, but I didn’t get where I am by limiting myself. The only thing I can’t allow is to lose who I am. I have my own life. I can only be me.”

“That’s all I ever wanted.”

Wind whips her hair into her eyes. I move the strands aside, and before I can stop myself, I lean in. One risk to the next.

Jenny meets her lips to mine.

I’m swept back to the beach in Mexico. To a starry night in the courtyard of my apartment building. On a back porch at her parents’ house one chilly Thanksgiving. It’s all the kisses I remember back for a reunion tour.

She presses in, melting in my arms until I hold her tighter. I’ll hold her tight forever. I’m hungry for her. Desperate to show her this can work.

Her hand runs up my chest, then to my neck. She pulls back and kisses the spot where my neck and shoulder meet. I might die, but I’ll die happy.

Pounding sounds on the glass behind us. Oh. Oh no.

We break apart. Owen and Emma gawk at us through the window. They’re cracking up.

“I’m so sorry—” Jenny starts.

“No, don’t be.”

The kids wave and make faces at us.

“They must be horrified.”

I laugh. “Actually, they’ve been asking why I don’t date.

Their mom is likely getting engaged soon.

Owen told me about his friend’s single mom the other day.

I thought he was joking, but I found a scrap of paper with a phone number beside the coffee maker the next morning.

Something tells me they might be into this. ”

“I might be into this.” Jenny grins. “Slow. A slow ‘into this.’”

Her cheeks flush. I put that flush there.

I slip my hand into her hair and kiss her again. Right there on the street.

I’ve got my car again, ditched my dead-weight boss and toxic job, and my kids are geeked I’ve still got game. Okay, I doubt they think I have game, but they don’t seem mad about it. Jenny’s here, that’s what matters. “Want a burger?”

She squeezes my hand. “More than I ever have.”