My Only - Alex & Jamie (18 page)

She just needed to stay focused on creating and maintaining a stable, loving environment for Joey. That was why she had created her Ten Year Plan in the first place, and it basically boiled down to three things: No Men. No Distractions. Two Jobs.

If she stuck to it, she would be able to have her student loans paid off by the time Joey was a sophomore. Then she would have two years to start saving for Joey’s college fund. But to do that she would need to work two jobs, and that meant she would need to spend all of the little free time she had with her little man.

There was no room in there for her to have another man in her life. Even if she could somehow manage the time, she never,
never
, wanted Joey to feel what she had felt walking into her home as a child. That feeling of not knowing who her new “dad” would be that week. She would not do that to her son. And, since relationships never came with guarantees, the only way to prevent anything like that from happening was simply to not get into any relationships.

Up until now that had been an easy thing to do. Since Joey had been born she hadn’t even been in the ballpark of tempted to rethink her plan. Then she walked into room #405 and her rock-solid plan had started crumbling.

Well, she thought resolutely, that’s why she had made the plan to begin with, so that she would have a framework to make life decisions from. Her childhood had been structure-free and that was all kinds of bad news. So, once she became a mom, she knew she had to make sure that the chaos stopped.

Looking at Alex’s house she thought that this might very well be a bigger challenge to her plan than she had ever anticipated. That didn’t change the fact, however, that she still needed to stick to The Plan. That plan included keeping her job, and right now her job was to go into that house and take care of Alex.

So, she needed to stop being a big whiner, and do what she had heard Grandpa J tell several people to do while he had been visiting Alex in the hospital. She needed to “drink a can of suck it up.”

She stepped out of her car and resolutely made her way up the cobblestone walkway to the wooden steps of the porch. After pausing momentarily to take a deep breath she continued up the steps to the front door. She knocked, no one answered. She knocked again. Still no answer. With a still-shaking hand, she put the key in the door and turned it.

As she stepped inside the house she felt an - admittedly undeserved - sense of accomplishment. She rolled her eyes at herself, she was just doing her job, she didn’t need to pat herself on the back for it.

Shaking her head as she turned to shut the door she saw Alex sitting on his couch looking at her with a gleam in his eye.

“I knocked!” She immediately defended her action as guilt replaced the sense of pride she had just felt. See, she thought to herself, this is why I didn’t want the stupid key!

“I know,” he smiled, “I just wanted to see if you would use the key.”

“Oh, really? Okay.” She tilted her head and pursed her lips in acknowledgment. Then her eyes narrowed as she picked up a small throw pillow and did exactly what its name instructed. She threw it at him.

He laughed as he half-heartedly ducked out of the way, “Hey, hey, I’m injured! I can’t defend myself.”

“Then you shouldn’t be an ass,” she joked and felt a satisfied smile cross her face.

As his laughter subsided his face grew serious, “God, you are so beautiful.”

She wasn’t sure if it was left-over sassiness from tossing the pillow at Alex or the little pep talk that she had just given herself in the car, but whatever it was, something came over her and she decided to lay down the law.

“Look, if I am going to do this - come to your house and be your nurse - then you have to knock that off. It’s too much. I am dealing with enough without adding you being adorably charming into the mix. So, we are going to need to agree on some ground rules.” She held up her index finger, “And rule #1 is no compliments of any kind.”

He just smiled at her as if he thought she was the cutest thing to walk the planet. It caused a shiver of delight to run through her and she wanted to add – no looks like that – to the rules but she thought that might be going a little overboard.

“What’s rule #2?” he asked, looking like he was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

She honestly didn’t care if he was taking this seriously or not. She felt much better, much more in control, by having some ground rules. “Rule #2 is no touching aside from when I am giving you medical attention.”

A look flashed in his eyes but before she could figure out what it was, it was gone.

“Is that all?” he asked. Although he looked like he was struggling with it, she appreciated the fact that he was at least pretending to take her seriously.

She nodded once before adding, “For now. But there may be more later. Do you agree to these ground rules?”

“I do.” A small smile appeared on his lips. “I would shake on it but that would be breaking rule #2.”

She smiled as she took in a deep breath through her nose, resisting the temptation to pick up another pillow.

“And not to be a stickler, but I would like to point out that you yourself broke rule #1,” he smugly stated.

Her mouth fell open in shock at the accusation, “No I didn’t.”

His eyebrows rose, “Um, I do believe your exact words were 'adorably charming.' That sounds like a compliment to me.”

With that, she stopped fighting the temptation and picked up another pillow, aiming straight for his head.

He laughed as he easily ducked out of the way before saying, “Rule #3 - no pillow throwing.”

Then he gave her the Alex-Sloan-All-Access smile and she knew that, ground rules or no ground rules, she was in dangerous territory.

While she changed Alex's dressings, Jamie had noticed that the burn looked a little irritated. She asked Alex if the area was itching and he had admitted it was, so she put some cream on it before bandaging him back up.

“How does that feel?” Jamie asked.

“Better,” he answered.

“Good.” She pressed her finger on the tape as she traced it to make sure that it was secure.

Was she touching him for a medical purpose? Technically. Was she moving her finger much slower than she normally would? Probably.

She caught herself just staring at his back. She was honestly her own worst enemy when it came to Alex. Since she had laid down the “ground rules”
three days ago, he had followed them to a T with seemingly no problem at all. She, strangely enough, was the one struggling to follow them.

And not just rule #3 no throwing pillows (although she had almost broken that rule the night before when they were playing cards), but no, she was having the hardest time with rule #2. She hadn’t realized how much she had gotten used to ‘innocently’ touching Alex. It just felt like the most natural thing in the world to do.

She had kept catching herself when she was about to pat his leg, or rub his arm. Small little friendly gestures that she hadn’t even consciously noticed that she had been doing this whole time.

And some of the times she
hadn’t
caught herself at all. More times than not she would only realize that she had touched him in some way, after she had already done it. He hadn’t said anything about it, but she was absolutely sure he had noticed.

Now, as she inched her finger along the tape, she could feel the muscles in his back ripple beneath her fingertip. It made a pulsing warmth settle between her legs. She squeezed her thighs together but that only intensified the sensation. Oh Lord, why was she torturing herself?

She dropped her hand and stepped away from his bedside as she attempted to steady her breathing. She was doing an adequate job at it until he moved back against the pillows and she saw that he, too, had been affected by what she had just done.

He was bulging out of his sweatpants and the sight made her tingle in three distinct areas - her lips, her hands, and her lady parts. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from it.

She heard Alex’s deep gravelly voice through her lust-fogged brain, “I know that technically you’re not breaking rule #2, but when you stare at me like that, it feels like you are.”

She tore her gaze away from his impressive erection and looked into Alex’s gorgeous green eyes, “Sorry, I just...” She swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her chest. “I just…” She didn’t know what to say.

“Jamie.”

The way he said her name sent all kinds of wrong signals to the parts of her that were already tingling. Her mind was spinning and her hormones were screaming for her to just forget any ‘rules’ or ‘plans’ she had put in place, climb into bed with him and…

The doorbell rang and the sound zapped her out of her hormonal dizziness.

“Ignore it,” Alex's rough tone pleaded.

“I’ll just go check and see if it’s your family.” She spun around quickly and practically ran to the front door.

She looked through the peephole and she did not recognize the person standing on the other side. He looked like a courier of some sort. He didn’t really have the look of a stripper so she cautiously opened the door.

As soon as she did the man said, “Jamie Elizabeth Miller.”

Jamie was taken aback. Not only did this stranger know her name, he knew her middle name. An uneasy feeling washed over her.

“Yes,” she answered.

He handed her a manila envelope, “You have been served.”

And with that, the stout man turned and loudly stomped down the wooden steps of the front porch. Jamie shut and locked the door before opening the envelope. She walked over to the couch and sat down, feeling a little shaky on her legs.

She pulled the contents of the envelope out and it felt as though everything was happening in slow motion. She scanned each document several times before they started making any sense to her. Once she realized what they were she wasn’t sure if she was going to throw up, cry, pass out, or scream. All of those responses felt as though they were just about to happen, but none of them did.

Thoughts were racing through her mind like they were on the track of the Indy 500. Why would they do this? Can they do this? How could they do this? What kind of people do this? She couldn’t seem to catch her breath and as a nurse she knew that she was just about to start full- on hyperventilating.

“Jamie.” She heard Alex’s voice, sounding like he was standing next to her. “Jamie, what’s wrong?”

“Paper.” She took in several more violent, quick breaths. “Bag,” she was finally able to get out.

Within seconds, Alex was placing a brown paper bag in her hands. She put it to her mouth and as she started to get her breathing back to a normal speed, she felt tears begin to fall from her face. She had to get out of here. She had to figure out what she was going to do.

As she stood Alex stood with her. She walked to the kitchen to retrieve her purse and he was by her side.

“Where are you going?” Concern and tension radiated from his body.

“I need to go. I need to go home.” Jamie felt an overwhelming need to be back within her own four walls. She needed control. She needed to see Joey.

“Jamie.” He stepped so that he was half-way blocking the kitchen doorway.

She looked up at him.

“I don’t want you driving while you are this upset. Just let me go put a shirt on and grab my keys, I’ll take you.”

She didn’t answer, just stared at up at him. Why would he be offering to help her? Didn’t guys usually run when things got messy?

“Dr. Corbin cleared me to drive yesterday.”

She almost laughed that that was what he thought her hesitation was due to. His ability to drive hadn’t even crossed her mind.

She wanted to argue with him, to say that she was fine, but since her entire body had gone completely numb she thought it might actually be a good idea to refrain from operating a motor vehicle right now. She might be stubborn but she wasn’t stupid.

“Okay,” she agreed.

He let out a huge breath and reached out and placed his hands on the side of her face before firmly pressing his lips to her forehead. She froze.

She was just starting to melt into it when she no longer felt his kiss. Just as fast as he had kissed her head, he was gone, and she heard his voice saying to give him two seconds and he would be right there.

--- ~ ---

As he drove through the neighborhood streets that he knew like the back of his hand, he tried to catch a glimpse of what the papers that Jamie held on her lap reading and re-reading said.

He could see that the letterhead was from an attorney in Chicago, but he was only able to read that because the print was so much larger than the rest of the document. He didn’t ask her what they said, figuring she would tell him when she was ready.

As soon as they came to a stop in front of her duplex she jumped out of the truck and ran inside the house letting the screen door slam behind her. Not knowing if it was the right thing to do or not he got out of his truck and made his way up to her front door. He just needed to make sure that Jamie was okay. Through the screen he saw her kneeling on the floor hugging a little boy he assumed was Joey.