Carmine leaned against the wall, tapping an empty beer bottle against his leg. It only took Jasmine half a second to deduce Carmine had been standing there a while. His lecherous grin said it all. Jasmine’s stomach pitched, sending her stumbling forward a step. A yearning for Sarge hit her so fast and hard, a sob bubbled up from her throat. One wish. If she had one wish, Sarge would come thundering down the hallway to fold her up in his arms. But he wouldn’t do that. He’d left. She’d sent him out through the back door like a dirty little secret.
“Saw you head in there with Purcell…he still in there?”
She didn’t bother denying what Carmine had seen. “No.”
His laugh was vulgar, making her feel even more exposed. “Seriously, Jasmine? I had no idea you liked your men so young. Guess my chances would have been shitty even if you didn’t keep yourself locked up like a nun.” He rubbed his whiskered chin. “Well. From me, anyway.”
A burn started in her belly, spearing up to her throat. “Is that all you were waiting out here to tell me? Do you feel better now?”
“God.” He kicked off the wall to face her. “Since day one, you’ve always thought you were so much better than us.” When he gestured to the back room, the remains of his beer sloshed onto the floor. “Look what happens when you aim too high. The guy couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”
Even though it wasn’t the truth, Jasmine’s skin pulled tight. Just at the very idea of Sarge wanting to get away from her. Wasn’t that her greatest fear when it came to being with him? “Are you finished?”
“How long do you think it would take before he found someone…younger?” Having reached his apparent point, Carmine’s mouth tilted up on one end. “Probably won’t even take him the walk home.”
Jasmine waited for doubt to kick in. Waited for visions of Sarge touching someone else to play out like a grainy homemade movie in her head. But they didn’t. Instead, she felt his mouth moving as it whispered promises against her ear. She saw him smiling at her across the car, both of them huffing into their hands to beat the chill. And underneath it all, there was bone-deep security. In them. Even if there couldn’t be a them—a them would be selfish on her end—a them would be a united front against assholes like this. Carmine didn’t know Sarge. He didn’t know her, either. Not the Jasmine who straightened her spine and laughed.
Oh God, the laugh felt phenomenal. It twirled and waved pom-poms as she tried to move past Carmine in the hallway. When he stepped right to block her path, it reversed directions and cemented her hands into fists. “Back off.”
“Last chance, Jasmine.” He pinched a strand of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. “You had your fun, now stop being unrealistic.”
Carmine took one step closer, knocking her heels into the wall. In the space of a split second, a rebellion took place in her breast. Denial, anger, frustration welled and she embraced it. Embraced this part of her that had gone missing somewhere over the years. A gust of breath whooshed from her mouth, her closed fist lifting to sock Carmine in the jaw. She watched with openmouthed shock as he stumbled back with a wounded sound, hitting the opposite wall. But the shock turned to relief in a giant rush. There. There she was.
Jasmine heard a collective silence from the bar and turned, noticing the sea of attention they’d attracted. A week ago, she might have ducked and hightailed it out of the bar. Not tonight, though. Tonight, she calmly zipped her coat, smoothed back her hair and marched through the onlookers without so much as a blink. Just before the exit, a group of young women—the same ones who’d been taking pictures with Sarge—presented their palms for high fives, which she completed with a satisfying slap.
When the door closed behind her, she smiled. She smiled so wide it broke apart into a belly laugh as she climbed into the driver’s seat of her car.
In that sweet, sparkling pocket of time, she wasn’t a woman who could hold anyone back. Wasn’t a woman who could cause anyone regret.
And she had some serious thinking to do.
Chapter Fourteen
Sarge pulled open the double doors of his rented van, surveying the hundreds of packages that required unloading. To anyone else, carrying Christmas presents into the church event hall without help might resemble work. To him, it was pure saving grace. Distraction. One that would simultaneously prevent him from going to Jasmine’s apartment and camping outside until she spoke to him, while doubling as a happy surprise for the kids of Hook. Hopefully. Buying a vanload of musical instruments had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now he kind of wondered if he should have gone with a sports theme.
Distracting thoughts were good.
They were also running short. Okay, they’d been running short for almost two days, since he’d left Jasmine at the Third Shift. He’d watched from across the street until she pulled away in her car, before taking a cab to Manhattan. An expensive drive, but a necessary one. Jasmine needed time to process the love-bomb he’d detonated. If he waited around in Hook, nothing short of imprisonment would have kept him from trying to dig out the shrapnel he’d sent flying. So he’d spent two days on the phone with a Realtor, looking for a place to buy in Hook. Then he’d gone shopping for child-friendly instruments. And drinking. He’d done some drinking. The way a man did when his happiness hung in the balance.
Already his back muscles were tense, his palms damp, just knowing he would see Jasmine soon. Not kissing the crap out of her on sight was going to be some serious bullshit. It might actually kill him resisting that mouth now. Now was not like before. Before, he’d had fantasies. Now he had truth. And the truth was, her mouth spoke words he needed to hear. Gave pleasure he needed to receive. Could deny or approve the future he craved with his goddamn soul.
“So let’s unload some fucking ukuleles, huh?” Sarge muttered, planting a fist against the van’s metal door with a loud whap.
“Sounds like a party,” came a familiar female voice behind him.
Sarge turned to find Lita perched on the hood of James’s Mustang, threading neon-green shoelaces through the holes of a boot, leaving one of her feet bare. Already knowing he’d find his manager in the driver’s seat—where Lita went, so followed James—Sarge sent him a wave without looking. “What are you doing here?”
“Heard you lined up a gig tonight.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“TMZ.”
“Jesus.” Sarge dragged a hand down his face. “I’m just playing a couple Christmas songs. Doesn’t really qualify as a gig.”
Lita shoved her foot into the freshly laced boot. “We’re a band, Sergeant. It’s kind of a package deal.”
Too exhausted to give the drummer a hard time about the nickname, Sarge unloaded a crate of maracas. “If we’re a package deal, where’s our bass player?”
“Asleep in the backseat.”
“Right.” He stacked two more crates of jingling instruments on top of the maracas and strode toward the church hall, where a group of administrators waited to direct him. Halfway there, Sarge stopped and turned with a curse. Being a prick to his band wasn’t going to solve his immediate problem. Convenient or not, they’d come to support him. They weren’t responsible for the heartbeat pumping out of tune inside his chest. Sarge caught Lita’s eye, tipping his head toward the administrators. “Just tell them you’re with the band.”
Lita’s expression went from wary to relieved. “I bet they weren’t expecting a Spice Girls reunion.” She rapped on the windshield. “Look alive, James. We’ve got a gig in a motherfucking church.”