“I agree,” I said.
“We get enough screaming and cheering from Gina,” Jess said with a laugh. “I mean, I love her to death, but I also enjoy quiet time.”
“Me too,” I said.
Jess scooted closer to me in the booth, and she pointed out several items that she remembered loving. Too bad for me, there now were a lot of choices since she liked almost everything on the menu.
After I had made the tough decision about what to eat, I sat back in the booth and lifted my glass of wine to toast Jess.
“To a successful move and a successful date night.”
“It’s barely started,” she said, clinking my glass.
“I have high hopes,” I said, grinning.
I leaned over and kissed her. She hummed against my lips.
When we broke apart, she said, “I’m so happy. I never thought I’d feel like this. Ever. Especially after breaking the cardinal rule of not sleeping with your boss.”
“Well, I was the one to initiate it,” I said.
“I didn’t stop you,” she said.
Brandon’s words from weeks ago filled my mind. If I wanted me and Jess to be something that lasted forever, I had to open myself up completely to her. And before I could stop myself I said, “I hadn’t felt like I did that night for anyone since Wendy.”
Jess nodded.
She never prodded me about Wendy, even when Gina mentioned her birth mother. There was so much Gina didn’t know about Wendy, but selfishly, I kept most of it to myself. I never wanted Gina to feel sorry for missing her mom, and at the same time, I wanted her to feel open to love someone like Jess. But opening up to Jess felt right.
“I felt like I lost everything when Wendy died during childbirth. In one day, I lost one love and gained another. It took me a while to wrap my head around it. I had to plan a funeral while I had a young infant. Then balancing work with Gina was tough.”
“I can imagine,” Jess said.
I took her hand in mine. “But I’ve never been happier than I am with you. Wendy had my young years, and she gave me the most special person in the world. But you get to have me and Gina.”
“And I’m the luckiest girl alive.”
The words on the tip of my tongue were muted by the arrival of our appetizers. Then, I decided to wait. I wanted it to be special and just us when I told her the three most important words in the world.
After dinner, Jess and I walked around town for a little while opening up to each other about everything in the nooks and crannies of our lives. I knew so much about Jess, but I enjoyed hearing more stories about her life before living in the States, how she met Sierra, and more about her previous nanny jobs.
Our relationship had its rocky moments, and I wasn’t sure we went about everything in the correct order, but I also wasn’t certain that we would have ended up together in Australia if they didn’t work out in the way they did. If we didn’t fight and I didn’t lose her, then I wouldn’t have had the motivation to leave the job that had a stranglehold on my life.
With the way I was working, I would have been a tired-looking sixty-year-old who missed out on his only child’s life. Gina would be off and married with her own kids, and I’d be left with nothing. Now I had Jess. And I had the opportunity to be there for Gina when she needed me most.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Jess, unable to hold in what I really wanted to say.
Once we were inside our house, I took Jess out on the terrace. We gazed out at the ocean for a few minutes before she started to shiver.
I was running out of time for this perfect moment. “Jess, I want to tell you something.”
“What is it?” she asked, expectantly.
“I love you.”
She blinked several times.
“I’ve wanted to tell you that for some time. Then Gina goes and does it first, so I had to wait a little while.”