"It's you and me. Together," he says. "Us against the world."
*****
All my life, I've never trusted men. The image of them planted in my head is the figure of my abusive stepfather who has made my mother and I live in hell.
But then, an encounter w...
AN: Hi guys :) As we move on to this chapter, I want to let you know that we've reached the same timeline in Deeper in which Melanie comes to Texas. But as some of you might not have read Deeper yet, I won't give you a lot of details so that I won't spoil the story.
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After Mark is kicked out of the company, everything is back to normal. I feel much more relaxed and comfortable working in the company, and for the meantime, George is assigned as the Acting SVP until Mark's replacement comes.
Time goes by, and we've passed the period of heavy loads at work. There's no more working overtime again these days, and that's when Jake decides to take a leave for a while to settle some administrations in his university in Boston.
When he comes back from there, I'm surprised to know about what has happened to his sister and best friend.
A lot of things have happened after he left Melanie for his internship here, and my heart sinks from knowing that such a tragedy has struck his family.
Jake tells me the whole thing, and when he brings Melanie to Texas, which eventually results in Vaughn coming here as well, I try to help as much as I can.
After Melanie leaves to Australia and Vaughn goes back to Boston, I can see that Jake is still feeling down. I know that he somehow feels responsible for all the bad things happening to them, and I keep telling him that it isn't like that.
He cares about his sister and best friend so much, and it pains me that it has turned out to be that way.
A few weeks after, I'm finishing the morning shift of my parttime job in the nearby bookstore when Jake comes to visit me.
While I'm putting some books into the shelves, he approaches me.
"Hey." He smiles, leaning against the bookshelves as he stares at me. "Are you done? I was wondering whether we could grab some lunch together."
I glance at my wristwatch.
"Almost," I say. "Lunch?" I raise my eyebrow at him, knowing that it's still too early for lunch.
He chuckles. "I mean, brunch."
I smile, shaking my head. "I'd love to, Jake. But I was planning to visit my father's graveyard after this, so maybe we can meet after that?"
"Perfect. I can chauffeur you there," he says. "I mean, I can go with you," he pauses, as if trying to figure out whether I'm okay with that or not. "If you don't mind, of course."
Another smile forms on my lips.
"Of course you can come," I say. "Thank you, Jake."
With that said, I walk off to the other row to finish my job while he trails behind me.
