Page 19 of Yours, Finally

Get that out of your head, Violeta Sotomayor.

I pursed my lips. "I think there's room for anger in healthy relationships."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure I trust myself with it. I could be an angry man, but I refuse."

We gazed at each other for several charged seconds. The implicit message in his words echoed clear between us. I knew Jake looked a lot like his dad, and that the man had been a frightening guy.

"But you must have felt it, right?" I asked.

"I am human, Vi. Of course I've felt it. I feel a lot of things."

I cocked my head. "When was the last time you showed some of it?"

If he said it was when he kissed me two and a half years ago, I'd have to beg for self control like his, not to push him to snap again.

The corner of his lips curled in an amused smirk. "Last year. When your brother was being stubborn and was going to break up with Lina. I got angry then."

"What?!" An incredulous chuckle escaped me. "He was going to break up with my favorite sister in law?"

"Can you believe it? That made my blood boil, to use your words. That he had a chance to be with the person he wanted and might choose not to—"

He interrupted himself, the thought clicking behind his eyes. The realization might have interrupted his memory the same way his statement rattled in my mind. One evening many months before, for a brief instant, we had a similar choice to make. While Gabe and Lina's story didn't include rules and family dynamics getting in the way, and they'd been togetherfor a long while now, in those few words, our fates appeared to mirror each other.

I didn't know if Jake still wanted me, and I couldn't take us there. Not for the next couple of months, at least. Maybe never.

But my heart complained, seeing the way he looked at me in that instant. Heat danced in his eyes, brief and veiled, but there. My gut echoed it, a deep, heavy pull down into my core.

To see a man like him fall to his knees…

A loud horn sliced the space between us and I startled.

"Shit." Jake clenched his jaw and drove the car forward.

We hadn't noticed the room that had opened up ahead, but the driver behind us had. The light didn't last long enough to make it across the intersection, and we stopped with two cars still ahead of us.

"Right, well," I said. "Gabe and Lina were meant for each other and are happy now. Maybe you getting angry helped."

Jake kept his eyes forward. He snorted. "Something tells me that wasn't the thing to keep them together, but you would have to ask him."

"Maybe I will."

Perhaps it would give me a clue, about how to make it work with the person you wanted. I would even take some hope from it, if he had any guidance for me.

Silence enveloped us for a while, until the light turned green and we could finally move at an easier pace.

"I've been meaning to ask you…" Another frown wrinkled the top of his nose, but a soft blush accompanied it this time. "What's this karaoke place you mentioned the other day?"

Excitement flickered inside and moved through my veins. "Oh? Are you really thinking of doing it? Going to karaoke?"

His blush deepened. "Maybe. Yes. I'm supposed to. My therapist thinks it'll be good for me."

"I see." I bit the inside of my cheek. "I'll send you a link. I really think it could be good. Gabe and Lina could go too—"

"Would you want to go?"

I gazed at him. Curiosity rather than nerves hung from his question, and a vehementyes!almost slipped from my tongue. Music was one of the things Jake had kept away from prying eyes through the years, and I had nothing but a few memories to remind me how good he was. With a voice like his, so deep and melodic when he talked; with the ease with which he'd played the guitar on the few times I saw him— he also played the bass and the piano, or he did once upon a time— I had never heard him sing, but I could imagine, and the picture in my head was glorious and in Dolby Surround.

"I mean—" I closed my eyes to better choose one of the five thoughts wanting to stumble from me. "I guess— if you're okay with that. I would love that."