Forever and Always

Chapter Six: Jo

Jo

They sat there, waiting for me to come back and finish the story, but Jamie was tired and started to get cranky, so I knew it was nap time. When I walked over to grab him, the look on their faces was sheer terror. I knew they were afraid that they were never going to see him again. I went over to where he was with Hannah and Austin, picked up him and held him to my chest and he cuddled into me.

“Jo…” Hannah whispered, “Please…I just...I don't want to miss him.”

“It’s just a nap, Hannah.” I smiled at her as I kissed the top of his head, “He loves his sleep. I promise, now that you all know about him, you will have full access to see him whenever you want. I would never want to keep him from you now that you know.”

“Were you going to tell us?” she asked.

“Honestly, yes. I don’t know when, but my intention wasn’t to keep him a secret forever. I just…I needed to get over my own feelings first. It’s been hard, but I’ll explain everything else when I get back.” And with that being said, I brought him to his room listening to them mumbling and talking to each other. I reached his room and shut the door a bit to give us a little bit of privacy so I could tuck him in.

“Mama?” he asked with a big yawn.

“Yes, sweet boy?” I whispered, reaching over and grabbing his stuff T-rex and tucking it in with him.

“Does this mean we have a family?” he asked, making me pause, “The kids at school say they have families. They said they have mommy’s and daddy’s, grandma’s and grandpa’s, cousins, brother’s and sisters. Does this mean…”

“Yes, baby.” I smiled down at him as I swiped the dark hair from his forehead, “You have a very big family and soon, you can meet them all. They are going to love you something fierce.” I never realized how much not having family around could affect a child. The gleam in his eyes meant everything and I knew, them finding out now was perfect. Do I wish they knew from the beginning? Of course, but it was my own selfish fault. I didn’t want to face Archer after what he said to me and it ended up hurting everyone else. I should have told them at least.

“You have one more grandma waiting to meet you soon, Grandma Sarah.” Tristian said from the doorway as he smiled down at us, “You have a lot of aunts and uncles who will spoil you rotten, especially your Aunt Taylor and her partners, Uncle Gage and Uncle Drew.” I looked up at him with a confused look and he just shook his head.

“Are there kids my age?” he asked all excited, “Kids that will want to play with me?”

“Tons!” He laughed, “The oldest is your cousin Miles. He’s fifteen, almost sixteen and plays ice hockey and is damn good at it, all the way to the youngest, Jayson, who is four, and I think if my math is right, he's about six months younger than you, and so many in between.”

“And…do I…have a daddy?” he asked softly, looking between me and Tristian. I looked up at Tristian with wide, surprised eyes, and he just gave me a nod.

“Yes, you do baby.” I whispered, grabbing his hand, “He is amazing and you’re going to love him. He’s a cop and very good at his job. He loves everyone in his family and protects them at all costs, but he is also the kindest and sweetest person I know.” I would never bad talk Archer, no matter how I feel about him. What happened is between me and him and it shouldn’t affect Jamie. Hopefully, he feels the same.

I doubt it though.

“Why isn’t he here, mama?”

“Something happened a long time ago, sweet boy, where mama had to go away for a bit, but now that some of your family knows about you, soon, you can meet him.” I would never put the blame on Archer because I know this is one hundred percent my fault that they are not in each other's lives.

“Promise?”

“I promise.” I leaned down and kissed his forehead, “get some sleep, okay?” with a yawn and a nod, he slowly closed his eyes, sleeping peacefully with no worries in the world.

Once I was sure he was out, which always took just a few minutes, I stood up and met Tristain at the door, “You know, we’re your family too…”

“Yeah…he might feel differently about that.” I mumbled, “Come on. I’m sure you all want to know the rest of the story. I just need to stop by the hallway closet and get a box out and this will explain a lot.”

Tristian followed me to the closet where I kept most of my personal items. He was looking around the house, a bit confused while I reached up to take it down. He saw me struggle and grabbed it for me while he gave me those intense eyes that told me he was upset about something, “How many people live here in this house?”

“Me, Jamie, Nick and when his boyfriend, Jeremy is here, he stays here too.” I whispered.

“How many bedrooms?” I shook my head and started to walk towards the livingroom, but he reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me, gently. I turned and looked over at him, his eyes filled with tears, “Jo…answer me.”

“Two.” I whispered.

“Nick and Jeremy…”

“They have the spare and I insist they have it because Nick has pinched nerves in his back and compressed disc.” I mumbled, looking down, “Jamie has the master since he has so much stuff.”

“And where do you sleep?”

“Can we not do this right now? I thought you wanted to know what happened with Archer?” I snapped a bit, getting defensive. This might not be the ideal living arrangement, but it works for us.

“And we’ll get to that, but right now, I need to make sure my family is taken care of. Where the hell do you sleep at night, Josephine?”

“Most nights, the couch. Sometimes, I fall asleep next to Jamie.” I shrugged like it was a big deal, but to him, I know it was. It was nothing new for me. I’ve been living like this for years and in the past, I’ve had it worse, “Come on.”

“This talk isn’t over.”

“Whatever you say.” I smiled up at him as he followed me into the living room. We sat on the couch and he put the box in front of all of us. They looked at it, confused, while my hand tapped the lid, “This…this has everything in it.”

“What do you mean, everything?” Bella asked.

I opened the lid and took each item out. First, was a photo album of Jamie ever since he was born until his fourth birthday. Another book in there was pictures of me, from the moment I found out I was pregnant and every month, showing how big I was getting. Nick insisted on having something like this to remember everything by and I’m happy I did because carrying Jamie was the best experience of my life.

There was a smaller box in there full of letters that I’ve written to Archer. Letters about what happened throughout our lives, about everything first that Jamie had, along with pictures or videos on an old USB drive. His take home outfit was in the box, along with a baby blanket I crocheted, a mix of different shades of blue with initials J.A.N. stitched in the corner.

Austin grabbed the blanket and looked at it, his fingers tracing the initials softly, “What’s his full name?”

“James Austin Nicholson.” I whispered, his head snapping up at me with tears streaming down his face, lips trembling, “You all have been my family since I came over the first time and Austin, I had to. You’re his grandpa. He’s named after both grandpas.”

“You gave him our last name…” Hannah whispered as she wiped away a tear.

“Of course I did. I would never take that from you guys or Archer. He’s on the birth certificate too.” I looked over at Eli and he looked pissed. I was confused as he pulled out his phone and called someone and after a moment, he snapped to whoever he was talking to on the phone.

“Did you know?” he snapped at whoever was on the other line, “Don’t give me that s**t. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re the one that insists on knowing everything about everyone, you had to of known his fuckin’ name was put on a birth certificate!” He grunted at something, “You didn’t think it would be important to fuckin’ tell us? What do you think we would have done?” and furrowed his brow and glared into nothing, "Don't give me that s**t about us being too old to do our own research. We know what to do. We've looked over the years and foudn nothing, so how could you have found something and then keep it from us?" he let out a huff, "You're ass is mine when we get home."

“He’s talking to Gage.” Bella whispered, flipping through the book with my pictures, “He’s the resident busy body of the group. He makes it known to know everything about everyone and I take it from how he’s talking to him, he knew about all of this.”

“Damn right he did.” Eli grumbled as he hung up the phone, “He knew about Jamie and Archer being on the birth certificate but he said he didn’t say anything because of his own personal reasons.”

I froze, listening to them talk. This couldn’t be the same Gage, right? There aren’t many Gage’s in the world, let alone in this state and listening to Tristian earlier, it didn't click until just now, “That’s my fault.” I whispered, “If it’s the same Gage that I know, he came and saw me a couple years ago while I was at work. He was having a beer and some wings with another guy. We got to talking and somehow came up on the topic of Crossdale. I told him I graduated from there and he asked if I knew the Nicholson’s. I said sure, but we aren’t close.” I winced, knowing that was a lie, “And then, Nick came in carrying Jamie in his arms because he had a fever and they were picking me up to take me home to help take care of him becuase he doesn't do sickness well. He looked at Jamie with a raised brow and finished his wings with his friend while I clocked out, said bye, and left. I never seen him after that.”

“What did the other guy look like?” Eli asked.

“Tall, dark hair, muscular, tattoo on his hand in the shape of a moon…”

“Fuckin’ Drew.” Tristian sighed, “This makes more sense. Everything since that moment makes all the sense in the damn world and when I see them, I'm strangling both to the point Taylor will be single again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t think anything about it, but now, I…fuck.” He sighed, “Gage and Drew took a long weekend a couple years ago while Taylor was with the girls. They came back upset for some reason. They were hanging out with Archer and Gage tried telling him that he found some new information about you. Archer kept shutting him down, saying he didn’t want to know about your life. He said that you might have had a child and every time he started the conversation, Archer got mad and snapped. There was an incident where Archer grabbed Gage by the shirt and slammed him against the wall telling him to shut the f**k up and ever since then, Gage has kept Archer at arms length and never uttered another word about you to anyone, not even Taylor but I could see it in his face he wanted to say something, I just didn't know what it was until now.”

My eyes widened and I knew, then, this was a bigger deal than before. It was all my fault. I should have tried harder to talk to him again, but how could I after what he said to me?

“Why didn’t you tell Archer?” Hannah asked.

“He knew.” I shrugged, trying to hold my s**t together, “I sent him a letter, with just my address on it, no name, because I didn’t want someone to see it that wasn’t supposed to because there are crazy people in that town, with a picture of the ultrasound, telling him that the night we shared in college created a baby, and he was the father. I wrote in that letter that I was keeping the baby. I told him I still loved him and if he didn’t want to be with me, to please be there for his child. We could co-parent and do our best, but this baby deserved to have a family. I also included my phone number again in case he deleted it because after a while, we just stopped talking. If he chose to not be part of the baby’s life, I would understand, but I hope he would consider it at least. When I didn’t hear anything after a week of waiting, I drove out and went to his apartment, and this was after seeing him with Tara. I knew he was having another baby with her, and it hurt, but this still happened…

…so, when I rang the doorbell…Tara…she answered the door with wet hair and wearing his dress shirt and nothing else. I was dumbfounded. She stood there, staring at me and then smirked. She knew who I was and told me that what we had was gone and that he moved on. She told me she was moving in and that they were going to raise their family together because Archer is a stand up guy and wanted to take responsibility for what happened and try to make it work. She showed me a message on her phone, from him, that said that he would be there for her every step of the way and try his hardest to make it work between them, for the baby’s sake. She asked what would happen if I came back. He responded with, ‘that won’t happen. She left me and never looked back so I’m moving on, just like she wanted me to and if she does and doesn’t leave me alone, I’ll get a restraining order.”

“That…that makes no sense…” Tristian furrowed his brow, "He would never say that. He loves you more than anything else in the world despite what happened."

“I read every message between them. I ran back home with my tail between my legs. I was hormonal and not thinking straight. I saw the messages myself, but when I got back home, Nick was there and held me while I cried. I told him what happened and he looked at me with seriousness in his eyes and said that he thinks this Tara chick is bullshitting me and I should talk to Archer myself. He never really cared for him,but hated her the more I talked about her, but he was always supportive and wanted what was best.”

“Did you?” Tristian asked, "Did you talk to him about it because..."

I nodded, digging through the box to my old cell phone I kept all these years. I grabbed it, took out a charger and turned it on, “I kept this as a reminder of what happened and to justify the reason why I kept Jamie a secret all these years. I know now, my overall decision was reckless and it hurt the ones that matter the most, you guys and him, and well, everyone, but you have to understand…my heart…it shattered. I had to put myself first and ease the stress in my life because of the baby.” I went to my old messages and pulled up the contact I had for Archer, “If you look under his name, you will see it was under his phone number and it wasn’t someone else messing around and whatnots. I could see if maybe a messge or two would be someone else like Tara, but this was a whole conversation...,” I handed them the phone. Tristian held it in his hand while they all gathered around and read each message.

And the look in their eyes were of pure shock.