Hopeless Devotion ~ A Jasper Hale Story

Chapter 12 - Dump Shopping

Sunday, January 18th

The silence hit differently once the dishes were done and the hockey game started its low drone in the background. Bella was upstairs, probably pretending to do homework while spiraling softly into whatever quiet hell she was living in. And me? I was just pretending not to miss someone whose voice still lived in my bones.

I crept upstairs and shut my bedroom door behind me. The lock clicked like a confession.

My fingers hesitated over the keypad for a second before I hit call.

He answered on the second ring.

"Tiffany." His voice—low, velvet-smooth, familiar—breathed into my ear like a sigh. Like relief.

"Hey, Cowboy." I flopped onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. "Miss me yet, or did the change in scenery cure you of your self-destructive habits?"

He chuckled softly. "You're a habit I'll never break, darlin'. No matter the scenery."

I didn't respond right away. The lump in my throat didn't allow it.

Jasper must've felt it, even across the distance. "Tiff... what's wrong?"

"Nothing." I sniffed and wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. "Just tired. Cooked dinner. Fended off a flirt from a kid named Quil."

"Do I need to find him?" His tone dropped half an octave. Lethal. And so, so Jasper.

I smiled into the dark. "No need to go full Civil War on him. It was harmless. Bella and I were with Jacob today. He's... actually not the worst."

There was a pause on his end.

"Jacob Black?"

"Yup."

Another pause. This one longer.

"He doesn't know," I said softly. "About you. About me. About any of it."

"I trust you," Jasper replied, without hesitation.

My heart clenched.

"Even when I don't trust myself," he added quietly.

"Jasper..."

"I mean it."

I lay in the quiet, letting the weight of his words settle around me like a blanket. I didn't say it often, not out loud, but I felt it all the time.

"I hate this," I whispered finally. "This space. This... waiting."

"I know," he said. "Every hour away from you stretches like a year."

I laughed bitterly. "God, you're a poet now?"

"No," he said, voice low. "I just love you. And that turns everything into poetry."

Silence again, but this time it was full. Heavy with meaning. Sacred.

"I'll see you soon," he promised.

"You better," I said, blinking away the sting in my eyes. "I'm tough, but not that tough."

"I know exactly how tough you are," he murmured, with a warmth that reached all the way to my spine. "And I know exactly what it's costing you to keep going."

I swallowed.

"Sleep, darlin'. I'll stay on the line."

"Even if I snore?"

"You don't," he said.

"You don't know that."

"I do."