The Reluctant Romantics

Chapter Six: True Colors

A/N: Hello everyone! Before we get on to the newest update, I just wanted to tell you that you might see a lot of scenes in this story that are set in the same places—cars, driveway, etc. This can't be helped since I can't really make drastic changes to where this story takes place since it happens alongside another established story. We're a bit limited in finding parts in TMMM where Jake and Tessa could talk. I couldn't really make them suddenly be having a trip in the Caribbean or something like that. So anyway, there's that.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! 

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Jake

Even before the next three weeks of torture that confirmed it, I had seriously cross-examined myself and what exactly it was that I Intended to have with Tessa. No man liked to be a cat stupidly chasing a laser beam. Not only did the cat have to know why it was chasing it—it had to know what to do with it once it finally caught it. No rational man would ever like to make such a comparison of himself but that should prove how low and desperate I'd gotten. Because I was chasing after that damn laser beam like it was the end of a lifeline and I knew exactly what to do with it once it was firmly caught. Okay, here is where we stop with the cat parallelism because it'll get weird if we don't.

Suffice to say, after putting some distance between myself and Tessa as per her request, and clearing my days and nights of any other women after gently letting go four of the five (Gia was still in Paris) I'd kept company with recently, I've had a lot of time to think long and hard about why this situation with Tessa mattered. Because it did matter, whether she agreed or not, and I was going to make her see that—eventually.

"So, 'fess up. Does it feel weird now to know you've fallen hard for the kind of woman you never even considered before?" I asked Brandon as I tossed back my one and only glass of scotch tonight.

Brandon glanced back from watching his wife dancing merrily with Mattie and Rose, his expression still soft with that dreamy smile he'd been sporting almost on a daily basis since he'd gotten married. It had been permanently fixed on his face all night as Charlotte returned from her self-imposed shame and isolation to celebrate her birthday with family and close friends. "No. I figured if she'd been exactly the kind of woman I preferred before, we wouldn't have ended up married—and happily, at that. It's not a one-size-fits-all, mind you, but I think the fact that she's different should have clued me in that my relationship with her wasn't going to go in the usual pattern."

I smiled because Brandon was echoing my thoughts. I hoped to God it would help him understand once it was time to tell him about Tessa and why it was different this time. I itched to tell him right then and there because his counsel—whether it was personal or business—was something I could always count on but this would have to wait. I wanted Tessa and myself to come forward in a united front because torn as we were right now, we would be easier to rip apart and I had no illusion that Brandon's fierce brotherly concern wouldn't do us in.

"Do you believe then that the right woman changes you?" I asked, briefly catching Tessa in my periphery as she sat talking and laughing with Martin by the bar. She looked perfectly sweet tonight in a simple, blush-colored sundress that warmed her complexion and brought out the deeper brown tones of her dark eyes and hair.

Brandon raised a brow. "I feel like this is a trick question coming from you but I'm not really sure there's a good answer, Jake. I think she has to know the kind of man you already are or she's signing up to be with one that doesn't exist in some basic level. She's there to show you the better version of yourself. The more important thing to realize is that you're letting her because you want nothing else but the best for her—whether that's of the world or yourself."