Page 75 of Undeniable Love

“Well, to be fair, he can’t get a lot of time away. The rest of us have at least a little flexibility in our schedules,” Noah reasoned before glancing at Simon. “Some more than others.”

“Hey, you told me I needed to stop working so hard and now that I am, you’re going to give me grief?” Simon said with a dramatic sigh. “There’s just no pleasing some people.” Then he winked at Lucy. “I’m glad you could get the weekend off too. I imagine your clinic is very busy.”

She nodded. “It is, but it just worked out that I had taken today off before Jax even mentioned this.”

“I hope we’re not pulling you away from anything,” Juliette commented. “We know you have an important career, and I’m sure Jax is already being needy and asking you to take time off to spend with him.”

It was said lightly and everyone began to laugh and joke so Lucy didn’t take offense.

“We’re still working on logistics and how to make the most of our time,” she explained. “Obviously his schedule is way more rigid than mine, but I don’t think I’ve ever been away from home this much in my life.”

“What does your family think of all of this?” Noah asked. “I can only imagine what that conversation must have been like.”

Awkward…

“We um…we haven’t told them about us yet,” she murmured, pushing her salad around on her plate. “At first we were just trying to figure out how serious this was, and once we did, there just hasn’t been the time.” Glancing around, she noticed the shocked expressions. “I know it doesn’t sound great, but…”

“Hey, who are we to judge?” Lily said before anyone else could speak. “Noah and I snuck around because he worked for my family and neither of us wanted to deal with the potential repercussions there.”

“Yeah, and I worked for Simon when we first got together,” Juliette chimed in. “We didn’t let anyone know about it for a while, so don’t worry. Really, no judgment.”

Everything in her sagged with relief.

And now I can relax…

Suddenly, her food tasted better and she felt herself smiling more. This was a great group of people, and she felt completely at ease with them. Both of Jax’s brothers were so much older than her, so she never really hung out with them or even knew them when she was growing up, so it was nice that she felt so at ease with them now.

“I’m guessing you’re going to have to tell them eventually,” Lily said with a hint of amusement. “It’s not like you can keep it a secret forever. And once the season’s over, I imagine Jax is going to be hanging out more and more back in South Creek because of the camp.”

She nodded. “He’s still not sure how that’s all going to go. It seems like he’s going to be very hands-on once the camp opens, but during construction, there isn’t much he actually can do other than stand back and watch.”

“If I know Jax, he’s going to try to convince someone on the construction crew to let him drive the concrete truck or build at least something,” Simon joked. “He’ll be sure to get a hard hat with his name on it and walk around like he knows what’s going on.”

Everyone laughed at that, including Lucy, because…yeah…she could totally picture that.

“You know, from a PR standpoint, it would kind of awesome to get pictures of Jax doing that sort of thing,” Juliette suggested. “I mean, PR was the reason he finally pulled the trigger on this project to begin with, so in order to keep the good press going, we should seriously consider staging photos like that.”

Noah groaned. “I can already hear the exaggerated stories he’s going to tell…”

“Aww…I think he should totally brag,” Lily countered. “He’s doing something amazing and for a noble cause. Sure, the whole PR angle made it happen sooner than he maybe was going to, but ultimately Jax chose to do something completely selfless with his money. Something that’s truly giving back and even though he’s a major doofus sometimes, I think it’s sweet.”

Tears stung Lucy’s eyes and all she could do was nod.

As if sensing her emotions, Juliette changed the subject.

Sort of.

“So you’re a pediatric physical therapist,” she said with a smile. “What’s that like?”

So for the next several minutes, Lucy explained what the life of a physical therapist for kids was like. Everyone asked questions and seemed genuinely interested, and she kind of loved sharing what she did.

When she explained some of the tasks she used on her patients to make it seem more like a game rather than therapy—like the rebound trampoline—Simon commented, “That just sounds like something fun to have at home!”

And that’s when Jax walked in wearing a big grin. “What’s fun to have at home?” He walked right over to her and kissed her soundly before looking up at his brother for an answer.

“The rebound thing to bounce balls on,” Simon told him. “It just sounded like a great stress reliever for when I’m feeling fidgety.”

“Dude, you’re not a good catcher,” Noah reasoned. “We all know this.”