Beautiful Broken Mess

“He’ll never do it,” Jax eggs on.

“This was your plan all along, Lane?” I finally question.

Lane nods his head with a huge grin and Jace throws his hands up in defeat. He looks at me and I try to hide the grin on my face.

“You actually like this idea, babe?” he asks with surprise in his voice.

“I just can’t imagine you doing it,” I reply softly. He swivels on his toe and immediately starts toward the brand new screens Ed apparently installed while I was gone. My mouth drops open in shock.

Everyone around me begins to whistle and Cole shouts, “Can I pick the song?” Jace throws a middle finger in reply. Cassie, our newest bartender, mans the karaoke machine while Jace flips through the song title book. She gets on the microphone and welcomes everyone to ‘Karaoke Night,’ before announcing that it’s time for the first victim.

“This hot thing right here is Jace,” Cassie calls out, and there is a round of catcalls and whistles directed toward the small stage. Jace shakes his head and lets out a coy smile. This is totally not his thing. Despite the ribbing he was getting from the guys, I can tell he would never be up there if I hadn’t expressed interest.

“Shit, he loves you something hard.” Jax stands next to me while leaning his weight into the pool table.

“You think so?” I ask, trying to contain my excitement.

“Jace always needs to be able to control and know what the outcome is going to be before his action. Singing in front a crowd?” he chuckles, “Yeah, he’s totally burning up on the inside. This is good for him though.”

“I’m glad you’re doing better, Jaxon. It wasn’t a fun time with you down,” I say sincerely.

“Thanks for picking up some of the stress for Em and still being here, even after Jace was an ass.”

“It feels bizarre talking to you about me and Jace,” I nervously admit.

“I couldn’t be happier for the two of you. Lord knows y’all make more sense than we ever did. Don’t feel weird,” he says and pulls me in for a side hug.

“Lay off my girl,” Jace’s deep voice booms through the speakers. I smile adoringly up at the stage and move closer.

Cassie leans into the microphone and calls out to the crowd, “Jace is going entertain us with Whatever It Is by Zac Brown Band. Get at it, hot stuff.” The music intro begins and I get nervous butterflies in my stomach watching Jace up there all alone. He winks at me but I can see that he’s garnering his confidence.

“He’s going to kill us later,” Cole laughs while clapping for him.

“It’ll be totally worth it,” Lane agrees.

Jace belts out the first few words and the room falls silent. I am absolutely floored by his voice. How did I not know Jace could sing?

“Ho-ly shit!” Lane yells, while hooting with enthusiasm. “Well, that totally backfired on me!”

“I did not expect this...” Cole admits.

The third line in the song is fittingly about his ladies’ legs and heaven. Jace exaggerates the line and winks directly at me. I cover my huge smile and then begin clapping along with the beat.

Once he figures out how happy the song makes me, he really gets into it, strutting across the stage and pointing me out in the crowd. This doesn’t stop the girls from dancing provocatively in front of his little stage though. Seeing him up there in his faded blue jeans and button-up shirt, singing his heart out directly to me, is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Not even the sight of those girls could wipe this smile off my face. His eyes are only focused on me.

Anytime the line ‘I love you’ comes across the screen, Jace clutches at his heart and sings to my soul. In this moment, I know how sorry he is for being cruel. I knew he was truly sorry earlier during his apology when I saw the real pain in his eyes. The song finishes with a few lasting chords and Jace steps away from the edge of the stage. Everyone claps and calls out for an encore. Jace laughs and shakes his head.

“Thank you,” he says into the microphone.

“Marry me!” an excited blonde yells at him.

“Sorry, I’m taken. Well...at least, I think I’m taken...” He looks out to where I’m at in the back of the bar.

“Very taken!” I yell back and his smile lights up the room. A few groans are expressed from the crowd and Jace shrugs his shoulders at them with a cute, bashful smile. He clears his throat and I freeze at the look in his eyes. I don’t know why he isn’t stepping down yet, but when he brings the microphone back to his mouth, my whole body locks up. I grip the edge of the pool table, my fingernails digging harshly into the green felt.

“That beautiful, tall, brunette back there stole my heart a long time ago. We screwed it up and wasted a lot of years. But you know what?” he asks the crowd and then speaks directly to me, “I’d do it all over again, knowing that you were going to be there at the end. I’d walk through the sadness and the loneliness all over again for you. I truly was lonely, because you were always the one I wished I were with. I can’t regret it though. The journey was hard, yes, but falling in love with you was easy. I could never regret falling in love with you.”

With everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve put ourselves through, all the pain we’ve endured, this act alone erases it all with one single swipe. The secrecy and sneaking around is instantaneously forgotten with Jace’s very public display. He finally hops down, sets the microphone on the stage, and squeezes through his audience, his eyes never leaving mine.

When he reaches me, he once again drops to one knee and I cover the sob that rips through my chest. He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out the red leather box again. Then he looks up at me with a question in his eyes before he opens it. I nod my head up and down emphatically, letting him know it’s okay.

“Audrey, you’ve been in my head since the moment I met you and you never left. Baby, I sure as hell don’t deserve you but I can’t imagine anyone else being the mother of my children or being the hand I hold at the end of every day. You’re my lucky penny, remember?” he asks. I dig my penny necklace out from under my shirt and squeeze it tight. His eyes look moist when he sees that I’m still wearing it.

He hops off of his knee and I frown up at him. He must have read my mind because he leans in quickly to kiss me and says, “It’s coming, babe. I just remembered I wanted to give you something else first.” He hands the red leather box back for Jax to hold and my eyes follow it longingly. “Babe, I love you, it’s coming. First...” he digs around in his pockets, “I made something for you while you were out of town.” On top of the pool table, he dumps out a handful of lip balms. I grab one up and he laughs.

“Yeah, I bought a ton of these for you. I never want you to run out. I also got all that coconut stuff you like. I cleared out my whole bathroom so you can have room for your things,” he rambles on. I’m blown away by what he’s saying and the amount of thought he’s put into all of this.

He starts searching the other pocket and dumps out a ton of coins. They clank against each other on the table. I notice that they are all flattened pennies, each one a little different from the next.

“It took me a long time to get it just right so I ended up making about sixteen of them, but this one turned out the best.” He fumbles with the coins and I realize that I love this side of Jace. He’s usually the confident intellect, but every once in a while when he’s around me, he turns into this clumsy fool. It makes me smile to think that I can make him as flustered as he seems to make me.

He reaches behind my neck and unclasps the necklace I’m wearing. “This one has the year we met, the year I picked up my lucky penny for the first time.” Although the penny is smashed, I can clearly make out the year on it. “This one...” He slides a second flattened penny onto my chain and it clinks next to the first. “Says exactly how I feel.” I pull the penny up close and read the words out loud that he’s stamped into the metal.

Lucky to have found you.

Blessed to have you.

“Okay, that’s seriously sweet,” Em whispers from behind me.

“Jace...” I say with adoration.

He drops to his knee for the third time tonight and grabs the box back from Jax. “I’m all over the place, I know. If I knew you were going to be here, I would have been more prepared...” he rambles on adorably.

“Jace, you’re perfect,” I whisper. The fact that he’s actually been carrying all of this around with him makes me want to jump up on stage and sing to him. But I really hope he doesn’t ask me to.

“Audrey, will you marry me?” he finally blurts out, and the audience enthusiastically starts clapping.