BEAUTIFUL BROKEN MESS (Broken, Series #2)(125)

“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.