Divorce With Benefits: A Second Chance At Love
Chapter 70: Why He Fell For Her(1)

Chapter 70: Why He Fell For Her(1)

The next morning, Jerica woke to the soft morning light filtering through the curtains, only to find Jared already awake. As always, he had prepared her breakfast, a comforting routine she never grew tired of.

Jerica rarely saw him in his loungewear in the morning, yet there he was, sitting at the dining table with the daily paper in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. The sight of him, so effortlessly charming and relaxed, caught her breath. She thought he would be worried about the suspension, but it looked like he had managed to find his peace.

His hair was tousled from sleep, and his smile, warm and inviting, brightened the quiet of the kitchen as she stepped in.

"Here’s your hot pancake, Madam," Jared said with a teasing grin, offering her the plate he had carefully kept warm in the oven.

Jerica couldn’t help but smile, her heart giving a small flutter. She wanted to stop being surprised by his thoughtfulness and culinary skills, but somehow, she couldn’t help it.

How was it possible that he could consistently make her breakfast so perfect? She reached for the plate, feeling a warm rush of affection as she did.

As they ate, the comfort of the morning settled around them. Jared, ever the creature of habit, broke it and ate with her, his eyes scanning the paper with a focus that Jerica admired.

They weren’t talking much, but there was something beautiful about that—a kind of quiet intimacy in the simplicity of sharing a meal, a moment of peace amid the noise of the world. This was everything Jerica had wanted—time together, doing something as mundane as eating breakfast, yet it felt so incredibly precious in its normalcy.

Jerica noticed that Jared wasn’t wearing his glasses. He usually wore them in the office, and she rarely saw him without them. It was a little thing, but it caught her attention. In fact, she realized she could hardly remember the last time he had worn them at home.

She herself had worn glasses since high school. Harold tried to convince her to switch to contact lenses. She’d never gotten used to them, though. They always made her eyes itch, and she preferred the comfort of glasses, a comfort that had become a part of who she was.

She picked up Jared’s glasses from the table, examining them for a moment before placing them before her eyes. She could see the thick lenses, but when she looked through them, everything appeared unchanged. She was surprised at how little difference it made, but then, she had never really thought about it before.

"Is this plain glass?" she asked, turning them over in her hands, a little amused at her curiosity.

Jared glanced up from his paper, his gaze following her fingers as they toyed with his glasses. He set the paper down and looked at her, a small, enigmatic smile forming on his lips.

"I have 20/20 eyesight," he said casually, his voice as steady as ever.

Jerica raised an eyebrow. "Then why are you wearing glasses?" She tilted her head, genuinely puzzled. She had always assumed that people wore glasses because they needed them.

Jared paused, his eyes softening as though he were considering something deeply personal, something he wasn’t sure whether to share.

There was a quiet weight in the air between them as he gazed at her, his gaze turning inward, as though he were wrestling with a memory.

"I wanted to match you," he said after a long moment of silence, his voice softer now, almost vulnerable.

Jerica blinked in surprise, her heart giving a small, unexpected leap. "Match me?" she echoed, barely able to contain the surprise in her voice.

She had never met anyone who wanted to wear glasses, much less someone who would go so far as to get them just to match her. The idea, the thoughtfulness of it, took her aback in the most unexpected way.

Before she could respond, Jared stood up, his hand gently brushing her shoulder as he walked toward the closet. Jerica stood still for a moment, caught off guard by the intimate gesture, but curiosity got the better of her. She followed him, her eyes on him as he opened the cupboard.

He retrieved a small box, and Jerica narrowed her eyes as she watched him. Jared, despite the casual air he tried to project, looked almost excited. His enthusiasm was contagious, and she found herself smiling as he offered the box to her.

But as she glanced at the clothes inside the cupboard, her gaze instinctively turned to the crumpled shirts, a small but telling sign of how little he cared for tidiness when it came to things that weren’t his domain. Her fingers itched to fix the clothes before anything else.

Jared watched her with a smile, his eyes full of affection. It was a smile that spoke of so much more—of memories, of the time they had shared, and of the deep connection that, for all the distance between them, had never faded.

Jerica, unaware of his thoughts, busied herself with the clothes. She smoothed out the wrinkles with delicate care, her actions quiet and tender.

Jared watched her, his smile soft and tinged with a quiet affection. As long as he could remember, he’d always been in charge of cleaning the house. His mother, a single parent who had to work two, sometimes three jobs, relied on him to take care of everything else.

The weight of it never truly struck him until he found solace in the rhythm of cooking, finding peace in preparing meals with whatever little they had. Even his mother, exhausted and stretched thin, had been proud of him.

But the other chores, the laundry, the dusting, the sweeping, all of it, wore on him. He hated doing it. But living in a dirty house was worse, and when his mother was too tired to clean, it fell on him.

The more he did it, the more he despised it. Years of this. Until one day, like a miracle, she walked into his life.

Jerica.