Chapter 38
Jess
As I walked down the street, an unfamiliar pep in my step, I marveled at how colorful and fun it was. For so long, I’d viewed Jersey City as a sad prison, a place where I’d gone because I had no place else to go. But I was realizing more and more that I had vastly undersold this place.
I approached the deli, my steps slowing.
I could use a cinnamon raisin bagel. When I came back out, I was loaded down with a dozen to take back to Brian’s office, knowing the kids would devour them as an afternoon snack.
And given’s Brian’s habit of working through lunch so he could finish early and spend time with me and the girls, he was probably starving.
Kit and Greta had spent the day with Sloane, who had found homemade slime recipes online for the kids.
I wasn’t sure how she balanced the patient mom part of her with the badass lawyer part.
She seemed to have figured it out. How to be a whole person while raising kids.
Not to mention her clearly hot and heavy relationship with Sully.
She was technically younger than me, but she seemed to have solved the puzzle that had eluded me for so long.
I was already a hot mess with multiple jobs, two kids, and a lot of confusion surrounding my potential upcoming move. Then I’d thrown Brian into the mix.
Despite the mess my life had become, I couldn’t help but smile. We were having fun. Brian and I talked or texted constantly, sharing funny stories and revealing more and more about ourselves. And every day I fell more in love with this man.
The office was busy. Cal had on his orange suit, and Lo was frantically sorting through a massive pile of documents while Amy looked on, thoroughly confused.
“The exhibits have to be in order, Amy,” Lo said through gritted teeth. “They each have a lettered tab. G does not come before D in the alphabet.”
“Bagels?” I interjected with a smile.
Lo gave me a smile. “Got any gluten-free? I’m crabby and could use a treat.”
“Yep. Got one specifically for you. Cal,” I said, narrowing my eyes on him, “the poppy seed is for Brian.” I set the bag on the conference table and headed toward his office.
He was standing with his headset on, pacing while speaking and holding what looked like a lumpy smoothie. I waved at him and he gave me a wink, which sent a spark through me. God, he was so handsome.
He turned, headed the other direction, and took a big sip. He winced, but he choked the smoothie down.
“Yes,” he said. “The discovery deadline is the nineteenth, and Judge Maxwell is not going to give you another extension.”
He took another big gulp, and with what I swore was a shudder, he set the cup on the desk.
“Okay. Interrogatories by Friday could wor—” He winced. “Sorry, Mark. I—” His face paled. “I’ll call you back.”
He looked up at me, his eyes wide, then dashed out of the room.
He ran down the hall and disappeared into the bathroom before I could get my wits about me. What was happening? Was he ill?
Slowly, I crept down the hall. The closer I got to the bathroom, the louder his retching got.
“Brian?” I asked gently. “Can I help you?”
Sully popped his head out of his office and gave me a concerned look, then hollered, “Are you sick?”
“Yes,” Brian groaned, his voice muffled through the closed door.
“Can I get you anything, water?” I rested a hand on the flimsy piece of wood between us. “A towel?”
“A priest?” Sully quipped, now standing next to me.
I glared at him and he shrugged.
In response, Brian retched some more. Eventually, he went quiet and flushed the toilet.
When he didn’t emerge, I worried that he’d passed out, so I slowly eased the door open.
Brian, sweaty and pale, stared up at me from the mustard yellow linoleum floor.
I helped him up and led him to the couch in the reception area, then scurried to the mini fridge and pulled out a bottle of water.
“Do you think you caught a bug?” I asked as I uncapped it and handed it to him.
He sipped tentatively. “It was the smoothie. Usually I chug them, but this one was off. Tasted like pickles, but I hadn’t eaten, and then all of a sudden…”
He ran his hands through his sweaty hair. Smoothie? Pickles? What the hell was he talking about?
I stalked back to his office and picked up the almost empty tumbler. It looked like a chocolate protein shake, but the liquid was lumpy and separated. Maybe he’d used expired milk by accident. I loosened the lid and was immediately hit with the distinct smell of brine.
Marching back toward him, cup in hand, I demanded, “Who made this?”
“Greta,” he said, head tipped back and eyes closed. “She makes them for me some days. When I haven’t had lunch.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and silently cursed. Had my nine-year-old put pickles in his smoothie?
“Sometimes they’re great. Sometimes she gets creative. But you know, she’s a kid. And—”
I held up a hand, the pieces clicking into place.
“Drink a little more water. Take small sips. I need to talk to my kids.”
I stomped up the stairs, fuming. Greta liked to cook with me. She knew damn well pickles wouldn’t be appropriate for a chocolate protein shake. Was this a childish prank gone wrong? After all the kindness Brian had shown us?
I found the girls sitting at the massive table, playing with glittery slime and giggling while Murphy demonstrated his newfound ability to floss.
“No,” T. J. corrected. “Like this. Arms and hips opposite.”
It would have been a heartwarming scene had I not been filled with rage.
“Greta, Kit, can I speak to you for a moment?”
Both girls looked up at me with wide smiles, though when they saw the tumbler in my hands, Kit’s eyes widened and Greta immediately looked away.
Once I’d marched them downstairs to Brian’s office, I gave them my best mom glare.
“Did you make a smoothie for Brian?”
Greta nodded. “He never eats lunch, but he sometimes comes upstairs to make a protein shake in the afternoons. So I thought I’d help and make it for him.”
She blinked rapidly, one of her tells.
“Why does this smell like pickles?”
She said nothing, just stared at me.
“I need an answer. Because while a chocolate shake can be enhanced by many ingredients, pickles are not one of them. And I know you know that.”
I stared at her in silence, waiting it out. Kit and I had endured some epic standoffs over the years, but I knew Greta would crumble.
After about three minutes of disappointed mom glare and silence, she did.
“It wasn’t just pickles. I added nutritional yeast. For Unami. I just wanted to see.”
My stomach sank. “But why?”
“To see if he would drink it. He’s drank all the other ones.”
“Other ones?” Dear God, had my third grader been slowly poisoning my boyfriend?
Ugh. Boyfriend? That sounded weird in my head.
Partner? Guy I was dating? Shit, this was weird at forty. Another thing to put on my endless to do list, appropriate vocabulary for whatever Brian and I were doing.
“I’ve made a bunch for him. Some are regular. And sometimes I add fruit, like a banana.” She looked at the floor, her feet shuffling. “But…”
“But what?” I barked.
“But then I got curious. He likes you so much, and he’s so super-duper nice to Kit and me. I just wanted to test him.”
I took a deep breath, swallowing back the urge to yell.
“Test him how?”
“At first I added a little hot sauce. I wanted to see if he liked you enough to drink it. And he did. He even pretended it was great. So then Kit said—”
“Wait.” I held up a hand and spun toward my eldest daughter. “You were involved in this?”
She shrugged. “I never made anything. My hands are clean.”
Damn, she was crafty.
“But you knew about it.”
“Yeah. And it’s hilarious. Greta needed suggestions, so I helped.” Her flippant attitude made me want to shake her. “She’s right. The guy is obsessed with you. For a while, we didn’t like it, but we get it now. Brian’s cool.”
“I made them,” Greta admitted. “It was Kit’s idea to make normal ones too, so he wouldn’t get suspicious.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to wrap my mind around her confession. When Brian and I had agreed to give this a try, I’d sat down with the girls and asked for their input.
Guilt spiraled inside me. This was too fast. I was hurting them, and now they’d be even more traumatized.
“It’s not because we don’t like him,” Kit said, sensing my distress.
“We love Brian,” Greta added.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought someone into your lives so soon.” My lips wobbled, dammit. “If my dating bothers you—”
“We don’t mind,” Kit said.
Greta peered up at me. “Especially Brian.”
“So you’re okay with us dating?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Then why did you put pickles in his protein shake?”
Greta shrugged. “I dunno. We’d put pickles on the list a while ago, and I saw a jar in the fridge.”
I stood silently for a moment, trying to come to terms with this madness.Were they diabolical future serial killers? Or kids being curious and somewhat dumb?
“At first, we were mad because he liked you so much. But then when we saw how much you like him back, we wanted to make sure he was committed.”
“By poisoning him.”
“Mom, that’s a bit hyperbolic,” Kit said.
Impressive vocabulary aside, the urge to shake her returned.
“Brian is nearly passed out on the couch. He just spent ten minutes in the bathroom throwing up,” I said.
Both girls’ eyes widened, and Greta’s even teared up. They were ashamed. Good.
“You made him sick. He was being kind to you by drinking your concoctions, and now he’s ill.”
Greta’s face had gone wan. “I didn’t want to make him sick. I just thought it was funny.”
Dammit. I was raising sociopaths.
God, I was fucking this all up.
Someday I’d be on a Netflix true crime documentary, musing about how it had all gone wrong.
I should have known. They were made up of 50 percent of Kenneth’s DNA, which meant there was plenty of asshole in their genetic code.
“You are both grounded,” I declared. “You will apologize to Brian and do extra chores to atone for what you did. In the meantime, no screens, no playdates, and no dessert for two weeks.”
After a prolonged apology, in which the girls agreed to clean Fuzzy’s litter box and organize the office supply closet, Brian perked up.
When the girls ran upstairs to find crackers to settle his stomach, he pulled me close and wrapped his strong arms around me. With a kiss to the top of my head, he chuckled. “Your kids hazed me.”
“It’s not funny.” I sighed, my heart heavy. “I need to call their therapist tomorrow. Nip this in the bud before it becomes the starting point of a life of crime.”
Brian laughed harder. “I’m not worried. They’re good kids, and they’re protective of you.”
I slumped against him. “But you got sick.”
He squeezed me harder. “Worth it. They were testing me. And I passed the test.” He pulled back, his golden eyes dancing.
“Testing you?”
“Yeah, I’m part of the family now.”
“We do not haze people into our family,” I declared. “This is a major parenting fail.”
“Nah.” He kissed my neck gently. “My gorgeous girlfriend has taught me to see the positive in every situation. If I have to chug a little pickle-and-oat-milk protein shake in order to keep you, then it’s more than worth it.”