Chapter 14
JACK
Essie
Are you at Sweetie Pies?
Jack
Got here ten minutes ago. What do you need?
Essie
Is there any apple pie left? I picked Maya up from school today, and it’s her favorite. I thought I’d drop by and get her a snack and then take her to the Painted Cat.
Jack
There’s a slice left. I’ll set it aside for her.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Essie asked. Her gaze bounced from me to Maya and back again.
“I told you, it’s not a big deal,” I said. “I was going to the Painted Cat anyway. And Maya likes me. Don’t you, Maya?”
Maya looked sideways. “You’re all right.”
“See? She thinks I’m fantastic.”
“That’s not what I said.” But the look she sent her shoes was almost a smile.
Maya had finished her snack, and I’d been all set to offer to walk with them to the Painted Cat when Mom asked Essie to stay so they could catch up.
I suspected Mom was trying to force me out the door a little early, but since extra time with Janie suited me just fine, I didn’t mind.
She didn’t work Sunday, but I’d texted her yesterday. Her reply had been short: I’m fine.
Since I had never known a single person to say I’m fine and mean it, I was immediately concerned.
“You know, you’ve been spending an awful lot of time at the Painted Cat recently. I see your truck parked there nearly every day.” Essie pursed her red lips, studying me. “You’re not trying to self-medicate your PTSD with alcohol, are you?”
I blinked at her. Nothing subtle about my twin. “Jesus, Essie. I don’t have PTSD. I told you that.”
“Then why are you drinking in the middle of the day like a statistic?” she demanded.
“Maybe because it’s the only place where no one treats me like I have PTSD,” I snapped back.
“Hmph.” She tossed her hair, the rainbow-dyed ends gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Her eyes narrowed. “Remember how you said you were going to sleep with one of my friends to get back at me for marrying Brax?”
I crossed my arms. “What of it?” I asked, though I suspected I knew. Essie was too observant for my own good. If she’d noticed my truck parked at the Painted Cat in the afternoons, then she’d also noticed I wasn’t there on Sundays. Coincidentally, neither was her best friend.
“Maya, cover your ears,” Essie instructed. Maya obediently placed her palms over her ears. “You know, there’s a saying.”
I sighed. “What’s that?”
“Don’t fuck with single moms.”
“Or rhinos,” Maya piped up, because hands over ears were not really an impediment to eavesdropping.
Essie laughed. “Words to live by, Maya.” She wasn’t laughing when she turned back to me. “All of them.”
Janie didn’t look surprised as I pushed open the door to the Painted Cat and Maya walked in ahead of me. Essie must have called her to let her know the change in plans. Her cheeks flushed as our eyes met, but she quickly turned all her attention to her daughter.
“Hey, ladybug. How was the pie?” she greeted her.
“Good.” Maya climbed up on a stool like she’d been there before. “Cat said to tell you hello.” She cocked her head. “Hello.”
Janie smiled. “Thank you for relaying that message. I’ll make sure to tell Cat you did so the next time I see her.
” She leaned over the bar, hand outstretched like she wanted to smooth Maya’s hair, but when her daughter gave a brisk shake of her braid, Janie withdrew.
“So. What are you in the mood for today? Do you want to go to the apartment upstairs and read a book, or do you want to stay down here with me?”
Maya looked around. It was quiet today, as it was most Monday afternoons. “I’ll stay.”
“Great.” Janie pushed back from the bar, then squatted at the cabinet. When she popped back up, she had her sketchbook in her hand. “I practiced some axolotls this afternoon. Let me know what you think. Do you want a glass of water?”
“Yes, please. With my special straw.”
“You got it.” Janie filled a glass with water from the tap and topped it with a pink acrylic straw. “Here you go.”
With Maya taken care of, Janie finally looked my way again. “Anything for you, Jack? Or are you just dropping Maya off?”
“I’ll take a beer.” I didn’t specify which one as I slid onto my usual stool. I’d been a regular for a couple weeks now. She already knew. “I’m staying.”
I watched her grab a Yeti stout from the beer fridge. She didn’t seem like herself. Her shoulders rounded slightly; her chin drooped. Her normal energy was replaced with something much more subdued. The change made me nervous, considering everything that had gone down on Saturday.
She slid the bottle toward me without making eye contact. On impulse, I grabbed her wrist. She blinked up at me like she was surprised to see me sitting there. “Jack.”
“Hey.” I studied her. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, you mean with Maya? My mom told me two hours ago that she wasn’t available to pick up Maya from school.
Luckily, Essie was on her way back into town from Lodestar so when I called Brax to tell him I might have to close the bar for an hour, she offered to help.
I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow, though. Or—” Her voice broke.
“I can pick up Maya. I leave Lodestar at two. That’s plenty of time to get her from school. She can hang out with me at Sweetie Pies, or I can bring her here.”
She stilled, her dark irises widening. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Of course.” My eyebrows went up as I stared back at her from over the rim of my beer bottle. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s a lot of responsibility, that’s all.” She fidgeted with a loose thread on the cleaning rag.
“I happen to like responsibility.” I wasn’t just saying that. It was the truth. I enjoyed feeling a certain amount of weight on my shoulders. That weight was what made life matter. It meant I mattered. Without that weight, what was even the point?
She laughed softly but shook her head. “Thank you. I really do appreciate the offer, and maybe I’ll have to take you up on it for tomorrow, but the truth is that if I don’t fix things with my parents, I’m…
fucked.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes with a disbelieving laugh. “God, I’m so fucked.”
“Ace, tell me.” I white-knuckled the beer bottle to keep myself from shaking the truth from her. I couldn’t stand to see her like this. So worn down.
With a sigh, she pulled a white envelope from her back pocket and tossed it on the bar between us. I took a swig of beer, flicked open the flap, and pulled out a card with thank you embossed in gold calligraphy across the front.
Then I read the contents and the whole world flipped upside down.
I read it again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
“Janie.” My gaze shot to hers. “What. The fuck. Is this?”
“It’s an apology to Todd for the misunderstanding”—fury made her choke over the word—“at the party Saturday. My mother wrote it and handed it to me at the breakfast table. She intends to send it with a Williams-Sonoma charcuterie gift basket. Because we’re so civilized. ” Her voice dripped with scorn.
My fingers tightened on the card and my forehead furrowed as I scanned the note again. “Your name is at the bottom.”
“She reminded me that she will be watching Maya this summer when I’m at work. A favor for a favor, you know.” Janie gave a derisive snort. “I told her no. So, today she let me know what it would feel like to be without reliable childcare.”
“She threatened you?” I demanded. I couldn’t imagine my mom ever pulling shit like this. Even my dad. He was a deadbeat, but he wasn’t fucking evil.
“It’s not a threat. It’s quid pro quo. A favor for a favor.”
“That’s not how families work.”
“That’s how my family works.” She was back to playing with the rag. Her teeth strummed her bottom lip as she pulled at the loose threads. “I signed it. I haven’t told her yet, but I signed it.”
Fury consumed me. “You can’t.”
“Well, I did.” Her hand clenched around the rag so tightly her knuckles blanched.
“Principles are great for people who can afford them, but you know what? They’ve always been too expensive for me.
Maya is the only thing that matters. Everything else can be compromised.
And…they know that. They know I’ll cave. I always do.”
The bleakness in her tone made me want to get in my truck, drive out to Belmont Ranch, and make her mom cry. But all I could do was sit there like a useless lump on a barstool. There was nothing I hated more than feeling helpless.
“It would be so much better if I could just skip the drama and not drag it out when we all know how it’s going to end.” Janie stared off into space, drumming her fingers on the bar. She sighed. “But I never do. I go down fighting, but I still go down. Just have to get my bad out first, I guess.”
“I like your bad,” I said.
She snorted. “You’re the only one.”
“There’s no one else who can watch Maya this summer?
” It was a desperate question. Janie wasn’t stupid.
If there were another option, she would have thought of it already.
“Is it the cost?” A couple of my military peers were parents, and the amount they shelled out in daycare bills was sometimes more than a mortgage.
“Money isn’t an issue,” she said distractedly.
I blinked. How could money not be an issue? On a bartender’s salary, I would have thought money was always an issue.
She shook her head. “Even if you picked her up every day this week—and again, Jack, that means a lot, seriously—summer vacation starts in two weeks.” Frustration bled into her voice.
“I’ve tried nannies before, but no one worked out.
Maya is autistic. She’s a level one on the spectrum, which is high functioning, but I haven’t been able to find anyone who could handle her long-term.
They’re usually out at her first meltdown.
” She blew out a slow breath. “If I had more time, maybe I would have been able to find someone from out of town. Someone in Denver or wherever who had experience with kids like Maya. But it’s too late. ”
Maya was autistic? Should I have known that? I didn’t know much about autism, but it was hard imagining Maya having a meltdown of any kind.
Janie’s gaze cut to her daughter at the end of the bar and her whole face softened. “She deserves the whole world. I can do this. I can swallow my pride and apologize. As long as I know the truth, isn’t that what really matters?”
The words were quiet, spoken more to herself than to me. She wasn’t looking for my agreement. I hoped.
Because she sure as fuck wasn’t going to get it.
An idea popped into my head. Adrenaline made my heart pump faster, excitement coursing through my veins. Operation Fuck Those Fucking Fuckwads. God, I loved a mission.
She was still looking at Maya, all that love shining straight at her like a tractor beam, when I picked up the card and ripped it in half. Then I stacked the sides together and ripped it again. Shit, that felt good. Satisfying.
Janie paused like it had taken her brain a moment to catch up to what her ears had just heard, and then her head whipped toward me. She blinked down at the card scraps. Her mouth dropped open.
I took a sip of beer. It hit just right.
“Jack! What did you—why—what—” she sputtered.
“You can’t apologize to that asshole, Ace. You know you can’t.”
She slapped the bar top with both palms. “For Maya, I can do anything.” She leaned forward, dark eyes blazing furiously. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
I had some idea, actually. Janie Belmont was a firecracker. And goddamn, I wanted to see her with her fuse lit. But not like this.
Never like this.
Janie deserved so much more than to burn herself up for someone else’s wrongs.
“I told you I don’t have another option,” Janie hissed.
“Yes, you do.”
“Yeah?” she huffed sarcastically. “What is it?”
I spread my arms wide and leaned back with a self-satisfied smirk. “Me.”