Chapter 29
“Am I using therapy to keep Jack away?” I moan to Wendy. I snap a thread on the poor pillow-bird’s beak with my nail and quickly set it down before I can inflict more damage.
“Do you think you are?”
“Maybe? Yes? I think.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Have you met me?” I ask archly.
Wendy spreads her hands out, conceding the point. “Okay. But there’s no rule that says you have to remain single or chaste while doing this work. You can give yourself permission to explore it.”
“I guess you can’t write me a doctor’s note to get me out of it?”
“Do you want to get out of it?”
I wrinkle my nose, annoyed with this Socratic questions-answered-with-questions thing. “No, I don’t.”
Wendy nods.
I flop back against the sofa cushion. “Can’t you just…tell me what to do?”
Wendy smiles, but slightly, as if in response to a joke she’s heard told many, many times before. She probably has. “No. And you don’t want to be told what to do, either.”
“Ugh.”
“Penny, from what you’ve said, Jack sounds supportive of your therapy and is willing to take it slow.”
“I know. He’s sweet. And understanding. Add that to the fact he’s hot and funny, and he’s the worst.”
“The worst,” Wendy agrees.
“He is!” I insist. “Because he’s different from any other guy I’ve ever been involved with.
And he makes me want to be different. And I’m trying to be different!
Not just for him, but… But I’m also scared out of my mind by all of this.
This whole thing is like walking through a terrifying haunted house. ” I pause. “A sexy one.”
“You know, Penny.” Wendy’s lips twist. “It’s not a bad thing to have somebody to hold your hand as you walk through a haunted house.”
Gence comes over the next evening and muds both sides of the drywall, caking spackle all over the seams and giving firm instructions not to touch. I try not to take offense that his instructions are mainly directed at me, as if I’m a child who can’t resist poking the thick white wall goo.
Jack stands at my elbow as Gence muds down my apartment, still sporting his eye patch. At one point, I think I feel a finger run down my back, but maybe it’s wishful thinking.
I want to tell Jack that I hate the thought of not hearing him vacuum. I hate not glancing over and seeing him whenever I want. I want to Kool-Aid Man through the wall myself when I think about it. I want a lot of things.
Instead, I say nothing, and Jack makes zero moves to repeat the kissing from yesterday. There is no reference to his theory or taking it slow, nor to anything else. I don’t seek him out that night, and he doesn’t come to me, either. I have to remind myself it wasn’t just another dream.
The next day, Gence is back to sand and mud some more, and after he’s done, Jack brings his vacuum over and takes care of the dust in my apartment.
He maneuvers around my living room, his dark head bending every now and again to inspect a renegade speck.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye with a mix of thirst and confusion.
What the hell was the other night? Has he had a change of heart?
I reflexively return his friendly smile when he gathers up his vacuum cord and offer a quick, impersonal “thanks” when I trail him to the door.
I tell myself it’s fine, even though it’s as if Jack pulled all the warmth and color from the room after him, leaving my apartment cold and quiet.
And then I realize that he’s already tackling the dust on his side and I can barely make out the sound.
I want to lie down and pull my throw blanket over my head.
Instead, I bang my hand on the wall for old time’s sake—and pull my hand away covered in spackle.
Shit. Gence is going to kill me.
I grab a spoon, try to smooth out the area, and somehow make it worse.
Nothing left for it, I skip into the hall, practically running to seek out Jack’s help.
And not because I want to see him, spar with him, be near him.
No. It’s just because my apartment is so quiet it might as well be on the moon, and because Gence is really going to kick my ass.
Time to test Anna’s white-knight hypothesis.
He opens his door a second after my insistent knock and immediately takes my breath away. I want to dig my nails into his shoulders like grappling hooks and scale him like Everest. I want to tuck my head onto his shoulder and watch action flicks. I lied. I just want to be near him.
“Missed me already?”
“Never. I need your help. I smooshed the spackle when I hit the wall.”
“I thought I heard knocking. You could hear the vacuuming?”
I shift, uncomfortable, and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Not really. I banged on the wall because I figured… It’s like breaking champagne to christen a new boat. New wall and all.”
Jack sucks his teeth. “Shit. Good luck with Gence.” He starts to close the door and laughs when I push to keep it open. “Let me get my stuff.”
I watch him work, spreading a thick coat of spackle against the area I messed up and then smoothing and skimming away the excess.
“What did Lucas want?” he asks casually.
I grin, remembering his admission that he was jealous. “To whisk me away to Paris?” I say. He turns to slant me a one-eyed glance. “It was what I thought. Don’t say anything to the tabloids. Call his PR folks if anyone approaches, et cetera.”
He nods, continuing his work on the wall. He’s wearing a short-sleeve shirt, and I follow the line of his arms up to his shoulders and down to his back, remembering the look of it without a shirt.
He must catch the heat in my eye because his own darkens, and he stands.
“Want to order in? I—” My phone vibrates.
“Maybe. You going to answer that?”
I duck my head with a smile and pull out my phone, pleased to hear the hint of something in his voice just then. “It’s probably my mom. I told you she’s been all over me, trying to set me up with some guy I went to high school with… And maybe she saw the tabloid stuff… Oh no.”
“What?”
My eyes water. I tremble. “It’s my mom’s friend…” I struggle to get it out, my throat closing against my words.
Jack takes my phone and reads.
Penelope, it’s Monica. Your mom is on her way to the hospital.
“I— I need to go.” I snatch my phone back and race around my apartment, grabbing things to throw into my handbag. I check my phone. Lyft and Uber will cost hundreds, but I don’t have time for the bus.
“What are you doing? How are you getting to— Where is it you’re going?”
“Stone Harbor. About three hours from here. God, I—”
He covers my shaking hand. “I have a car. I’ll take you.”
I look up at him, his face distorted by the wash of tears I’m trying not to let fall.
He runs to his apartment to load up an overnight bag as I lock up. I don’t even recall rushing down to the lobby or getting into the taxi Jack hails. But as we pull away from the curb, for the first time in many minutes I think of something other than my nagging worry.
“I thought you had a car?”
He gives the driver an address and sits back. “Parking lot is near the river. Too expensive to keep the car here.”
I type furiously on my phone, texting Monica back in the hope that she can provide some more details.
A short time later, we’re in Jack’s car and speeding over the George Washington Bridge. I watch as the bridge lights blur into a river of white, and I tell myself it’ll be okay. But I feel like crawling out of my skin.
Jack breaks the silence. “You okay?”
I settle back against the leather seat and look over at his profile, at the lights sliding along the hard angles of his face.
“I’m…okay. Thank you. For taking me. I— She’s always complaining about how often she sees me.
” My voice hitches a little. The regret is an anchor tied to my neck, weighing my head down.
“I think all moms do that.”
I turn to stare out the window some more.
“My mom talked a good game about looking forward to peace and quiet when we left for college, but she definitely shed more than a few tears when it finally happened,” he says, shifting gears.
My chest hollows. “Mom never wanted me to leave at all. She got married and knocked up young, spent her life pandering to my dad, and then decided she’d get a second chance at life by living vicariously through me.” My therapy-sourced realizations are out before I can control my mouth.
His voice is quiet, even in the hushed, dark confines of his car. “Why wouldn’t she want you to leave if she’s living vicariously through you?”
There’s a faint hum in my ears—an echo of guilt and freedom ringing in my chest. “Because she didn’t regret all of her life decisions.
Just some. Staying in Stone Harbor from cradle to grave is cool with her, so it has to be for me.
It’s why I love my apartment so much. Going away for college was something she tolerated.
Moving to my place… It was like cutting the cord.
She… She loves me, but she’s a control freak.
” Speaking the words aloud is like crossing a bridge that crumbles behind me.
I sigh and shift to face him more fully.
Jack glances at me, and I analyze him as objectively as I can.
I don’t know how I pegged him for a villain.
That seems so far away now. He may look like a sexy pirate, with his rumpled dark hair and sharply intelligent light eyes—well, eye, thanks to the patch—but he doesn’t have the requisite uncaring and selfish streak to pull it off. He’s a sleeper hero. He was all along.
“See anything you like?” he says, his voice a warm rumble in my stomach. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I’m sorry. About your eye, I mean. You look like a pirate.”
“If I were a pirate, I would’ve already claimed that booty.” He scowls. “What? Why are you laughing?”
I groan, but he’s managed to break up a little of the oppressive cloud hanging over my head. “Come on, man. You’re better than that.”