Page 23

23

ADAIR

I wait, but I guess Jack is going to make me ask. “Hey, where are you taking me?”

“Home,” he snaps.

I bark out a laugh. “I don’t have a home at the moment — I already told you. My old house is up for a sheriff’s sale because my asshole landlord stopped paying taxes and let it get seized, so I’m not allowed to live there anymore. And he gave me this song and dance and then fucking hung up on me when I asked for my security deposit back. I assume he probably spent the money — my money — so it’s not like I could even take him to court to get it back.”

Jack scowls, but doesn’t say anything throughout my entire tirade. I realize that I’ve probably said more to him in the past twenty minutes than I ever have in total since I met him.

“So where are you taking me?” I ask again.

“Home,” he repeats, an edge to his voice. I swallow hard and tell myself that at least it should be warmer than the woods.

“ I wasn’t exactly expecting company,” he says.

I look around. For a single guy living alone and not expecting company, Jack’s home — one of the cozy A-frame cabins that are common around here — is immaculate.

He shows me around the main living area with its high, beamed ceiling. The living room furniture is mostly overstuffed brown leather and slate-topped wrought iron. There’s a compact kitchen divided from the rest of the space by a granite-topped island with a pair of stools tucked up against it. I glimpse a deck through the sliding glass door as I follow him upstairs. The bathroom has fancy spa-rock tile in the shower.

I quickly realize there’s exactly one place to sleep in the loft that takes up the rest of the space: One big, admittedly comfy-looking bed.

I take two giant steps back towards the stairs. “I’ll set up camp on your sofa.” He’s already called me needy, which still stings. I don’t need him thinking I’m hoping for an invite into his bed.

He shrugs. “I was going to ask if you wanted an air mattress, but if you prefer the sofa, feel free.”

“Uh, I’ll go get my stuff.” I don’t know what else to say so I race downstairs to go retrieve my backpack from the back of Jack’s truck.

As I’m lugging it inside, I cringe as a thought strikes me. I need to tell Jack that, since my car is behind the coffee shop, I’ll need a ride to work at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I also realize my plan for roughing it in the woods wasn’t as well thought-out as I thought it was, because it didn’t include a way for me to get to work tomorrow. It makes me at least a little bit grateful for Jack’s intervention, even if he was his usual bossy-asshole self about it.

I expect him to get all pissy at me when I tell him I need a ride, but he doesn’t have much of a reaction. He brings me some folded blankets from upstairs, putting them on the coffee table before he retreats into the kitchen. I hear the hum of a refrigerator water dispenser, and he reemerges a moment later with an insulated tumbler he sets next to the blankets. I busy myself with setting up my makeshift bed so I don’t have to look at or talk to him.

When I glance up again, Jack is leaning an elbow on the kitchen island, watching me quietly. “I’ve got well water out here,” he says, nodding towards the tumbler. “Not that over-chlorinated municipal shit.”

He sounds as awkward as I feel. “Um, thanks.” This is so uncomfortable I think I’d rather be out in the woods. “I don’t — look, I’m sorry — I know we weren’t, like…” I trail off because I don’t know what the fuck I was trying to say, scrubbing a hand over my eyes so I don’t have to look at him.

Jack’s sigh sounds tired. “I’m not asking you for or expecting anything. I just don’t want to see you sleeping out in the woods. If you give me your phone, I’ll input my wifi password.” He holds out his hand as he adds, “And you can add your tablet if you want.” I feel like I can hear so you can read your stupid werewolf porn , but at least he doesn’t say that part out loud.

But I do have a favor about books I need to ask him. “Um, I don’t want to take up too much of your space with my crap and all, but I’ve got some boxes of books in the backseat of my car I’d really rather not keep there. Would you mind if I bring them inside here tomorrow?”

I’m expecting him to pop back with something cutting or derogatory but he just gives me a sort of puzzled look. “I can’t leave them in my storage unit because the humidity would damage them, but I worry about them getting banged up if they’re getting jostled in the back of my car for weeks on end,” I explain. “They’re all special editions of one kind or another — hardcovers, signed copies, ones with limited-edition covers or character art inside. Stuff like that.”

I’m pretty sure I see amusement in Jack’s eyes, but he keeps a straight face as he shrugs. “Sure. You can just stack them up behind the sofa.”

I thank him profusely as I dig out a pair of briefs and a T-shirt to sleep in. Jack gives me a funny look as I go to change in the half-bathroom downstairs. I feel a little stupid doing it, because Lord knows he’s seen everything already. But I still feel like this is a different kind of line, one we haven’t crossed.

O n the drive to Bean-Go in the morning, Jack reaches into his jacket pocket and hands me a yellow diamond-shaped key fob, like one of the old-fashioned camp ones.

“What’s this?”

He sighs, and I sigh back at him. “Right, it’s a key. I get it. To your house?”

He tips his chin down once into a nod. I think he’s going to elaborate, or at least come back with a volley of insults, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the road.

“OK, then,” I mutter. “Good talk.”

I think I see a smirk pull at one corner of his mouth, but I’m not sure. Neither one of us says anything until he pulls up behind the shop.

“Oh, hey.” I’m sure he’ll roll his eyes and call me dumb, but since I’m getting out of his truck in ten seconds anyway, I don’t care. “Do car batteries sometimes just come back to life? Did I get lucky? And do I need to worry that it’s going to die again and leave me stranded somewhere?”

There’s definitely a little smirk curling his lips now but his voice doesn’t sound snide as he says, “Check your glove box.”

Weird. I shrug it off and thank him for the ride as I hop out. He just sort of grunts in response, but I give him a wave as he spins around and heads out of the lot anyway. I know he sees it, but he doesn’t wave back. Dick.

I unlock my car so I can leave Jack’s spare key in the cupholder — I’m sure all hell would break loose if I lost the thing, and I’m kind of bad when it comes to misplacing keys — when I remember what he said about the glove box.

A yellow piece of paper flutters onto the floor mat when I open it. I pick it up. It’s a receipt from an auto-parts store. I don’t understand most of the product codes, but there’s one word that jumps out at me: battery . I look at the bottom. It’s almost two hundred bucks.

My eyes widen as they jump back to the top of the receipt. It’s from the same day my car inexplicably started when I turned the key, saving me from a tow bill I couldn’t afford. The time stamp on the receipt is just after 7:00 in the morning.

I stare at it, slowly shaking my head. I know more now, but I understand less than ever.

I spend the day puzzling over it. By the third time I dump out a drink after spacing out and making the wrong thing, Gigi puts her hands on her hips with an irritated sigh. “What is up with you today?” she hisses.

I give a quick shake of my head. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you later.”

She makes me sit down with her after lunch, when we’re alone except for a guy with a laptop in the corner.

“Talk to me, Addy. What’s going on? I know sometimes you have your head in the clouds, but babe — you’ve been, like, totally checked out all day.” I sigh and put my head in my hands. Maybe telling somebody will help me sort out the confusion that’s swirling in my head right now.

I give her the short version. It’s still kind of a long story, between Jack and my landlord and all. “Whoa,” she breathes when I pause to take a breath. She fiddles with the straw in her iced green tea. “So, like, how do you feel about all of this? About him?”

“I mean, I’m not one of those people who puts love on a pedestal.”

Gigi cocks her head and smirks at me. “Oh, please.”

“I like reading about it, but that’s it,” I insist.

“You cried when you came over and watched that movie Titanic with me and Dylan last summer,” she points out.

“I did not,” I mumble. “I don’t care about some old movie. I just think it was stupid she didn’t let him climb up on that door or whatever with her.”

Gigi cracks up and I sigh. “I’m not looking for a fucking fairytale romance! Hell, I don’t even need him to like me as long as it’s hot — which it is. But I don’t get why he treats me like he hates me, then turns around and does something nice for me.”

She frowns. “Like what?”

“You know my car? How it just started after it was dead?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I didn’t get lucky with the battery suddenly having a little more juice in it. Gigi, he went out and bought a car battery — did you know those things are like two hundred bucks? — and replaced it for me. Without telling me! He just left the receipt in my glove box.”

“That’s… weird.”

“ He’s weird. I don’t understand why he hates me, or why he’s letting me stay in his house if he does. And if he doesn’t hate me, I don’t get why he acts like he does.”

Gigi kind of grins. “How would it go if it was in one of your romance books? Why would somebody just run hot and cold on you? If it’s in a story, they at least have to explain why, right?”

I laugh ruefully. “Oh, let’s see. Probably because the character who’s being a dick is actually in love with the other one but there’s some reason they can’t be together — like, they’re in rival mafia families or something — so he’s trying to make the other character hate his guts and storm out of his life. Which he can’t bring himself to do because he secretly has feelings for them.”

Gigi raises an eyebrow at me. “So…”

I snort and roll my eyes. “Even if you leave out the fact that we’re not in the mafia or anything — I mean, I assume he’s not, but who fucking knows with him. He’d probably make a good hit man, actually. But yeah, no.”

Gigi’s face turns serious as she rattles the ice in her cup and slurps up the last dregs of her tea. “I’m sorry, babe. You know if Dylan and I weren’t crammed into a single room of his mom’s house, you could definitely stay with us.”

“Yeah, I know. That wasn’t why I brought all this up. It’s just — there’s just been a lot on my mind lately.”

She nods, and I sigh, no closer to an answer.