Page 99 of Jensen

She lifts it. “This is a lot. Thank you.”

I open my mouth to thank her too, but then I shut it. How can I articulate what I feel when she makes a meal for us? The last time a woman cared enough to make me food was when Holly was feeding me in exchange for my body and time.

“Thanks,” I push out.

She smiles, scrambling to her feet and going inside. I finish scrubbing out the truck and put Godspeed back in the pasture. Then, I go inside and wash the blood away in the shower. She comes to take my dirty clothes and disappears again.

When I return to the kitchen, she’s at the stove. Everything smells good, like the spices used in jambalaya. Without speaking, she hands me a bowl. It’s crawfish over rice and chopped greens. Spicy, warm, filling. I take a bite and swallow with difficulty past the lump in my throat.

She leans on the sink, eating from her own bowl.

“Can I ask you something?” she says.

I jerk my head.

“What Brothers said about your family…that’s true?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s true.”

“That must have hurt when you found out I was Leland’s wife.”

“You ain’t his fucking wife,” I correct. “But yeah.”

She watches me scrape the bowl and refills it without me asking. I swear, it fixes me every time she hands me a bowl of food. It makes all the meals Holly cooked, before she destroyed me, hurt less in my memory.

“What happened?”

“My grandmother, Cherry, was at her trailer,” I say flatly. “I guess Kyle must have not been too far, because he was there too—”

“Kyle?”

“My best friend. I fucked up a job for Brothers because I was on something, maybe drunk. I don’t remember. But I was upset, and I shouldn’t have been working that night. I shot one of the Caudills’ best dealers. They killed Cherry and Kyle in retaliation.”

Her lips part.

“I’m so sorry.”

I shrug, scraping the bowl. “It happened a long time ago.”

“Sometimes, I forget you’re so much older than I am. Everything is…fresh for me.”

“I don’t forget.”

A crease appears between her brows. It’s true. Ever since she told me she was only twenty-three, I’ve been handling her with a little more care. She’s got a lot more life experience than the average woman her age, but that’s not a good thing. It didn’t make a difference for me when I got involved with Holly.

I set the bowl down. She picks it up.

“You still hungry?” she asks.

Hesitating, I consider it. There’s something about being home that makes me want to eat. I was always hungry until I moved in with Brothers. Truthfully, I don’t know how I grew properly with how little food I ate as a kid. Everything after that was transactional. I was fed so long as I was useful to whoever was paying the bills.

Della…she just feeds me, and it has me starving.

Her food tastes like life. It’s warm, spicy, and it sticks to my ribs.

“There’s plenty,” she says, taking the bowl.

I don’t stop her as she fills it for a third time. This time, we sit at the table opposite each other. She’s still working on her first bowl. I try to slow myself to match her pace.