“You bet, honey,” Mrs. Cooper said. “I owe you from all the times you watched Sarah.”
The restaurant was jam-packed, and Jess knew everyone. Gerard Chartier talked her into joining the volunteer fire department, Colleen was making everyone laugh, Jeremy Lyon came back for the weekend from medical school, and this time, seeing him and Faith Holland together—still sticky-sweet in love—didn’t give Jess a pang.
She had a guy now, even if it was on the sly. And Jeremy had always been too perfect, anyway. Leave him for Princess Super-Cute.
That night Connor occasionally came out of the kitchen to press the flesh, and every time, his eyes found hers and rested a beat too long, and that wonderful, hot tightening would start in the pit of her stomach, making her feel what she imagined drunk felt like—not like her parents’ version of drunk, but happy and loose and hopeful.
The food was amazing. And free. Crab cakes, creamy lasagna, tiny cheeseburger sliders, quesadillas, salads, shrimp wrapped in prosciutto, slices of bread stuffed with garlic and spinach...every bite succulent and filled with layers of flavor. Colleen, ever gorgeous and lively, was putting on a good show, sliding beers down the bar, spinning martini shakers, but it was Connor’s food that practically brought people to their knees.
O’Rourke’s would be a smashing success; Jessica could see that. Because of Connor. Colleen was great, and Jess had always liked her, but Connor was the real star.
And he was hers.
The thought made her heart feel almost too big for her chest.
When the grand opening wound down, Jess waited in the park by the lake until the lights went on in Connor’s apartment, and then knocked at the back door.
A minute later Connor opened, hair wet from a shower, jeans on but not buttoned. No shirt, his muscular chest utterly perfect, the smooth skin on his ribs begging for her hands.
Her knees were already soft with want.
He leaned in the doorway, and a smile tugged one corner of his mouth.
“Jessica Dunn. What are you doing here?” he said, and his voice scraped against that soft, aching place inside her, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him.
Good God.
She spent the whole night.
A thought occurred to her in the dark, after Connor had made love to her for the second time and was sleeping, his heavy, beautiful arm around her, a dangerous thought, the kind she knew she shouldn’t think, piercing into her brain like an ice pick.
She felt safe.
The thought itself made her almost jolt up in bed.
That was usually the forerunner of doom.She’d thought she was safe when she was nine and her father actually won seven thousand dollars on a scratch-card, and that money was going to help them get a better place to live. It would be the start of a new life for them, where Dad could get a job he’d keep; he’d always thought he’d be a good mechanic, and they made lots of money, and Mom would sober up if they lived in a real house because it wouldn’t be so depressing, and Davey could get into that nursery school with the nuns who’d help him more than the public school, where he was always pulled out for speech therapy or put in time-outs.
That weekend, her father went to Rolling Thunder Casino and lost the seven grand plus eight hundred more...everything they had. The electricity had been turned off for six weeks, and Mrs. Cooper brought them food.
She’d felt safe, too, when Mom had three months of sobriety when Davey was six and Jess was thirteen. She’d lain there in bed, Davey’s soft little snores so sweet and lovable just a few feet away, and it dawned on Jess that at last, she wouldn’t have to be the one in charge, that maybe she could stay after school for extra help in math, now that Mom was sober and life was normal.
The next day, Davey had an outburst in kindergarten. Mom was called in and after she collected Davey, stopped at the package store for a handful of little Popov vodka bottles. When Jess got home, Davey was asleep on the couch in front of Terminator II, his face covered with dried snot from crying, and Mom was passed out in bed.
When she was sixteen, she’d felt safe after her mother’s mother came to stay, a woman Jess had only met once before. Mom was in the hospital with jaundice, and Dad was who knew where, and all of a sudden, Grandma had pulled into the trailer park with three bags of groceries. She cooked for Jess and Davey and did the dishes, too, and said she respected Jessica for having a job. She wasn’t a warm and cuddly grandmother, but she was there, she was sober and she took charge. Davey was scared of her, but he’d get over it, and it was so, so nice to have a real adult in the house. On her second night with them, around 10:30, Grandma looked at her and said, “You have to get up early. Why don’t you go to bed?”
No one sent Jessica to bed. No one cared if she got enough sleep. “Okay,” she said, and she had the thought to kiss her grandmother. She didn’t, but something filled her chest, something warm and wonderful.
Then, on the fourth day, Mom came home, still a little yellow around the eyes, and Grandma went back to Nevada. She died the next year.
So feeling safe...it was stupid. Nothing was safe. No one was safe.
But then Connor murmured in his sleep and pulled her a little closer, and she lay there, her hand over his heart, and tried not to feel safe.
* * *
CHICO THREE WAS a puppy, another pit bull, because their terrible reputation aside, they could be very sweet, gentle dogs. Chico the Original...well, he’d been fine with the four of them. But something had happened to him before they got him, and he was scary when strangers came around. Jessica had tried to take care of the problem by chaining him to the rusting aluminum railing that led up the two steps to their trailer. She should’ve known it would break. She should’ve checked. She’d been worried about Levi’s little sister, who was only two, and even afraid for Levi and Mrs. Cooper. The fact that the railing broke...she should’ve seen that coming.
But their next dog, Chico Two (obviously named by Davey) had been a great dog, a genuine sweetheart. He lived to be a ripe old age, but last month when he could no longer stand or eat, Jess carried him to the car and drove out to the veterinarian, trying not to cry, telling him what a good dog he was as the vet injected him with the mixture that would stop his heart. Davey had been devastated, of course. Broke the bathroom door with his head-banging, though she’d managed to get his helmet on him first.
Jess waited a month or so, then called the shelter, and of course they had pit bulls—they always did. Chico Three was fourteen weeks old, and Davey fell madly in love with him at first sight. So did Jess, for that matter.
And she decided that she’d ask her boyfriend—her boyfriend!—over to see the new puppy. After Davey was asleep. The other shoe hadn’t dropped, and, well, this was what normal people did. She thought so, anyway.
She called him up. “Hey. You want to come over and watch a movie tonight?” she asked. It was Tuesday, his night off.
There was a pause, and Jess actually flinched. Maybe he didn’t want to come. Maybe she was just a booty call. Maybe—
“Yeah. Absolutely. What can I bring?”
“Um...nothing. Just...just show up. After eight, okay?”
“Thank you, Jess.” His voice made her stomach contract in that strange, scary happiness.
She hung up and bit her thumbnail. Ricky, her next-door neighbor, who was always outside, waxing his beloved red Camaro, would see Connor coming. And while Gerard Chartier came and went, it was pretty well known that he was Davey’s babysitter. Connor was not a babysitter. It might be pretty obvious, in fact, that she had a boyfriend.