Fifteen
JACK WAS GONE when I woke up the next morning—his empty bed a tangle of sheets and blankets, as if he’d spent the whole night scuba diving in there.
Where was he? It clearly stated in the handout that he was supposed to stay with or near me at all times. He wasn’t supposed to just sneak out while I was sleeping.
I got dressed—jeans and boots this time—and went to look for him.
In the kitchen, instead of Jack, I found his mom and dad.
Being adorable.
His mom was sitting at the table in a chenille robe, and his dad was across the room, wearing his wife’s floral apron, standing at the stove, burning bacon. Smoke everywhere. The stove fan running in a too-little-too-late way, and this big man flapping his ruffled hem helplessly at the whole situation.
Should Connie Stapleton be laughing like that? It was the first time I’d seen her since the surgery. Was that safe for her stitches?
Granted, she was more subdued than he was.
I mean, now Doc Stapleton was doubling over at the waist.
He took a minute to collect himself. Then he lifted the charcoal-black strips out of the skillet and brought them to his wife, well aware that bacon was supposed to be a whole different color.
“I blame the stove,” Doc said.
“Me too,” Connie said, patting the back of his hand.
Then, with remarkable generosity, she broke off a blackened piece, put it in her mouth, and said, “Not bad.”
As if burnt bacon really got a bad rap.
I felt so shy, standing in the doorway, as something totally astonishing hit me: These people were happily married. Everything about their body language—their faces, the way they were laughing—confirmed it.
Happily married.
I mean, you hear about people like that. In theory, they exist. But I’d sure as hell never seen anything like it before.
It felt like glimpsing a unicorn.
I started to back away. I definitely didn’t belong here.
But that’s when Doc looked up and noticed me.
Connie followed his gaze. “Oh!” she said, all warm and welcoming. “You’re awake!”
No escape now.
Knowing everything Connie had just been through, and knowing, too, how much of an interloper I truly was, I suddenly wished like crazy that Jack were there to cushion the moment.
And then, as if he heard me somehow, the kitchen door swung open, and Jack himself stepped in—looking windblown and manly in a plaid shirt and jeans—with his glasses a little bit crooked.
He also had a golf bag over his shoulder.
“You’re up,” he said to me, like there was no one else in the room.
Doc took in the sight of Jack. “Hitting golf balls into the river?”
“Every morning,” Jack said with a little nod.
“Golf balls?” I asked. “Into the river? Isn’t that, like, environmentally unsound?”
Jack shook his head. “It’s fine.” Then he walked over and kissed his mother on the top of the head. “Hey, Mom. How are you feeling?”
“On the mend,” she said, lifting her coffee at him in toast.
Jack seemed to register my discomfort. He strode right toward me, pulled me by the hand to the breakfast table, sat me down, sat himself right next to me, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
I think they call that owning the room.
I held very still—astonished at how ordering myself to relax and act casual had the opposite effect.
Jack responded to my stiffness with the opposite. Knees apart. Arm languid and heavy. Voice as smooth as chocolate milk.
“You look amazing today,” he said. And I’d barely realized he was talking to me before he pressed his face into the crook of my neck and breathed in a full gulp of my scent. “Why do you always smell so good?”
“It’s lemon soap,” I said, a little dazed. “It’s aromatherapeutic.”
“I’ll say,” Jack said.
I knew what he was doing, of course. He was compensating for my bad acting. I clearly had some kind of stage fright, and so he was acting twice as hard make up for it.
He really was good.
The warmth in his voice, the intimacy of his body language, the way he stared at me like he was drinking me up …
No wonder I’d seen You Wish so many times.
I’d seen so many downsides to coming here. I’d worried about the boredom of being on duty with nothing to do. I’d worried about the difficulty of trying to do my job while pretending not to—and what that might mean for my performance. I’d worried that I might be an unconvincing actor.
It just hadn’t occurred to me to worry about Jack.
In those short minutes right after he walked in, though, as he worked to establish us as a genuine, loving couple in front of his folks … that’s exactly what it felt like we were.
I bought it, too, is what I’m saying.
I felt like he was glad to see me. I felt like he was savoring being near me. I felt like he liked me.
He seemed exactly, convincingly, heartbreakingly like a man in love.
Uh oh.
How would I make it four weeks without getting traumatically confused? I couldn’t even make it four minutes.
Just then, Hank showed up in the kitchen, the screen door slapping behind him. Instead of sitting at the table, he leaned against the counter and glared at the lovey-doveyness.
That was helpful. I could focus on that.
Jack’s mom didn’t even notice Hank. She leaned toward us and said, “Tell us about how you two met.”
We’d planned for this.
Jack eyed Hank for a second before giving his mom his full attention. Then, he poured a cup of coffee from the carafe and said, in a friendly voice, “She’s a photographer. She came to my place in the mountains to shoot our infamous albino moose.”
I gave Jack a look. The albino moose ad-lib was pushing it.
Hank wasn’t buying it, either. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“You have an albino moose?” Doc asked.
Jack nodded. “Very elusive.” He gestured at me. “She was trying do a photo essay on it, but she never could find it.”
“Too bad,” Connie said.
“But I helped her look for a long time,” Jack said then, giving his mom a wink.
“You were kind to help her out,” Doc said.
“It wasn’t kindness,” Jack said. “It was pure selfishness.”
Hank snorted a laugh.
Jack ignored it. “Because it was love at first sight.”
Jack turned then and gave me the dreamiest, most lovestruck look I’d ever seen. Then he tucked a wisp of hair behind my ear. “I just wanted any excuse to be around her.” Then he leaned back and put his hands behind his head, like he was reminiscing. “I saw that feisty, stumpy little lady climb out of her Land Rover with five hundred cameras, and I just knew.”
I frowned. “Did you just call me ‘stumpy’?”
“In a good way, Stumps,” Jack said.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“In a lovable way,” Jack insisted. “In an adorable, irresistible, how-can-I-get-this-little-lady-trapped-in-my-mountain-cabin way.” Then he turned to his parents, grabbed me in a headlock that messed up my already messy bun, and said, “Look how cute she is.”
“I am not stumpy,” I said helplessly.
But Jack’s mother was totally on board. She leaned forward. “What do you like best about her?”
Jack released me and let me sit back. “I like these little wispy things that never quite make it into her bun. And how she looks like a wet cat when you make her mad. And actually”—he said, like this was just occurring to him—“I like how she gets mad. She gets mad a lot.”
“You like how she gets mad?” Doc Stapleton asked, like his son might have a few screws loose.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “People don’t really get mad at you when you’re famous. At first, it’s great—but after a while it starts to feel like you’re living on a planet with no gravity.” He thought about that for a second. Then he turned back to me. “But not Stumps! One sock on the floor, and I get the mad cat face. I love it.”
I glared at him from under my messed-up hair.
He pointed at my face with admiration. “There it is right now.”
Connie was loving this. She turned to me. “And what do you like best about Jack?”
I hadn’t prepared for this question. But an answer just popped right into my head. “I like that he thanks me all the time. For all kinds of things. Things I would never have expected anyone to thank me for.”
I glanced at Jack, and I could tell he knew that I’d said something true.
He studied me for a second, seeming to fall out of character. Then he picked up a wadded paper towel off the table and threw it at the kitchen trash can like he was making a free throw—and missed.
We stared at it where it landed.
Then Hank said to me, “What do you like least about him?”
“Least?” I asked. I hadn’t prepared for this one, either. But another answer popped up like magic. “That’s easy. He leaves his dirty clothes all over the floor.” Then I added, “It’s like the Rapture happened, and they took Jack first.”
A half second of silence, and then they all—even Hank—burst out laughing.
As they settled, Connie said to Jack, “Sweetheart, you’re not still doing that, are you?”
But as she was saying it, Hank was starting to leave, his face serious again as if he hadn’t meant to laugh, and now he regretted it. He moved toward the kitchen door and put his hand on the knob.
“You’re leaving?” Connie said with a tone, like We were all just starting to have fun.
“I’ve got work to do,” Hank said.
Connie gave him a look, like Really? and Hank explained: “I’m starting on the boat today.”
From Connie’s reaction, that was serious.
It caught Jack’s attention, too. “The boat?” he asked.
Connie nodded. “I told Dad the other week that if they didn’t get busy building it, I was going to sell it on eBay.”
Jack nodded. Then he turned to face Doc. “Do you want some help?”
But Hank spun around, like he couldn’t believe Jack had just said that. “What?”
The whole mood in the room went rigid, but Jack still kept his friendly, relaxed vibe.
“I’m offering to help you build the boat,” Jack said.
“You’re offering,” Hank said, like he could not have heard correctly, “to help build Drew’s boat?”
Jack kept a steady gaze on Hank. “It’s better than Mom selling it on eBay, right?”
“Nope,” Hank said.
“Sweetheart,” Connie said to Jack, “we know you mean well…”
Doc let out a shaky sigh. “That’s probably not a good idea, son.”
At the consensus, Jack put up his hands. “I was just offering,” Jack said.
That’s when Hank took a step closer. “Well, don’t.”
Jack was holding still now, all pretense of affability frozen.
“Don’t talk about the boat,” Hank said now, glaring at Jack. “Don’t go near the boat. Don’t touch the boat. And for God’s sake don’t ever offer to help build it again.”
At that, Jack was on his feet and moving toward him. “When are you going to let it go, man?”
They were staring at each other like they were in a game of chicken when Hank noticed the leather necklace at the base of Jack’s throat. His eyes locked on the sight.
“What are you wearing?”
“I think you know what it is.”
“Take it off.”
But Jack shook his head. “Never.”
At that, Hank reached for it, like he might try to rip it off. But Jack blocked him. “Don’t touch me, man.”
“Take it off,” Hank demanded again—and then they were fighting. Not landing punches, exactly, but grabbing at each other, scuffling, shifting off balance, slamming into the kitchen cabinets. Pretty standard fighting for people who don’t fight much.
Doc Stapleton and I were on it right away to separate them. Doc steered Hank away, and I twisted Jack’s arms behind him like a pro before worrying that might give me away—and then shifting into an awkward hug.
When we’d broken their momentum, the two guys stood back, breathing, glaring at each other.
That’s when Connie said, “Enough!”
They lowered their eyes.
Hank said, “Do you see what he’s wearing?”
“I don’t care what he’s wearing,” Connie said. “I care what you’re doing.”
“He’s never touching that boat.”
“All he did was offer to help,” Connie said. Then, like Hank might not’ve grasped the words: “To help.”
“I don’t want his help.”
“Yes, you do. Much more than you realize.”
A pause.
Connie went on, “When I first found out I was sick, can I tell you how I felt? I felt happy. I thought, Good. I thought, Maybe cancer is bad enough. Maybe this, at last, would force us all to realize that we can’t keep wasting our time. And when I saw you all after the surgery, and everybody was getting along, I thought maybe, just maybe, we were going to find a way to be okay. But I guess I was wrong.”
The boys didn’t lift their eyes.
Connie studied Hank for a second, like she was thinking. Then she said to him, “I want you to move home, too.”
Hank looked up. “What?”
“I want you to move back into your room. Here at the house. Stay until Thanksgiving.”
“Mom, I’ve got my own—”
“I know,” Connie said.
“It’s not gonna be—”
“I agree,” Connie said. “But I don’t know what else to do, and there’s no time to figure it out.”
Hank looked down at the floor, toeing a spot with his boot.
“Bring your things by dinnertime,” Connie said then. “You boys are going to find a way to get along—or kill each other trying.”