The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“It’s part of my mystique. Is your father home?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m a little embarrassed.”

“Over what?”

“Everything. I busted up Loren Nichols. Where’s your father?”

“Working in Beaumont. You did what?”

“If Saber hadn’t stopped me, maybe I would have finished the job. I don’t feel too good about it.”

I saw the light go out of her eyes. She studied my face and blinked and looked at the alleyway and the dust rising into the sky. “Come in.”

“What for? I just wanted to tell you I didn’t burn his car.”

She pulled me inside and latched the screen. She bolted the inside door and looked through the window at the alley again. I could hear her breathing. “Say all that again.”

“I hit him and then I couldn’t stop. I’ve never felt that way before.”

“I’ll talk to him. I know his brother, too. We have to do something and do it now.”

“You said he wasn’t a hood, just a neighborhood guy.”

“You can’t come into the Heights and beat up somebody and walk away.”

“That’s what I just di

d. He asked for it, too.”

“What you did was insane.”

“You think you know these guys, Valerie, but you don’t. They’re mean to the bone.”

“I grew up here, a Jew in a neighborhood where people like me are called Christ killers. Don’t tell me what they’re like. Sit down.”

“What for?”

“You have a cut in your scalp. I don’t believe you beat up Loren. Or you’re exaggerating about it.”

“Tell him that. I feel sick. I hurt Saber’s feelings. Saber says I’m the only family he has.”

“We’ll call him up. We can go out together. We can play miniature golf.”

I think in that moment I fell in love with Valerie Epstein all over again, and this time I knew I loved her more than life itself.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked.

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.”

A wood-bladed fan spun above us, its shadows breaking across her face. Her gaze fixed on mine; she didn’t speak.

“You’re the only person in the world I want to be with,” I said. “I care about you more than my parents, more than Saber, more than anyone I’ve ever known. I’d do anything for you.”

She was looking at me in a different way now. She placed her hand on my forehead as though I had a fever. “You’re such a strange boy. You want to believe bad things about yourself. That’s wrong, did you know that?”

“Would you run off with me?”