“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve always liked fart jokes.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Lucy laughed too, and then quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, peeking over the edge of the love seat to make sure she hadn’t woken the boys. They were out, heads together on the same pillow in the middle of the couch.
“Is Aaron still on the phone?” she asked and turned down the volume on the credits. Using his remote controls like she’d been doing it for years. Like she had the authority. And she did, he’d handed it to her. Wanted to hand everything to her.
This shabby house, the three wounded boys, all his problems and worries—he just wanted to give them all to her.
Right, he thought, and she’s going to love that.
Upstairs the hum of Aaron’s voice was just audible.
“Good Lord,” he said. “It’s ten o‘clock.”
“Must be a girl.”
“Heaven help us.”
“Well, thank God you gave him that condom.”
“Yeah, it’s my phone bill I’m worried about now.”
She curled her foot into his hand and he reciprocated by running his fingers across the sensitive skin at her toes. Her breath caught in her chest and he liked that.
He liked everything.
“This was a good day,” she said.
“Was it?” He watched his dark fingers against the white of her skin.
End this, he thought. It’s going nowhere.
“What’s wrong?” She put her fingers on the shoulder seam of his shirt. And it was as if the bell had been rung and the temper he’d been trying to control broke free and he could barely hang on.
“Why are you staying here?”
“Because we had fun—”
“No. Why are you staying at the ranch?”
He could see in her face she knew what he was asking. What he was really asking. She pulled her legs out of his lap, curling into a ball at the end of the love seat. “Because it’s my home, Jeremiah. My family is there, and I want to be where they are.”
“Living in the same house as your mother? As Walter?”
“It’s not ideal, but it’s working for now.”
“And when it stops working?”
“I’ll move. An apartment in town, maybe the little house, I don’t know.”
“But your design—”
“I can do from anywhere, and frankly, I like doing it here.”
Slowly he came to his feet, the question in his eyes, and she stood, too. This brave, foolish woman.
“You’re here, Jeremiah. And I like you. I…like what we have.”
His laughter was bitter. It turned the air to sludge and she flinched.
“We have a hotel room—”
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, finally getting angry. He liked that. He wanted the fight. “The boys—”
“Right. The boys. Tell me, do you think every day is like this? Lying around watching movies? Walking down by the creek? You think this is what it’s like?”
“No, of course not. I know—”
“Nothing. I haven’t slept through the night in a year. There’s more work than time. Ben’s practically failing school. Aaron’s hockey costs more than my truck. Casey sleeps with Annie’s old towel. Ben cries at night. We eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches half the time because I’m so damn tired I can’t be bothered to take food out of the freezer—”
“I want to help. I want to share all of that with you.”
“Why do you want this?” He gestured to the room, the house, the sleeping boys. “You could have anything. Choose anything. Why in the world are you choosing this? Why do you want to be stuck here?”
She stepped back. Once. Again.
“I don’t feel stuck.”
He laughed, bitter and sharp. “Now you don’t. A month from now, it’ll change and you’ll be gone because you can leave—”
The couch creaked and both of them turned to see Casey and Ben blinking up at them.
They’d heard. Of course they’d heard. He’d been yelling.
A cold chill danced over his skull.
“Where are you stuck?” Casey asked and then yawned so big his jaw nearly cracked.
“With us,” Ben said, his eyes too old for his little-boy face.
What…how do I make this right? How…
He looked at Lucy, but she was stricken and angry as the boys. “Ben,” Jeremiah said, stepping toward the boy in a panicked effort to repair the damage of what he’d just said. “It’s not like that—”
“Not like what?” Ben asked, standing up. He wasn’t yelling or sneering, it was as if the poison of his petulance was gone and now he stood there, a survivor of the plague that had nearly killed him.
And now it was Jeremiah sweating and shaking.
This isn’t about Lucy, he realized. Not at all. This was about Jeremiah never understanding why someone would willingly choose this life when he’d had it thrust upon him.
“You never wanted to be here,” Ben said. “We all know it.”
“That’s not true.” Jeremiah scrambled but his words sounded like a lie. He couldn’t breathe for the grown-up pain on Ben’s nine-year-old face. “I do want to be here.”