Every Other Weekend(121)

I looked down, watching her fingers reach for mine, and forced mine to unclench. My knuckles had been bruised for a few days after hitting Guy, but the skin was fine now. “I didn’t hit him hard enough.”

She laced her fingers through mine and I could feel her gaze on me. Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to my cheek. The soft, sweet touch dimmed the fury still shouting at me to find Guy and make him hurt. Her fingers were so small compared to mine, she was so small and he’d—shame, slick and heavy, kept my head from lifting to see hers.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t there, that I didn’t understand when you brought us to his apartment. I would never have left you.”

“I know,” she said, laying her head on my shoulder. “And it’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours,” I said, jerking up to find her face, the need to make sure she knew that superseding everything else.

Her nod was stiff and she didn’t say the words, but I had to hope that someday soon she’d be able to. Slowly, a smile lifted her mouth.

“Does it make me a bad person that I’m glad you hit him?”

“No, and I did more than hit him. I kicked him in the nuts so hard he nearly puked.”

Jolene’s smile stretched wider. “Did you really?”

“Yeah. Jeremy hit him, too.”

“Jeremy was with you? He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you. In fact, he wanted me to give you this.” I shifted so I could reach into my back pocket and hand a ticket to her. “It’s for the play. Opening night is next week.”

Jolene took it and raised an eyebrow. “The play your ex-girlfriend Erica is also in?”

“Trust me, she is completely over all that. Last night at dinner, she and Jeremy were—”

“She’s eating dinner at your house now?”

“Just a few times so far, but we’ve talked and we’re good. She’ll tell you the same thing if you come to the play. Will you?”

Jolene looked at the ticket without saying anything.

“I know it’s not the same as a whole weekend, but you could come for dinner and go to the play with my family.”

She bit her lip.

“Or, you don’t have to come to dinner if you don’t want. My mom will be crushed but she’ll understand.”

Jolene’s eyes were a little shiny. “What about you, will you be crushed?”

“Completely.” That made her laugh, though I wasn’t remotely kidding.

“I’m glad Jeremy went with you,” she said, referring to Guy. “It has to be a big-time brother bonding moment to beat up a sexual predator together, huh?”

She meant the comment lightly, but she wasn’t wrong. Things with Jeremy and me had changed that day for the better. I could actually see a future where we were friends as well as brothers. With an odd but not unpleasant ache in my heart, I knew Greg would have been happy to see our relationship shifting. “Yeah, I think so.” I glanced over at her. “I guess things are pretty different for you now, too?”

“You could say that.”

“But things are better with Shelly, right?”

“Actually, Shelly’s gone. I don’t think she even left my dad a note.” There was a touch of bitterness in her voice when she said that last word, but it was gone the next second, replaced by something that sounded almost sad but couldn’t have been, because she was talking about Shelly. “Anyway, she’s gone and, just like she predicted, my parents’ lawyers went for each other’s jugulars.”

“Who won?”

Jolene was gazing down the hall toward her dad’s apartment and frowning. “I guess I did.” She shook her head. “Or at least, neither of my parents did. My mom’s lawyers initially tried to go after my dad for negligence, but then his lawyers got Tom to divulge a bunch of stuff about my mom, and it ended in a stalemate. It would have all come down to Shelly, except when she left my dad, she promised not to help my mom, as long as he agreed to do three things for me.”

I mirrored Jolene’s earlier frown.

“Yeah, that was me for a straight week,” Jolene said, noting my expression. “I hated her for so long, you know? I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about her now, since she helped me when she could have so easily helped only herself. I’m still working through it.” Then she sighed and smiled at me. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?”

My brain was tripping over that turn of events, but something about the way Jolene’s eyes were boring into me kicked the right question to my lips. “What did you ask for?”

“Just so you know, Shelly didn’t get me a blank check. I had to keep my requests within reason. The first thing was so much easier than it could have been, because Shelly’s mom found her for me before she left—”

“Who?”

Jolene grinned wide. “Someone has to stay with me at my dad’s, and since even he doesn’t rebound that quickly, I got him to hire Mrs. Cho. And he can’t fire her, no matter how many future girlfriends parade through the place.”

Then my smile came, easy and as full as hers. I caught her up in a hug that nearly tugged her into my lap.

Jolene made a fake grunting noise. “I think you’re almost happier than Mrs. Cho was.”