Real Men Knit(52)
“That’s not it. You can say what you want, Kerry. It’s me. I just don’t know how well I can receive it, and I don’t want to hurt you by acting like an ass and lashing out in the wrong way.”
Kinda like you just did. Kerry bit at her lip as she looked at him more closely. She could see that now. He really didn’t want to act like an ass, as he said—at least not all the time. And he really was hanging by a thread. Struggling at every turn with trying to find the right words to say, and even worse, the ones to hold back on. And she did the same. If it was hard for her, then how much harder must it be for him? His emotions must be totally on edge, and here she was constantly underfoot. She knew what it was like being afraid that whatever you said would surely come out wrong and so, in the end, opting for the simplest and the shortest thing.
“I understand,” Kerry said.
Jesse nodded. “I know you do. And I’m sorry about that. I wish you didn’t.”
Just then Kerry’s stomach growled. Loudly.
“Well, if that isn’t necessary comic relief,” Jesse said.
“And at my expense,” Kerry mumbled. “Who would have thought it.”
He reached out and gave her arm a nudge. “Since when have we ever been embarrassed around each other, roomie?”
“Since when have we not?” Kerry blurted out before her mind could stop the words.
Jesse looked at her in shock before his eyes went soft and he smiled. “Have you always been this silly? We’ll be getting closer over these next few weeks that you’re here. I’m sure we’ll get to know each other a lot more intimately than a stomach growl as time goes on.”
She side-eyed him, and he laughed, more of his typical easygoing self back.
“Chill it out a little, Ms. Dirty Mind.” He shook his head, then came closer to her. Looked her in the eyes with a playful grin. “Jeez. Now I see why you were embarrassed. Kerrryyy! I wonder if Ma Joy ever had any hint of just what types of thoughts were going on behind those innocent big brown eyes.”
“You chill! I was referring to the thought of you and getting intimate with your bodily functions. I hope you can remember that there is a woman staying with you and put the toilet seat down when you go. I don’t want to hit water if I have to go in the middle of the night.”
He leaned back up and tilted his head. “Don’t worry. My ma taught me well enough about that.”
She nodded and turned away, but her stomach growled again.
“I’ll be back,” Jesse said, starting for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“You’re obviously hungry. I’m going to the bodega and picking us up some sandwiches.”
She put up her hands and shook her head. “You don’t have to feed me, Jesse. I don’t want to put you out.”
He let out a frustrated breath. “And I’m supposed to concentrate over the racket of your stomach.” He smiled. “Relax. I could eat too. Chopped cheese is okay? Chips and a soda?”
Kerry nodded. “Fine. With extra hot sauce.”
She wouldn’t argue with him anymore. If he wanted to feed her, she’d let him. Besides, at the moment she needed her appetite satiated, and more so she needed Jesse Strong out of her immediate space so she could take a much-needed deep breath.
* * *
Jesse took a deep breath. Though it was warm, the late afternoon air, thick with the weight of summer in New York, was just what he needed to clear his head. Was he really made to be cooped up inside a shop all day? Would the stuffiness of it all, the tediousness of a sure ’nuff more than nine-to-five stifle the life out of him? He froze as he realized he was doing what he’d always done whenever what felt like a scary and, who knew, possibly promising opportunity came before him. He was making excuses and planning his escape.
It was his way. He was good at it. The only person who’d never let him run, who’d somehow been able to hold on to him when everyone else considered him a lost cause—his mother, his first foster families, the group home—was Mama Joy. And now here he was trying to run from the opportunity she had left him. No, with the bank loan and his brothers going all in with him, it wasn’t an opportunity but a responsibility that she’d left him.
He slowed his steps further and looked back toward the shop, now noticing the trash next to the cans off to the side, and frowned. He’d have to clear that up. Mama Joy would never let there be trash in front of the shop. Not ever.
The image of her sweeping and clearing carelessly thrown trash from the sidewalk when it should have been something he did for her burned through his memory. He could no longer make excuses. Just like he could no longer lie to himself by saying it was his fear of the shop that had him on the run. No, it was the woman who was currently inside the shop: Kerry, with her serious demeanor but at the same time equally soft heart. She scared the shit out of him. Her looks, the way she stared. He knew she wanted him. Worse than that, he knew she cared for him more than he ever did or would deserve being cared for. Still, the fact remained that he needed her. Needed her for the shop and needed her for his soul right now.
She hated it when he said she would be the driving force that kept the old customers coming in, but it was true, and not in the way she’d taken it.
The older women came because of the kinship they’d felt with Mama Joy. During the times that Jesse had been in the shop, in and out, sometimes sitting in the back during a class or just hanging in the loft, he loved seeing the women as they came in and their immediate transformations when they entered the shop’s welcoming atmosphere.