Real Men Knit(63)

Jesse turned away from her, looking back down at his knitting. Kerry paused, seemingly hesitant at first before sitting down beside him, her body flush against his. He felt his heart start to race as he swallowed down on a lump in his throat. Maybe it was better when she was up and dancing. Subtly he tried to inch away, but playfully she scooted closer. “You’re not getting away from me that easy, Jesse Strong,” she said. “Besides, I told you I wanted to talk—did you think I’d forgotten?”

He sighed. “I hoped you had.”

She smiled. “You hoped wrong. You know me better than that. Now spill it. What was all that about a loan?”

He looked down but she shifted and reached out, her hand gentle but still firm as she turned his face toward hers. “I asked you that since I’m here and giving of my time—I think I deserve an answer.”

He stared at her. Hard. “That’s just it. You’re giving enough. You don’t need this weight too.”

She glared at him. “Are you actively trying to piss me off?”

He raised a brow. “I could say the same about you.”

She made a move as if to get up and he panicked, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back down. When she frowned at him, he put both hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you like that. But please don’t go. Could you just sit here with me a little longer?”

She sighed and looked at him, her eyes going soft and round. But she didn’t speak; she only leaned back and sat next to him once more.

He started to knit again. “Yes, there’s a loan.” His voice was hoarser than normal so he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it.” Dammit. It still didn’t sound quite right even to his own ears.

She stayed silent. But he felt her tense next to him.

“We—well, Damian just found out about it, so I don’t know how the OKGs know. It would seem that Mama Joy took out a home equity loan to keep the shop afloat and used the house as collateral.”

He heard her suck in a breath. “Oh no! I’m so sorry. I wish she’d have told me. I could have helped her cut corners with inventory, and I’d have stopped taking a salary and gotten another job.”

Jesse looked at her. “See, that right there is why I didn’t tell you. And probably why she didn’t. You don’t always have to sacrifice yourself for others, Kerry. Just like you’re doing now. Though I—I mean we need you so much, we know what it’s doing to you, and it’s not fair.”

She groaned. “Shit on that, Jes, nothing in life is fair. If it was, she would still be here, we’d be in the black and none of us would have gone through any of the things we’ve gone through in this life. Hell, if life was fair, we’d have never met. Screw fair!”

She put her head back and let out a low, ragged breath before shocking him and leaning her head on his shoulder. “It’s going to work out. It has to. Downward spirals can’t last forever.”

Jesse afforded himself a half smile and continued to knit. “No, maybe they can’t.”

She shifted then. Shimmied a bit and turned, reaching for something on the shelf above them, he guessed. Hopefully she was satisfied now that they’d had the conversation about the loan. Jesse let out his own sigh of relief but then gripped his needles almost to the point of breaking them when he looked her way. She was twisted around and contorted in the most provocative way. She let out a frustrated groan as she arched her back, showing off the cutest round behind, before she finally sat down again with a grin and a skein of yarn. Jesse felt like he might burst.

“I love this yarn,” she said. “I think it would make a cute hat and gloves, don’t you?”

He could only nod as she scooted closer to him still and pulled out the yarn and began to slowly wind it around her left pointer and middle fingers to make her own yarn ball.

“You know we can just put that on the yarn winder and be done in less than five minutes,” Jesse said, his voice probably coming out harsher than the subject of winding yarn warranted.

Kerry shrugged. “Yeah, but what else are we doing right now? You’re finishing off your hat, we’ve got nice music. I might as well wind this ball.”

Jesse let out a breath. Might as well. There were worse and better ways he could be spending his night. But right now he couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be. Or anything else he wanted to do. But she shifted once more to get more comfortable on the floor and against the wardrobe, and her hip and thigh rubbed against his, and in that moment the words stopped in the middle of his throat. He leaned his head back and, once again, his fingers began the methodical work of going in and out of the loops certainly, yarn creating stitches that decreased one by one, closing the hole on the top of his little striped hat. Not that, Jes. Don’t think of that.

This was a new scene for them. Kerry and him. Over the years, they had been up in this little nook, seated in this position, more times than he could count, only the roles were usually reversed. He was the one coming over to bother Kerry while she was quietly knitting away. He looked over at her. She seemed so content as she did the simple act of just circling the yarn around her fingers over and over again. He watched as she drew her fingers out of the center and her little yarn ball got bigger and bigger, bit by bit.

She had beautiful hands. He’d always thought so. A rich brown, they were practically unlined and always looked so soft to him, almost delicate the way her long fingers tapered to neat oval-shaped nails. She made a habit of styling her nails in the simplest way. Usually the polish was either clear or pale pink. Sometimes she’d even step out in a lilac. When she was feeling bold, she would go with bright and multicolored nails, but it was always some version of something soft and her nails always stayed understated, never too long—definitely never long enough to get in the way of her knitting.