Real Men Knit(77)

He had Noah help him pull the old iron bench from out back and put it in front of the shop, and after flipping the front door sign from closed to officially open, Jesse took a seat in the warm August sun, hoping for everything but expecting nothing.

Damian said he’d let some woman he knew from the local paper know about the reopening and she might come by to interview them, but it was only a firm maybe. He could only hope. With the loan coming due, it was make-or-break time, and Jesse knew they could use any additional media attention they could get. As long as it was positive, that is. Dammit, Damian was right about that. Though the store looked great and Kerry had taught him how to run it, he knew he still needed the community behind him and to stop the negative comments online.

His “Sorry I was a shithead” tour was going about as well as could be expected. Most of the women he’d apologized to for ghosting were pretty much over him. The hostile ones acted skeptical but were still receptive to news about the shop’s reopening. Yeah, it might have gotten a little sketch with one or two, but he’d made it clear that he was focusing on getting the family business up and running. That seemed to be enough to quiet things down online and in his DMs.

Still, Jesse had to admit he felt hollow. Though Kerry had made her feelings clear and he’d gone along with it, Jesse wanted to be able to say he was taken. Because the fact was he was. Taken, that is. Whether she knew it or not, Kerry had taken his heart, and there was no way, right now at least, that he could even consider anyone else by his side. Not that his feelings on the matter mattered.

He’d woken that morning with Kerry in his bed. Over the past two weeks, Kerry had taken to using Damian’s room more in line with the way Damian had, like an expanded closet, and she spent her nights with Jesse.

She’d worked with him at the shop during their soft opening, showing him the ropes. Mostly they’d knitted, their little hat display now proudly hung in the window. Kerry had finished four sets of coordinated mittens, which he’d never figured out how she’d finished so fast. They’d knit, then make love almost every night and make plans for the shop, but somehow in those plans, Kerry never used the words “we” or “us.” It was always “you” and “your brothers,” creating a clear distance and a space for her to make her exit. He guessed he should be grateful for that, but his heart couldn’t let him be.

“I can’t believe you beat me downstairs this morning,” Kerry said, coming out of the shop and sitting beside him. Her smile came soft and open, her eyes sparkling, and his heart thumped harder. Shit. How was it her smile always did that to him? It was brighter than the freaking sun that was rising over the East Side tenements. “You could have slept more,” she said. “You didn’t sleep so well last night.”

He frowned. She was referring to the nightmare he’d had last night. He’d thought he was done with them, but obviously he wasn’t. This was the second time he’d embarrassingly woken with a start, shaky and sweaty. Even worse, he’d woken Kerry up too, and she’d seen his state.

He knew why, of course, but admitting it sucked so hard. It was because she’d leave him soon, and he hated it, but better to let her go sooner rather than later. It would end up the same anyway. Why draw out the pain? And the dream, it was the same as his old one of years ago. Him coming back into that room and his mother, always his mother, walking out. And away from him forever. Too bad the reality was so very different. A walkout could somehow be better. It wouldn’t hurt so much if she’d left him under her own power, by her own choice. But that wasn’t how it was. No, his mother hadn’t walked out but checked out, the drugs finally taking her and her warm-as-sunshine smile away from him in an overdose when he was six.

She’d always told him she loved him, more than anything, she said. But still, it wasn’t more than that. He knew he was wrong. Mama Joy taught him he was wrong. That she had no choice and she did love him, but that kid, he still didn’t know.

Kerry smiled again, and it didn’t fail to both mend and shatter his heart all at the same time. He felt guilty for the way he’d handled things last night. Owed her an apology. She’d tried to soothe him. Tried to get him to talk, but he shut down. Told her it was nothing, and when he’d seen the look of hurt in her eyes, had soothed her in the only way he knew how without words, but was that enough?

It was for him. Almost. The way she’d tightly wrapped her legs around him. Her hands had threaded through his hair, her eyes searching his for answers. And he’d almost given them. Almost given in. He had been so close. So close to an “I love you,” but it had been stuck. Stuck in her searching eyes and his cowardly throat as instead he’d only kissed her and taken, and, as usual, she’d given.

Jesse opened his mouth to say something just as Noah walked up, saving him. Seeing his brother reminded him of another goodbye soon to come. He’d be leaving for his tour and had been staying at home the past few nights, having given up his sublet in Brooklyn. “You two were awfully quiet last night,” Noah teased. “Don’t go turning into old married folks on me, now.”

Jesse looked at Kerry. “Don’t worry. No chance in that,” he said.

Noah shot him a look. “What are you talking about? Don’t eff it up, little brother. There are plenty who would like to make an old married one out of this one. Kerry is lucky I’m about to go on the road.”