The Will(25)

To hide this reaction, I turned my head away and looked down at the pavement at my side.

When I did, I felt him move, felt his body come close to mine and heard his voice whisper, “Shit, babe.” A pause then, “Fuckin’ shit.”

After he said that, I felt his big, warm hand curl at the side of my neck and I looked up at him.

When I did, he said softly, “I didn’t think I’d be your thing either.”

I told the truth. “You’re not.” After I did that, I lied (or it felt like I lied, but I actually didn’t know what I was thinking), “I think you’ve mistaken my reaction to your pronouncement.”

His lips yet again quirked and his fingers at my neck squeezed and he asked, “And what’s your reaction to my pronouncement?”

“I don’t understand what Gran wanted for you and me.”

“Maybe she wanted us to be friends?” he inquired, but even doing it, it was an answer. “Maybe she wanted to know you got someone who cares, who’ll look out for you, listen to you, take your back when you need it and give a shit not just when you need it but all the time?”

There it was.

The answer to my questions.

But I still didn’t understand.

“Yes,” I whispered. “She’d want that for me.” My eyes strayed to his shoulder and I murmured, “But that makes no sense. She knows I have Henry.”

“A boss is a boss,” he declared, giving me a hint of what Gran had shared with him and that was that he knew precisely who Henry was. I looked back to him when he kept talking. “Always, Josie. He can give a shit but bottom line, it comes down to it, whatever that it might be or even if it never happens, he’s just a boss.”

I, of course, knew Henry was my employer. There were times when knowing this was all he’d ever really be was painful.

But after two decades and then some together, that had grown.

Hadn’t it?

“Henry is—” I started.

“Not here,” he interrupted me to say. “He gave a shit, Josie, no way in f*ck, don’t give a shit what excuses you might have for the guy, would he be anywhere but sittin’ at your side while you cried behind your shades, starin’ at your grandmother’s casket.”

Well, there was the answer to that.

He saw me crying at the funeral.

Jake wasn’t done.

“And, he was here, no way you’d have dinner alone last night, open to some f*ckwad to make a pass and upset you. That’s the bottom line, babe. Think about it.”

I stared into his eyes and thought about it.

Henry wanted to come, declared he was going to come, but I told him that he had to do the shoot. He was contracted. It was set up. And a location shoot for a magazine wasn’t something you walked away from. A number of people were involved and quite a bit of money.

Further, Henry never did things like that. Even when he had the flu that one time when we were in Alaska, shooting a bathing suit spread in the snow, he’d zipped up his parka and done the shoot. He had a reputation for not only his immense talent but his dependability, his easy-going ways and his bent toward no muss, no fuss.

But Jake was correct. The bottom line was, when I told him not to come with me and do the job, he’d agreed.

“Josie,” Jake called and I focused on him again. When I did, his fingers gave me another squeeze and he asked, “You have dinner tonight?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Honey, you gotta eat.”

It took me a moment to respond. This was because four people in my life called me honey. My father, when he was in a good mood or he’d done something horrible and was trying to make amends. Gran. Henry.

And now Jake.

And Jake’s, like Gran’s and Henry’s, felt nice.

I let myself feel that before I assured him, “I went to the grocery store today. I’ll have some fruit and cheese when I get home.”

“Right. And tomorrow night”—he grinned—“you promise you aren’t gonna disappear, I’ll show. But I gotta say, Ethan’s gonna be with me. Not givin’ Amber another hour to do f*cked up shit with her moron of a boyfriend and not givin’ her another wad of cake to blow on mascara.”

This was not good news.

Not that he’d agreed to come. I was actually looking forward to that in a strange way I didn’t quite comprehend.

No. Because I didn’t like children. I found them loud and attention-seeking. They interrupted and, these days, parents didn’t admonish them for this rudeness. They broke things. They spilled things. They whined. They refused to eat food they hadn’t even tried, declaring erroneously they didn’t like it when they could have no idea if they did or didn’t.

And when they ate, they often did it with their mouths open, which was repulsive.

Obviously, I shared none of this with Jake Spear.

“Is there anything he, or you, don’t like to eat?” I asked instead.

“Ethan helped Lydie cook a bunch a’ shit in that kitchen. She taught him to dig his food however that comes. I already learned that so whatever you make, we’ll eat.”

I highly doubted that, at least about Ethan.

I didn’t share that either.

“All right,” I replied.