by Nicole Helm
“It was a peck on the lips. Your parents are going to expect that. If there aren’t at least some teeny tiny gestures of affection, they’re going to think we’re not happy, and if your mom really is so desperate for you to have a significant other, she’s not going to want to see you unhappy.”
“But...”
“You know I’m right. I’m sorry kissing me was such a terrible hardship for you, but this was your idea.”
She didn’t say anything about it being a hardship or not, and maybe it was idiotic of him to hope she would. Maybe actually kissing her had killed whatever “thing” Grace thought Leah had for him, because it had been the lamest kiss of all time. And maybe that was a good thing. Too bad it hadn’t done the same for him.
“Who knew you could think like this?” she finally said.
“Like what?”
“Like...all devious and good at lying. I just... It’s not something I would’ve given you credit for.”
“Leave it to you, Leah, to give someone credit for being devious and good at lying. I told you I’ve had practice.”
“But you won’t tell me what. Is MC some kind of drug front?”
He spared her a withering look. “Really?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, stubborn glare fixed on her face. “Tell me.”
He could argue. He could walk away. He could do a lot of things, but, eh, why not tell her? Maybe she’d trust some of his suggestions if he did. “Okay, you asked for it. When I was in high school, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Her expression, her stance, it all softened. “I...didn’t know that.”
“Neither do I, technically.”
“Huh?”
“Mom didn’t want to tell anyone. Not wanting people to worry and all that bullshit. Grace found out somehow, but they decided to keep it from me.”
“But you knew.”
“Of course I knew. But they didn’t want me to, so I pretended like I didn’t. I figured I could give them that. But, let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to do. It is not easy to watch your mom lose a ton of weight, not easy to pretend the wig she was wearing was real. And it’s really not easy to watch her pretend everything is fine when all the while she’s practically dying. It takes real skill to pretend that doesn’t exist.”
The silence between them filled him with an unfamiliar panic. He’d never told anyone that before. Mom and Dad and Grace still thought he was clueless. He’d never confided in Kyle or anyone else at the time, and it had never seemed pertinent after.
“Jacob.”
“It’s not a big deal.” He suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough that he had to move. And not look at her. And move. He walked around the room, poking at peeling plaster and warped floorboards.
But eventually the silence was too much, and when he looked up, she was still standing in the same place, watching him with a kind of pained look.
“What?”
“It’s...” She swallowed, and if it was anyone besides Leah he might think the bright sheen to her eyes meant she was about to cry. But Leah... He could not picture Leah crying.
“I think the fact that at sixteen or whatever you...carried that burden and didn’t tell anyone. I think that is really...amazing. I was not that together as a teenager. Not even a little.”
He shrugged because it hadn’t been about being together. It hadn’t been about anything except doing what they wanted. Sure, he’d been scared and it hadn’t been easy not to hug Mom a little more tightly, stay home instead of hanging out with his friends. It wasn’t easy, but it was just...what had to be done.
She touched his elbow, her fingers curling around his arm. She swallowed again. “I really do think that’s amazing.”
The compliment made his chest ache in a way that was entirely new to him. It wasn’t exactly a pain, just a kind of weird...pressure. The fact that she thought this was such a big thing made it feel bigger even though it was twelve years ago.
“Well, you know, you do what you have to do for family.”
She nodded. Obviously she agreed. They were doing this ridiculous pretending thing. But she wasn’t letting go of his arm. Her hand held him there in a tight grip.
And that meant he couldn’t step away, and it meant stepping closer was too tempting to resist.
Her eyes didn’t leave his, and she didn’t move away. They just...stood there, and all he could think about was last night when he’d kissed her. A nothing kiss. Seconds at most, born of some weird frustration and none of the heat or sparks he felt standing right here, right now.
He could kiss her this time and it wouldn’t be veiled in pretend, and it would be a hell of a lot better than a peck in the dark.
But in the heaviness of the moment, he couldn’t force himself to act, thinking or not. It felt too important. Everything between them felt too important to complicate with a kiss.
This was getting...out of hand. He wasn’t thinking, and that was just not something that usually happened. He was almost always thinking and planning and anticipating, but this was...
He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we talk about your family? They’re going to expect me to know some things, and I know nothing. Except you’ve had some problems.”
She took a step back. “Yeah.” She shoved fingers through her hair, loosening the tenuous pile even more. “And a drink. I need a drink.”
Yeah, he could definitely use a drink. Or ten.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEAH LEANED HER head into the fridge and prayed for divine intervention. Like maybe a lightning bolt to strike her dead. Well, maybe not dead. But it would ideally cause enough of a distraction.
Sadly, no lightning bolts descended, no roofs collapsed. Nope, she had to sit down with Jacob and talk about her family after...that.
“Can’t find anything?”
Right. She was supposed to be finding beer. She made a big production out of moving things around, then pulled out two bottles.
Jacob wrinkled his nose. “You seriously drink that stuff?”
“Sorry I’m not a hipster into autumnal blends.”
“It’s not being a hipster. It’s having taste buds.” But he took the offered bottle and slid into the seat at her little kitchen table. The table itself was cluttered with mail and various winter garments like hats and scarves, but she’d kept stuff off the chairs and the counters all weekend, so she was getting better in the tidying department. Betterish.
She slid into the seat across from him, pulling her sleeve over her hand and screwing the cap of the bottle off. Jacob did the same, glancing around her kitchen. She imagined he found it lacking. Or cluttered. Or both. But he didn’t say anything. His gaze turned to her in that considering, heart-jitter-inducing way he had.
“Your family.”
Yes. That was the topic they were discussing. “Right. Well, Dad’s a mechanic, Mom’s a lunch lady and my brother, Marc... He’s a cop.”
“And they live in Minnesota?”
“Yeah.” It was weird talking about them, even these minor, glossed-over details. It was weird thinking about them and thinking about Jacob. It was still so much like two different lives. Two different Leahs.
“Come on, Leah. You’ve met my parents. Eaten with them. Listened to my dad’s jokes. My mom has forcibly hugged you. Think about the things you know about them and tell me the same stuff about yours.”
How could he be so rational? How could he be so smart about this while she was just a floundering idiot? She thought about his story and pretending he didn’t know his mom was sick and her heart ached for him.
Because even with Jacob’s secret, he was close with his family. The McKnights weren’t perfect, exactly, but they had the kind of family togetherness Leah had envied in her lesser moments. Th
ey talked; they hugged; they loved.
God, what a story. At the age she’d started drinking and sneaking out because she was tired of being confined to hospital beds and being admonished to take it easy, he’d carried the burden and fear of knowing his mother was fighting a possibly life-ending illness. All because he knew that was what she wanted.
If she thought too hard about that...about what it might mean if extended to her, she’d make a grave mistake. So she focused on what she knew about the McKnights.
“My mom makes the best cannoli.” She shook her head. “That’s dumb.”
“No. It’s perfect. Then I can say, ‘Mrs. Santino, I hear you make the most amazing cannoli.’ And then I can quote The Godfather. Perfect.”
Leah sighed, resting her chin on her hand. “She’s going to love you.” And Mom would, because on the surface, Jacob was perfect. Handsome and successful and good with people. He would schmooze Mom, win over Dad, buddy up to Marc.
Jacob grinned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s going to make it a little harder when I have to tell them we broke up.” She fiddled with the label on the bottle she’d yet to take a sip from. She could tell them that now, avoid this whole pretending thing. Self-preservation.
But the only self it would preserve was the one idiotically wrapped up in her kind of boss/friend. In a man she knew couldn’t make a relationship work, especially with her and all her baggage. And she’d be sacrificing the girl who desperately wanted her family back.
So here it was, and here they were.
“A year is a long time to date someone, then break up. What’s the plan there?”
“I guess I’d kind of hoped I’d find someone real eventually. But, yeah, I’m not sure how much longer I can hold out hope for that.” Hard to build a lasting relationship when you had a huge lie about yourself written all over the scar on your chest.
“I guess I hope they’ll see the life I’ve built here and maybe see...I’m not the idiot screwup they need to smother anymore.”
“What did you do that was so bad?”
“Oh, you know.” She shrugged and shifted in her seat. “Teenage crap.” Not really a lie. Wasn’t teenagehood the time for self-destruction and nearly killing yourself with bad choices?
“Like what?”
“Trust me when I say my parents aren’t going to talk about that.”
He frowned. “Maybe I’m not asking as part of the pretend thing.”
“I thought that’s what this was supposed to be. Preparation for the big masquerade.”
“We’re friends. I’ve known you for over five years. We spend a ridiculous amount of time together, and even knowing you didn’t have a close family, I never would have pegged you as a teenage rebel. Unless by rebellious you mean having a mouth like a sailor and the cleaning habits of a prepubescent boy.”
“No.”
“So tell me.”
Ten years she’d spent working out lies to answer these kinds of questions. She kept her scar hidden, downplayed the trajectory of her adolescence. It was like second nature to diminish, to lie, to put it all away.
It was frightening how much she didn’t want to do that with Jacob. The truth was a million words in her head, dying to get out. Dying to see if he’d do what he’d done as a teenager for his mom, pretend it didn’t exist.
Damn.
“I had a lot of health problems, and I didn’t always deal with them very well. And sometimes I made decisions I knew would put me in danger.”
“Well, that’s the vaguest story I’ve ever heard.”
Leah shoved away from the table. She couldn’t do this. And it wasn’t just because it was Jacob and that moment in the spare room still had her all warm and gooey and tied up in a million indescribable knots. It was because she really hated remembering, reliving, rehashing those years.
It made everything feel small again. The embarrassment, disgust with herself, just...ugh. No.
“I don’t like to talk about it or think about it or anything. I left home when I was eighteen and I didn’t talk to them for five years. And for the next four it was all sporadic and weird and only this year have we finally started to find a way to make it work, and I want to focus on that. On the future.”
She knew he was watching her, but she leaned against the sink and refused to turn around. “I sucked. Then I left and I got my life together and things got better for them and The End.”
When his hand touched her shoulder, she tensed. Partially because a little piece of her sighed dreamily and dreamed about leaning into him. How about hell no?
“Leah.” He squeezed. It was all friendly. Nothing he hadn’t done before. Nothing she hadn’t pretended didn’t affect her. “You don’t have to get upset. I won’t press.”
“Well, good.”
But he didn’t move and his warm hand was on her shoulder and what was this? All of this? Because she’d caught his meaning earlier. He wasn’t here to fix the room. Not really. And he wasn’t here to learn how to play her parents.
He’d come for other reasons. Reasons she’d told him she didn’t want to hear. Because she didn’t. Couldn’t. She’d learned a lot of lessons from her dark days, but coming out of them had taught her that ignoring and pretending solved a lot of problems.
But when she looked up at Jacob, he was studying her. Particularly her mouth, oh, Jesus. The part of her brain that knew better kind of stuttered to a stop.
She could kiss him, and he’d probably even kiss her back. She knew he’d been on his stupid no-dating thing for months. She could probably even convince him to have sex with her.
And then what? What the hell good would come out of that except a few minutes of probably awesome? All that would be left after was awkwardness, embarrassment and the crumbling of this new life she’d built.
“Maybe you should go,” she said, a little disgusted with herself when her voice wasn’t steady.
He released her shoulder, but he didn’t walk away. Instead, he slid right back into the chair he’d vacated, took a sip of his beer. “You still have a father and brother to tell me about.”
Leah slumped against the counter. What was she doing? What was he doing? She didn’t have a clue. All she knew was she didn’t have a choice.
* * *
JACOB WONDERED IF she had any idea the way her expressions changed as she worked through a problem. Bafflement. Irritation. Gritty-eyed determination.
It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed it, but he’d worked on ignoring it over the years. Because otherwise it became a fascination. Reading Leah. Odd, it had become such normal practice to ignore Leah that paying attention to her was like discovering her all over again.
Yeah, he was really losing it.
“What else do you think you need to know?” She eyed him warily as she took the seat across from him. She still had yet to touch her beer.
“Tell me about your dad.”
“I told you. He’s a mechanic.”
“Oh, yes. ‘Hello, Mr. Santino. Leah tells me you’re a mechanic. That’s it, really. Now, me? I know nothing about cars. So we should have lots to talk about.’”
Leah glared, but he countered it with a grin. “Give me something I can work with, baby.”
“Baby? Baby? Are you serious?”
“Okay, baby’s out. How about Honeysuckle?”
“How about that beer must have been infected with a hallucinogenic?”
Jacob laughed. “I really pegged you for the endearment type.”
“Here’s an endearment for you, asshole.” But she was smiling, and the comforting banter they were so used to defused some of that...weirdness. Touching weirdness. Moment weirdness. As much as he kind of wanted to explore that, he didn’t like the way she got all tense. Making her un
comfortable was never his intention. Irritated, sure, but not uncomfortable.
“Dad loves Robert Frost.”
“Robert Frost?”
“Yeah, the poet? He always talked about how much he hated poetry, which my mother loves. And the only poet he ever liked was Robert Frost. So he used to recite ‘A Line-storm Song.’” She smiled, picking at the label of her bottle. “‘The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift, The road is forlorn all day.’”
“Leah Santino reciting poetry. Well. You never cease to amaze me.”
She leveled him with a steely glare, but her mouth curved into a smile. “I said he recited it. Whenever he was in trouble with Mom. Which was frequently. Thus, I remember.”
“Tell me the rest.”
“Ha. No.”
“Come on.”
“You’re that interested, look it up.”
“Just one more line. Please. You said you couldn’t resist my ‘please.’” He flashed his most charming grin and she took her first sip of beer. Sip was really too dainty of a word. It was more like a gulp.
He should not like that.
“He’d never get much farther than the first verse-thingy. He’d say ‘Come over the hills and far with me, And be my love in the rain.’ And have Mom in the palm of his hand.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. Well.” But she was smiling, obviously remembering something good. What could have gone so wrong to have her not speaking to them for years? He barely went days without at least texting one of his parents.
“So, is that what I need in my romantic life? Some poetry. Then I won’t get unceremoniously dumped after a few weeks.”
She shook her head. “You seriously don’t know why you get unceremoniously dumped all the time?”
“Apparently I have terrible taste in women.” Although, Leah wasn’t his usual type. But she was off-limits. Which he seemed to be doing an okay job of remembering when push came to shove.
“You know that’s not the problem, right? Please tell me you’ve figured that out.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not them, Jacob. It is so you. Don’t get me wrong—some of them sucked. But most of them were just women. And them breaking up with you... That was all you.”
