He came in and fixed it all.
My floors are spotless. The couch cushions are back in place, no sign of the tussle I had with Arron. Even my bamboo shelves are back up, the hinges wrapped with some sort of tape.
And I laugh – a genuine, croaking laugh – as I see my kitchen table. A small figure is propped up against my empty vase, a hastily writtenwelcome homescrawled on the paper balanced next to her. “Hey, Geraldine.”
Geraldine doesn’t look too happy with her new face. Lines of glue have stitched the large, broken pieces back together. I try to hide my amusement at the way both sides of her nose are completely off-center. “I actually love her even more now.”
“I hoped you would.” Jared drops our things onto the floor and walks up beside me, eyeing the doll warily. “I think we’ve reached a compromise. I couldn’t save everything, though. I put the larger pieces in a bag and stored them in the sideboard, in case you want to take a look.”
I turn to look. “What about our clown?”
I don’t want to tell him that it’s my favorite item, after Geraldine.
“Unscathed.” There’s a smile in his voice as I step forward to see for myself. “Only a few broke.”
I can live with that.
“This is…,” I walk backward, still looking around. “This is more than human decency, Jared.”
To me, at least. Far more.
When I turn, Jared’s arms are folded as he leans against the wall. His dark hair falls over his forehead. And he’s smiling at me, his eyes soft. “We need to work on your standards, Emilia Marsters.”
“I’m going to get spoiled.” My muscles groan as I make my way over to him.
His eyebrows raise in question. “What are you—,”
I throw my arms around him, and he groans. “Em. What did the doctor say? Take it easy.”
But he wraps his arms around me as I breathe him in. “I was soscaredof this.”
But Jared took a bad memory, and he replaced it with something good. “I’ve never come home to anything like this before.”
When I was discharged from hospital after the burns to my face, I took a cab home by myself. Arron had left the cold pan on top of the cooker, the oil sticky and congealed on the floor.
I had to clean it out myself.
“You like the sign?” His words are muffled in my neck. “Geraldine wrote it herself, you know.”
“Ilovethe sign.”
We’re both grinning when we pull apart. Jared catches my wince, ushering me to the couch before he turns. “Rest. I’ve got this. Are you hungry?”
I curl my fingers into the blanket. “You went grocery shopping, didn’t you?”
It feels like getting an insight into a different Jared. The Jared that raised his little brother. The back of his neck turns red as he leans into the fridge. “You had olives that went offbeforeyou even moved in. They were four years out of date. How is that possible?”
Huh. I don’t actually like olives. “I didn’t think I remembered buying those.”
“Your vegetables were on their way to creating a new ecosystem.”
“I hope you didn’t throw away my science experiment. Your food had better be good if you’re talking up this much game, Bennett.”
“Rest your throat and put the sass away, Marsters. I’m under strict instructions from Wilson to give you soft foods only, so we’ll find out.”
***
I linger in the door of my bedroom. “It just doesn’t look comfortable. That’s all I’m saying.”
