“Oh?”
“Well, it was kind of my fault. I was still upset the day after the staff party, and when he started poking at me, I started to cry.” Even now, I felt my cheeks flush. Of all the stupid things to cry over.
“Well,” Madison twisted her mouth up at the offendingLord of the Ringsanthology I was holding. “As long as he’s leaving you alone.”
“I don’t know. I used to think it was me, but I’m realizing now that it’s someone…or something else he mistrusts. Something happened last spring that has him all in a tizzy. He won’t tell me what it is, but it’s the reason he doesn’t want to ever leave Jade alone.”
“Last spring.” Madison frowned. “Didn’t something happen last spring with Jade? She was all scratched up or something.”
I nearly dropped the book I was holding. “That’s right! She came in just after Easter Break, covered in scratches! But when I asked her mom, she just handed me a doctor’s note and said Jade had fallen in a rosebush.” I nearly collided with a pallet full of books. But I couldn’t have cared less. “Whatever it was, it shook Jade up pretty badly. She didn’t do much work for weeks.” Now that I thought about it…she must have started functioning again around the time Derrick came back to live with them.
“The guy sure seems attached to his sister,” Madison said. “If he hadn’t been such a jerk to you, I’d think it was super attractive.” She fixed me with a speculative eye. “You sure talk about him a lot, though.”
“I do not.”
“You’ve texted me what he’s done five out of the last five days you’ve worked there.”
I rolled my eyes. “I just…I guess he’s a conundrum. One day, he’ll be just awful and poke fun at everything I say. Then the next day, he takes us out for ice cream and makes sure I have a coffee to go with it. I just can’t figure him out.”
“You sound a lot more charitable when you talk about him, too,” Madison said, her tone just a little too light for my taste.
“I wrote him a letter the day after we made a truce.” I smiled smugly at the copy ofCorduroyI’d just picked up.
Madison turned to me, all laughter gone from her eyes. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t send it.”
I laughed. “And I thought you were on my side.”
“Oh, I am.” She hurried to catch up. “But my boyfriend is in security forces, and I’d really like for him not to arrest you for threatening an active duty military member.”
“Who’s the worrywart now?” I nudged her arm. “And you said you didn’t have a boyfriend.” Her scathing look made me laugh even harder. “I promise, the letter is safe in my desk. But anyway, I just…I want to understand him and why he’s so intent on driving me crazy and himself into the ground for all the sleep he misses because of her. There has to be a reason.” He was too…well, too attractive not to have a reason. The guy was brilliant. I’d glanced at one of the study manuals he’d left on the counter the week before, and it boggled my mind that anyone could understand it. And he could be devilishly charming when he wanted to. I had little doubt that he could be doing something that paid a lot more than what he was doing now.
So why was he so determined to keep Jade himself?
“You know,” Madison said quietly as I picked up a silver fairy tale anthology, “sometimes you don’t have to understand everything. Sometimes you just have to live.”
I sighed as I checked the price then put it back. “I know,” I said as I lovingly ran my fingers over the silver filigree.
“Why aren’t you buying that?” Madison nodded at the book.
“It’s too expensive.” I made a face. “And I don’t really need it. I’ve got other fairy tales in the unit books we can work on.”
“Jessie.” Madison huffed as she grabbed the book again and shoved it into my bag. “Buy the book.”
“But—”
“Sometimes,” she said, daring me to argue with her glare, “you just have to have fun and live a little. What was I trying to tell you last week?”
“I have no idea.”
She glared. “Buy the dang book.”
13
Fun
Jessie
My day at the book warehouse sale had been nearly as therapeutic as I’d hoped, and I was decently prepared to face Derrick again after my day off. Letting myself into the house with the key Mrs. Allen had given me, however, still felt strange. It felt weird to walk into someone else’s house unannounced. But just as I was about to announce my arrival, I caught the sound of arguing in the kitchen. Not wanting to intrude, I hung back in the entry, hoping it would be over soon.
