Instantly, he dropped his hand, sliding both into his pockets, his expression shutting down. “Nothing.”
12
Jack
My fingers clenched,pain flaring briefly from my sore knuckles, aware Ray waited for an answer. When I didn’t respond, she cut me an unreadable look before she pivoted and walked back into the house.
How the hell did I begin to explain my shattered household to her when she had the perfect family life? Parents who loved each other from what I’d seen. Even with Ray’s mother being ill, her father stood by her mom’s side, supported her. The tenderness with which he treated his wife rubbed my wounds open. My father died in a yachting accident when I was six. Still, I remembered the cold silence between my parents, Mother’s tears, the drinking to cope with her pain that had now become her crutch.
Shutting off those thoughts, I followed Ray. As I stepped into the cozy kitchen, rich with the aroma of something baking, she cast me a quick look, her brow creasing as if in concern.
Yeah. Right. Another fanciful wish.
Mrs. Logan, who was seated at the table, watched me quietly, her dark gaze going to Ray then to me and back to her youngest daughter. I had a feeling she saw more than I wanted.
“These are ready,” Ila said, removing a metal tray with cookies from the oven and setting the sheet on the table, drawing her mother’s attention.
I leaned against the kitchen counter and rubbed my bristly jaw as Ray asked Ila something about baking. This place was like walking in sunshine. No wonder Ray epitomized joy and continuously tried to make life better for others in some way. While I, in my despair, became wild and reckless. I screwed around, got into fights. Yeah, the latter started mostly because of Max, but I’d jumped right in. Then I’d taken on a fifteen-foot wave and got caught in a wipeout, landing me in the hospital with broken ribs and a near-fatal wound in my stomach—courtesy of my shattered surfboard.
“Jack, this route you’re on is only hurting you, not those you’re lashing out at,”Pops’ words echoed in my skull after the accident. Max had called him, and he’d taken a flight straight to Hawaii.“Only you can shape your destiny. Don’t let your anger at others change you.”
But it had taken nearly losing Pops to finally throw me off my downward trajectory—his heart attack had broken what could have been a deadly glide that may have ended me too soon. Ray should have tagged us The Screwed Ones instead of the Players.
I exhaled a deep breath when something Mrs. Logan said snapped my head up.
“Dunk tank?” I asked her. “Who?”
“Ray. She normally does the tank for charity. And the kids love it. I’m c-c…certain it’ll be quite successful in this hot weather…”
I folded my arms over my chest, fixing Ray with an unamused stare. Did she forget her wound? Last night, she’d had a raging fever, and from the dull red flush to her cheeks, she still had it.
Then the difficult girl scrunched her face at me, making me want to yank her close and kiss some sense into her.
“Mom, I’m not doing the dunk tank this year,” she said, watching Ila pile the cookies on a plate. “I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Watts. She’ll call about where she needs me.”
“Why?” Mrs. Logan cast Ray an unblinking stare. “You’ve always liked those t-t…tanks.”
“Mom,” she muttered in a low voice. “It’s that time…”
I didn’t hear the rest, and Mrs. Logan sighed. Ray grabbed two cookies and took a bite from one. “These are great, Ila,” she said and hurried off. How the heck could she be this energetic while wounded?
“Jack?” Mrs. L waved a hand at the cookies just as I was about to go after Ray. I didn’t care for sugary things, but I took one and bit into the buttery-sweet cookie that melted in my mouth. “This is excellent, Ila. I can see why Max snatched you up.”
She laughed, and so did her mother.
“Ray burnt hers the last time she baked,” I told Ila, eating the rest of the cookie.
Both pairs of amber eyes rounded.
“Did she now?” Ila asked, her eyebrows nearly hitting her hairline.
As if Ray would happily invite me to her place. “Yes. When I dropped her off at her dorm the night after we had dinner at your loft.”
“Oh, right.” Ila sighed and nodded. She put the kettle on, but Mrs. L studied me for a second longer before she said, “We’ll bring the tea in a moment.”
And that was my cue to leave.
Mr. Logan was the sole occupant of the living room, watching a ball game as I entered.
