In Her Candy Jar: A Romantic Comedy

by Alina Jacobs

  Liam opened his mouth, and I knew he was about to say something inappropriate.

  "Do not say anything," I growled at him. I'd had a lot of family time, and I was ready for them all to leave so I could return to my business, which I had been admittedly neglecting of late.

  "Thank you for your concern, Donna. We'll make other arrangements for Henry."

  "So, what are we going to do with Henry?" Liam asked after Donna left.

  "I'll try and find a daycare." I sighed. "I guess we'll just leave him with Remy for now."

  "That may not be the best idea," Hunter said.

  "Why?" I asked. "He obviously can't stay here."

  Hunter and Greg exchanged a look.

  "What is it? You're keeping something from me. I know it." I looked between my older brothers.

  "We didn't want to tell you," Greg began, "because we knew you'd overreact."

  "Stop keeping things from me," I hissed.

  Hunter looked pained. "Payslee is trying to take Henry back."

  I hugged Henry to my chest. "She can't do that!"

  "She's his mother," Hunter said, "so legally she could."

  "She abandoned him and all of her other children!" I protested. "You need to do something!"

  Hunter held up a hand. "I'm working on it," my older brother assured me.

  "Work harder." I felt a swell of panic that I usually kept stuffed down. My family was more important than anything. Henry couldn't go back to the compound. I would not allow it. "Henry has to stay with one of us at all times," I insisted.

  "That's probably overkill," Greg said.

  I shook my head. "He could be snatched. She could take him to South America. We'd never see him again."

  "Well, I can't be expected to take care of Henry," Greg said. "He's practically feral."

  17

  Josie

  Two workmen came and swept away the glass and placed some caution tape in the empty frame. I tried not to think about how annoyed Mace was going to be. But his brother, who was the CFO, had told me to work on his presentation. And if I was being honest, making a pretty slide deck was way more fun than organizing a closet.

  I was eating cereal out of a bag. It was an off-brand mix called marshmallow wheat loops. Pro tip, you can buy just the marshmallow bits on Amazon and mix them to make marshmallow-heavy cereal. It was a little stale, but beggars can't be choosers. It wasn't like Mace kept the breakrooms stocked with anything tasty.

  Garrett walked in.

  "I'm not done yet," I told him. "Still working. You can't rush perfection."

  Garrett gave me a small smile. "Oh, I'm not here to bug you about that. I know you'll have it done. No, I'm here to watch the fireworks, as they say."

  "Cereal?" I offered. We heard Mace coming down the hall. He was talking to someone loudly over the screech of some sort of wild animal. Garrett selected a single shooting-star marshmallow and snapped it between his teeth as Mace grabbed the door handle to his office.

  "What the—" he said. Garrett and I watched as Mace paused for a moment and looked between the door, the broken glass pane, and the piles of stuff all over his office.

  "It's like Disneyland!" the small child in his arms exclaimed. He wiggled down and took a running leap at a pile of envelopes I had put on the sofa.

  "Henry, no!"

  "Too late," Garrett remarked as envelopes and labels went flying.

  Henry shrieked and made snow angels in the carnage.

  "I don't understand," Mace said, still standing in the doorway to his office.

  Garrett blinked at his brother. "You asked her to reorganize the storage closet."

  "I did?" Mace sounded like he was in a daze.

  "Marie Kondo says you have to take everything out, ask each item if it brings you joy, then reorganize it. I had only gotten to the first step of taking everything out," I explained, "but then Garrett wanted me to help him on his presentation, and well"—I gestured with the hand that held the bag of cereal—"I'll finish organizing after I'm done."

  I grabbed a handful of cereal and stuffed it in my mouth.

  "Are you eating a bag of marshmallows?" Mace asked, disgusted.

  "No," I said, swallowing. "There's wheat bits in here too."

  "It looks like it's all marshmallows."

  "Girl's gotta eat. It's energy. Plus marshmallows are great. You can put them in coffee. You can decorate with them. I bought a forty-pound bag online. It was only ten dollars. So you're going to be seeing a lot more of them."

  Henry ran toward us, a roll of trace paper swirling out behind him. He ran into a stack of colored posters, sending them cascading to the floor.

  "My work here is done," Garrett said, stepping around Henry.

  Mace sighed and grabbed Henry. The little kid squirmed in his arms.

  "I need you to babysit," Mace said to me.

  "That is not in my job description," I countered, looking at Henry suspiciously.

  "Neither is working for Garrett." Mace scowled. "Just, can you watch him, please? There are some snacks in my cabinet if he gets hungry." He handed Henry to me. The kid was heavy. He shrieked as Mace walked out of the office. I set Henry on the floor.

  I liked kids in theory. Henry didn't seem like he liked me in theory or otherwise. The towheaded boy looked at me and scowled. I had to laugh because he looked just like a mini version of Mace in that moment.

  "Don't laugh at me!" he yelled and crossed his arms.

  "Sorry," I said. "Shhh people are working." Henry let out a high-pitched screech, and I winced at the noise. I always wanted a big family, but I sort of assumed that it would be far down the road and that I potentially may die under an avalanche of English toffee and empty wine boxes before it ever happened.

  "Henry, do you want a snack?" I asked him. He stopped screaming and looked at me expectantly.

  "I want pizza and ice cream," he announced.

  "Me too, but I don't know if Mace has any of that." I rummage around in the CEO's cabinets and found a Ziploc bag filled with slices of some sort of crumbly bread. Opening it, I sniffed it.

  "This smells—" I sniffed it again. "Oddly familiar. Is this from the vegan place?" Dry to begin with, I was sure the bread was almost inedibly stale by now.

  "Pizza! Pizza!" Henry chanted.

  "I don't have that," I said, "but I do have this amazing, delicious vegan nut bread." Henry didn't seem like he believed my hype. Breaking off a piece of the bread, I handed it to him.

  He inspected it, took a tiny nibble, then spit it out on the floor.

  "Yuck, it's gross."

  "What is this racket? There are people trying to work," Tara said as she came into the office, a pinched look on her face.

  Does that woman seriously not work? Why is she always hanging around Mace?

  "Do you need something?" I asked Tara.

  "I need to talk to Mace. You need to clean up this mess. I should have known a simple organizing job would be beneath you. You and your incompetence are harming Mace and hurting the company. If you had a shred of integrity, you would leave."

  She looked around at the mess and noticed Henry, who was grinding the bread into the sofa.

  "Don't do that," Tara chided, kneeling down beside him. "Why don't you come with me, and we can find Mace?"

  "No!" Henry yelled and pushed her away with the hand that held the bread. I winced as Tara cursed. The nut bread was smeared in her perfect hair.

  "Say sorry, Henry," I told him. "That was rude." Inside I was secretly laughing.

  "Sorry," he said with a pout.

  Tara turned on her heel and left.

  "Serves her right," I said.

  Henry resumed his yelling and dancing and general destruction. I pulled out my bag of cereal and popped a marshmallow in his mouth. Henry's eyes lit up.

  "Yum!" he said. "This is amazing!"

  "I know, right? Come to my office. Let's leave all this stuff alone." Henry followed me like a little puppy begging for treats.

&nb
sp; I worked on Garrett's presentation slides in between playing seal with Henry. He would jump around and clap, and I would throw a marshmallow at him. Henry would try and catch it in his mouth. We played all afternoon. A generous portion of the bag was gone between me taking handfuls to make it through the presentation and throwing pieces at Henry to keep him occupied.

  "Okay here's two," I said, throwing them at him.

  "I missed one," he said as he crunched through one of the marshmallows.

  "Go find it. We don't want ants," I told him.

  Henry scurried around the room, looking for the treat. "I can't find it."

  "Keep looking," I said, not looking up from the screen. There was one thing I wanted to finish on the slides.

  "Wait, here it is. I found it."

  "Don't eat it," I said absently.

  "But it's mine."

  "I'll trade you for a fresh one," I said, not looking up.

  "Okay, but I want a star because this one's a star, and they taste better—oh." Henry went silent. I looked up.

  Mace was standing in the doorway. He looked furious.

  "Sorry about your office. I'm still trying to do Garrett's slides," I explained.

  "Did you feed him sugar?" Mace asked, advancing on me.

  "Just a little…" I said, feeling apprehensive about the look on Mace's face.

  Henry started spinning around and around. "I'm a rocket ship."

  Mace grabbed him and picked him up, inspecting his little brother. "His face is covered in sugar." I looked at Henry. He did look like he'd been in a fight with a clown. He was also looking a little green, which I didn't think had anything to do with the shamrock marshmallows.

  "I think you should—" I started to say.

  "No." Mace interrupted, walking over to me. "You can't just ignore every instruction I give you and feed him garbage."

  I scooted back. Henry was licking his lips. He looked a little drooly. I'd done enough college drinking to know what was coming next.

  "It might be a good idea if—"

  "Could you listen to me? You need to make a change."

  Henry leaned his head against Mace's chest and puked rainbow colors all down his suit. Mace strangled a curse.

  "I'll grab some paper towels," I said.

  18

  Mace

  "I can't believe you fed him all that sugar," I snarled at Josie as she stood up from her desk.

  "I'll bring him some water." She hurried out and came back with water and paper towels to clean up the mess. Henry for once wasn't in motion. He seemed a little stunned. I held my hand to his forehead. He felt warm.

  Josie swiped at me with the paper towels and tried to convince Henry to sip some water.

  "Don't bother," I said, setting my brother down and taking off my jacket. "I'm taking him to the emergency room."

  "Is he really that sick?" Josie cried, taking my jacket. "Mace, I am so sorry."

  "I can't say I expected anything better from you," I snapped at her.

  On the way to the pediatric emergency room, I had to fight off visions of Henry succumbing to fever or some other ailment like in those old Victorian-era novels where one day a kid was fine, and the next, they had one foot in the grave.

  Hunter met me at the emergency room; Archer was there with him. Hunter took one look at Henry and snorted. "He looks fine. The way Josie was carrying on when she called me, I thought Henry was on death's door."

  "She was hysterical," Archer added.

  "I made a rainbow," Henry said proudly. He ran to Archer to try and give him a hug.

  Archer grimaced. "I can see the rainbow all over your shirt. And on Mace."

  "I can't believe they won't see him," I complained. "Why is the wait so long? I've donated a lot of money to this hospital."

  Hunter shook his head and said irritably, "I can't believe I'm wasting my time on this. He's fine. Just take him home. I need to make you his guardian if you're going to overreact to every little thing."

  "He might not be," I countered. "What if his pancreas is about to shut down?"

  Hunter ignored me and walked outside to take a call.

  Archer sat down in a chair next to me. "You always overreact," said Archer. "My poor, high-strung twin."

  "Why are you even here?" I asked.

  "Looking at sites for my new hotel," he replied.

  "At least if there was a conference center, we wouldn't have to have meetings at my office," I grumbled.

  "You love seeing us. Besides, I'm good for you." Archer patted my hair. "I don't know how you and Garrett manage day-to-day. Both of you are control freaks."

  "I'm not a control freak. And I function better than you."

  Archer snorted. "I wasn't the one who thought he had diphtheria after he read Little House on the Prairie."

  The doctor saw us several hours later. Josie had called me several times, but I ignored her. Henry was fine, and I felt bad for overreacting.

  Henry chatted away with the doctor while she checked his pulse and his reflexes.

  "Stick out your tongue," the doctor said. Henry obliged. "Wow! You did have a lot of sugar. You have quite the rainbow on your tongue." She turned to me and said, "He's going to live."

  "Praise the lord!" Archer exclaimed.

  The doctor struggled to hide a smile. Women couldn't resist my brother.

  The doctor giggled then said, "I would say, have him drink lots of water and eat a salad. He'll be fine. In the future, maybe don't feed him so much sugar."

  "It was my assistant," I explained.

  "Don't be too hard on her," the doctor said.

  I nodded noncommittally. Any warm feelings that had started to grow for Josie were gone. I didn't tolerate anyone putting my family in danger.

  19

  Josie

  I felt terrible about Henry. It was yet another bad decision, just like trusting Anke, except this time it could have cost Mace his brother.

  I ran out into the hall and almost bumped into Garrett.

  "Henry is hurt! Mace is taking him to the hospital!" I said in a rush.

  Garrett rolled his eyes. "Of course he is."

  "Mace said Henry could die!" I pressed.

  "Uh-huh." Garrett did not seem as upset as I though the situation called for.

  "Aren't you going to meet him at the hospital?" I asked.

  "No," Garrett replied. I detected a hint of irritation. "I can't pander to Mace's hysterics."

  "Someone should go," I insisted.

  Garrett pursed his mouth then pulled out his phone, scrolled through the contacts, and pressed the call button.

  "Tell Hunter," he said, handing the phone to me. "And send me the presentation when you're done," he called out as he went back into his office.

  "What is it, Garrett? I'm about to start driving," I heard Mace's older brother say through the phone.

  I started sobbing. "Mace took Henry to the hospital! I'm so sorry."

  "Who is this?" Hunter asked.

  "Josie."

  "What? Where is Garrett?"

  "Tell him I'm not interested in talking," Garrett called out. "But if Mace is at the hospital, Hunter should be there since he's the legal guardian."

  I started to repeat the message.

  "I heard," Hunter said with a sigh. "I'll go deal with it."

  Dabbing the tears in my eyes, I worked on Garrett's presentation. I tried calling Mace, but he didn't answer his phone. I only reached his voicemail.

  I sent Garrett his presentation and then set about cleaning Mace's office. I didn't have the energy to organize it, so I just shoved everything back in the supply closet and shut the door. It was just one more thing that I screwed up and that I was going to stick my head in the sand about.

  Willow was waiting for me in the lobby when I came downstairs.

  "Rough day?" she asked sympathetically. "Did you hear any news about Henry?"

  I shook my head.

  "Let's get a drink. I'm sure he'll be fine. Little kids boun
ce back," my friend assured me, putting her arm around my waist.

  "I guess."

  "You need to find a better place for your tiny house," Willow told me as we walked to the old beat-up pickup truck.

  "I can't even unhitch it," I told her as we climbed into the truck cab and I started the engine. Or tried to anyway. It churned over and over.

  "Come on!" I pleaded. "Not today." It finally started, and I let out the breath I was holding.

  "Does it always make that weird clicking noise?" Willow asked as I slowly navigated us out of the parking lot.

  "I think so?" I said. "But I just turn on the radio."

  "That's probably not a good idea."

  "Story of my life."

  "I think your trailer might be busted too," Willow said, looking in the side mirror. The house listed side to side even though I was driving slowly. I was tense as I drove, trying not to hit anything.

  The sweat was dripping down my scalp as I parked the house. I had to pay for two on-street parking spaces, and the top of the tiny house scraped against the tree branches when I pulled in.

  "Do you think the house is going to be okay on the street?" I asked as Willow and I walked into the busy bar and followed the hostess to a table.

  "Do you really think anyone is going to steal that death trap?" Willow remarked as we looked over the menu that featured high-end pub food. "After the day you've had," Willow said, "I think you need a cocktail."

  When the waitress put down our drinks, I took a long sip.

  "That straw is just for stirring," Willow said, pulling the glass away from me. "You're not supposed to drink it like water."

  "I need it," I said, pulling it back from her.

  The waitress brought an order of pretzel bites to the table, and I was distracted by the gooey beer cheese and the tangy mustard dip long enough for Willow to take the straw out of the cocktail.