by Nicole Helm
The woman crossed to him and wrapped him in a tight hug. It was something his mother would do to a perfect stranger, so it was hard to mind. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Santino.”
She pulled away, cupping his face with her hands. “And aren’t you handsome, young man. My girl has good taste.”
“Um, thank you.” He turned to the man. “Mr. Santino.” Thankfully the man extended a hand instead of offering a hug.
“Nice to meet you, son.”
“And that’s my brother, Marc.”
Marc cut an imposing figure, and his handshake seemed a little tighter than necessary. He also didn’t say anything, just gave a vague nod.
And yes, this was officially awkward. But Jacob knew how to deal with awkward. You smiled. You asked questions.
So that was what he set about doing. And it wasn’t hard. Mrs. Santino talked enough for all five of them on her own. He’d barely answer a question before she was moving on to the next. When she went to the bathroom to “freshen up” and was gone for fifteen minutes, none of them seemed to know what to do.
“Now, now, now, we need some dinner.” Mrs. Santino returned and clapped her hands together. “Marc, did you bring the cooler in?”
“Cooler? I told you I’d feed you,” Leah said, looking genuinely upset over a cooler.
Mrs. Santino waved it away as Marc disappeared out the door. “Of course I brought food. You never would let me teach you to cook.”
“You wouldn’t let me stand for more than five minutes.”
“But if you’d sat there and listened—”
“How can I learn if I can’t see?”
“There’s a lot to be said for listening, and I always—”
“Here you go, Mom.” It was the first time Marc had spoken, carrying the cooler into the house, and the effect was an end to Leah and her mother’s argument, which Jacob couldn’t make sense of. Not let her stand for more than five minutes? What was this?
“Now let me get dinner started.” Mrs. Santino was already walking in the kitchen, pulling the giant cooler-on-wheels behind her. Leah followed, still protesting, so Jacob did the same.
“Mom, you had, like, a seven-hour drive. Besides, you’re my guest and—”
“I’m your mother. And look at this.” She tsked the contents of the fridge, which contained a lot more fruits and vegetables than it had the other night. Obviously Leah had planned ahead, but apparently it wasn’t enough. “I knew you’d need to be fed some real food.”
“Mom, I told you—I take care of myself. That wasn’t a lie. I look good. I am good. Don’t start...” Abruptly, Leah clamped her mouth shut. That expression from outside returned. Distraught. Miserable. This is my due.
“You know what—I’ll help. I’ll help with making dinner, and Leah and I will do cleanup. That’s a good compromise, right?”
Leah shook her head. “Sure. Yeah. Compromise. Bend.”
“You can cook, young man?” Mrs. Santino demanded.
“I can. And I’m very good at following orders.” He smiled as charmingly as possible under Mrs. Santino’s intimidating glare, even when Leah snorted. Mrs. Santino’s expression melted into a smile easy as you please.
“Oh, I do like you. Leah, go rest and catch up with Dad and Marc. Your man and I will heat up some ravioli in a jiff. And don’t worry. I brought you a special cheeseless batch.”
“Right. Sure.” Her smile was pained, but she went. And Jacob was left with the whirlwind of energy that was her mother.
“First up, get me two pots.”
Jacob followed instructions without having to make small talk, glad he knew enough about Leah’s kitchen to make it seem he’d spent ample time here. Mrs. Santino talked about her family recipe for sauce and how her mother had made the ravioli from scratch but there wasn’t time for that anymore.
Then, just as Jacob was relaxing into being told what to do, Mrs. Santino leaned real close, her voice low and serious.
“You’re taking care of my girl?”
If she had asked him that before he’d witnessed the dynamic between mother and daughter, he’d have automatically agreed and assured because that was what Mrs. Santino wanted.
But it killed him to watch Leah bite her tongue and fold into herself because she thought it was her due.
“You know, one of the things I...” he kind of stumbled over the L word because it made things...weird...but he knew he had to say it “...love about Leah is how strong she is. Resilient. I’d wager to guess she takes care of me more than the other way around.”
Mrs. Santino frowned at that, glanced toward the living room, where the rest of the group were. “How much has she told you about...her health?”
Jacob focused on dumping the Tupperware container full of sauce into the big pot. “Oh, you know, everything.” Which he had a feeling was a lie. Sure, he knew about her allergies and her asthma, but the way Mrs. Santino said “health” seemed a lot more dire than either.
Although, maybe that was a mother’s perspective. It had been scary to see Leah get all gray with her asthma issue the other day, and that was just as a friend. And Leah had been fine.
“She takes really good care of herself.”
Mrs. Santino pressed her lips together. It was an expression he’d seen on Leah often enough. Express disapproval.
“My girl needs taking care of.”
“Well—”
“And don’t I look well taken care of?” He glanced back at Leah standing in the opening of the kitchen. Her expression had gone beyond miserable. He didn’t know what it was anymore, but it made his heart hurt.
“Now, how am I supposed to grill him if you’re always popping up?” Mrs. Santino replied, waving a wooden spoon she’d had packed away in her cooler.
“Don’t poke at him. He—” She glanced at Jacob, that pink tinge he’d started looking for, examining, possibly even dreaming about, crossing her cheeks. “We want him to stick around, don’t we?”
“Well, he is quite handy—I’ll give him that. Now, why don’t you set the table for us? We’ll have a nice hearty dinner all ready for you in a second. I’m not saying you don’t look well. I’m only saying you could look better. You’re pale.”
“It’s December.”
“She works too hard. Doesn’t she? I just know she does.”
Jacob couldn’t get a handle on the situation. In many ways, Mrs. Santino reminded him of his own mother, but there was a kind of manic force driving Mrs. Santino. As though if she stopped talking or doing or pressing, everything would spin out of control.
Jacob felt complicit in it, so he moved over to Leah and slung an easy arm over her shoulders. Something he’d done in the name of friendship a million times, and yet they were supposed to be more than friends. So, how did he make it more than friendly? He didn’t know. “I don’t think she works too much. Besides, she’s brilliant. We’d be lost without her.”
Mrs. Santino paused to look at them, her eyes getting shiny, her hands clasped under her chin. “Look at the two of you. Makes my heart sing.”
He wondered if Mrs. Santino had any idea that Leah’s smile was anything but happy. Sad, hurt. He pulled her a little closer, just enough that she could easily lean her head on his shoulder. Surprised the hell out of him when she did. Even as her father and brother entered the room, her head rested on his shoulder.
He could smell her shampoo, feel strands of hair brushing across his neck. It was...strange. Like all those other moments, only weirder because he was pretending and it felt very unpretendy.
“Leah living alone for so many years just worried me sick, but I knew me pushing wouldn’t help any. I’m so glad she finally saw I was right.”
Leah didn’t stiffen, but she didn’t need to for him to know the words hit her hard. He was a littl
e familiar with being underestimated or misunderstood. Oh, sure, it was done with love, but it seemed certain things just clung to you when it came to your family, whether it was true or not.
His family thought he was a jerk to women. Leah’s family apparently didn’t give her credit for being the kick-ass person she was.
“Now we need to discuss the very obvious elephant in the room, young lady.”
This time Leah did stiffen, every muscle contracting underneath his arm as she lifted her head. “What elephant?”
“It’s very sweet of you to try and spare my feelings, but I know this is how these things go these days.”
“Mom, I... What ‘things’?”
“It’s very obvious to me that Jacob has been living here with you.”
“What?” The simultaneous response of shock didn’t deter Mrs. Santino.
“This young man has been your boyfriend for a year and there is not one scrap of evidence he even exists aside from that picture.” Mrs. Santino pointed to a picture of the MC crew in front of MC a few years ago. “I poked around while I was freshening up and not a hint this man spends any time here. Which can only mean you purposefully rid it of his influence. I know in the past living in sin is something I might have frowned upon, but we are here because we support you 100 percent no matter what.”
“Mom...” Mouth hanging open, she looked helplessly at Jacob.
“That’s nice of you, Mrs. Santino, but I don’t mind clearing out for the week. You guys should have family time.” Sometimes a little white lie couldn’t hurt, especially in the midst of a hundred others.
Leah’s helplessly open mouth turned mutinous, but her mom was going on, not giving her the chance to argue.
“Nonsense! Who knows, maybe you’ll be part of our family someday.”
“Oh, my God,” Leah groaned.
“Candace, this is what I warned you about,” Mr. Santino muttered, patting his wife on the shoulder.
“I’m just...” She sighed. “Well, anyway, I just want you to know, it won’t bother us if you’re here, Jacob. Not in the least. So, you should move your things back in and go on as you do when we aren’t here.”
“Well, I—”
“No. No, that’s not—”
He glanced at her and she was glaring at him. “You can’t—”
“It’s okay—”
“Excuse us for a second,” Leah said through gritted teeth, and her death grip on his arm was anything but loving.
Yeah, he really doubted he was about to get thanked.
CHAPTER NINE
“ARE YOU HIGH?” Or maybe she was. High on some kind of... What the living hell? “Seriously, are you whacked out of your mind?” She glanced at the shut door to her bedroom, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry back to the kitchen.
“Hear me out, Leah.”
“Hear you out? Hear you out? You don’t honestly think you can just move in here. You don’t... You can’t...”
“Are you ready to calm down and listen?”
“No! No, I won’t calm down, asshole. I’m biting back every damn word for my mother, and you do not get the same luxury.”
“All right.” And then he did the most infuriating thing and plopped himself on her bed, folding his arms behind his head and resting against the wall. “I’ll wait.”
She wanted to pummel him, and honestly, if her parents weren’t a hallway and a room away, she would. She’d punch him as hard as she could. Well, first she’d make him get the hell off her bed. “What we’re doing is already too far. Pretending we live together? It’s—”
“It’s not any different from what we’re doing. We’re lying. All this means is we keep lying.”
“It’s a new lie. And it’s crazy.”
“No crazier than being in love with each other.”
Ouch. Why did that pinch? It didn’t. No, that was something else. Hunger, maybe. “Please, for the love of Pete, be serious for one second. Just one.”
And then the ease slipped off his face and she saw the intensity behind that, and, oh, wow, her stomach did a little flip. Not a sexual you-are-so-hot flip, more of a... Okay, it was a total sexual you-are-so-hot-and-on-my-bed flip.
But that was neither here nor there. Really. And when he unfolded himself off her bed and stalked toward her like... She didn’t even know like what, because angry, intense Jacob was so beyond her understanding she just felt like a cornered animal.
“I think you need backup.”
“Wait. What?”
“You need backup. Support. And if I move in, you’ll have it.”
She didn’t understand. Anything. The look. The words. The desire manifesting itself in her midsection. And lower.
Oh, jeez, so not the time.
“I get it. I get why this was so important to you, why you’d lie and pretend. Because they, at least your mother, don’t see you. And she’s walking all over you. And you’re miserable. And I don’t like it. So I’m moving in.”
“How does you moving in solve anything? She’s just going to sit there and keep making comments about you being part of the family someday and thanking you for saving my sorry ass.”
“No. She’s going to see. Because if I go home tonight and only come back for another meal or two, all she is going to see is whatever she wants. She can keep telling herself I stepped in and made things different. But if I’m here a lot, she’s going to see the way you kick my ass on a regular basis. She’s going to see that you do everything on your own. She’s going to see that you’re the most independent, able-to-take-care-of-herself woman I’ve ever met.”
Oh, God, what was he trying to do to her?
“If I stay, you don’t have to bend. And you shouldn’t bend. I don’t care what happened when you were a teenager. You should be you. They should see you. I’m pretty accustomed to people... dismissing parts of me. And it sucks, and I hate seeing it suck for you and we’re going to fix it.”
“By sharing a bed?” Which, really, should be the last thing she was concerned about, but said bed was right there and so was the idea of being in it with him. And that fierce, determined look with those heart-melting words and, oh, oh, it was all she could think about.
Jacob glanced at the bed and some of that take-charge determination left his face. She would not allow herself to think the softening was consideration.
“It’ll be like camping.”
“How?”
“Remember the time we went camping and you couldn’t get your tent together?”
“It was missing pieces. That’s not me not being able to put it together.”
He gave her his patented sarcastic sure look. “You couldn’t put it together and you lost pieces because you went on a rampage about plumbing.”
“Okay, so I’m not outdoorsy, but this isn’t like camping.” She gestured to her bed. Sure, it was a queen bed, but his parts and her parts in pajamas and asleep and nope, nope, nope. She would combust.
“We shared a tent.”
“We were in separate sleeping bags.” And it hadn’t been exactly an easy night of sleep. Between the hard ground and Jacob’s breathing. Even knowing Henry and Susan had been in tents right next to them hadn’t changed how many things she had imagined that night.
A week of it?
“So, I’ll pack a sleeping bag. It can be the Walls of Jericho.”
“What?”
“If you would get over your aversion to black-and-white movies, you’d have some semblance of a clue as to what I’m talking about. It Happened One Night is a movie—”
“Jacob. Just... I need you take a step back. I need to think.” She needed five seconds of quiet to think. To figure out. To come up with a plan that did not involve Jacob in her bed. In her house. For seven straight days.
He took her shoulders, and even though she didn’t want to, she looked at him. The fierce determination was back, earnestness in every line on his gorgeous face, every point of pressure of his fingertips in her shoulders.
“Let me help you make them see you. You deserve for them to see you. All the things you’ve done to try and get them back into your life. It should work. Let me help. I want to help.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
“I wouldn’t do the same for you.”
“You know, I don’t think that’s true. I think you’d do almost anything I’d ask if it was something like this. Because you care. I care.”
She blinked at him, and he was right. She would do anything for him if it meant what this meant to her. But words like care and his hands on her shoulders... They muddled everything. Mostly her ability to speak.
“We’re friends,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“A second family. MC is a second family. So I’m going to do this for you.”
A second family, yes, although more like a first the past few years. And as this family had started pairing off and procreating, it made her want her own back, because nothing could change blood. Not even bad behavior and running away.
She swallowed down all the emotion clogging her throat and managed to look Jacob in the eye. Steady Jacob. Caring Jacob. Fucking hot Jacob. No. Not that. “You’re going to do this...because you care.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t do well with caring.”
“You do okay with Grace. How am I different?”
“You mean, aside from the penis?” Oh, God, why had she said that? She had not meant to say that. “Not that I think about your...” Oh. No. No, no, no.
She closed her eyes against the sight of his wide-eyed look of surprise. “Forget I said that. I didn’t mean it like...that.”
“Well, regardless, my penis has very little to say in the matter.”
“Great,” Leah croaked. “Fantastic. Moving on...”
“Are you agreeing?”
“Jacob—”