“Maybe by the Fourth.” That was still over a month away.
She laughed. “Maybe.”
When I arrived at my apartment, I found Makay mixing up the ingredients from my chocolate chip cookie recipe, while Halla played cars with Nate. Halla wasn’t wearing her wig as she had been when she’d gone to Makay’s that morning.
“Home already?” Makay asked.
“Yep. Apparently, I no longer work at Crawford Cereals. My mother wants me home.”
Makay laughed. “Ha! That’s the best news I’ve heard all week! Let’s celebrate.” She grabbed a spoon, scooped out a large portion of cookie dough, and handed it to me. “Hurray for freedom and pursuing your dreams.”
“So you weren’t even worried I’d go home?”
“Not on your life. You hate that place.” She scooped more dough onto a second spoon and shoved it into my hand. “This is a two-spoon celebration.”
Halla laughed and joined us, reaching for a spoon. “Me too!”
I was glad I’d gone to see Tessa first. Scaring Halla would have been inexcusable, especially with her father looming over us like some kind of terrifying phantom.
The ringing doorbell cut through our laughter. Immediately, Halla ran toward the bedroom. There, she’d be opening the sliding door, ready to go out onto the balcony and up onto the roof, just in case.
I set down my spoons and went to the door, peeking through the hole. A boy in a delivery uniform stood there with a vase of fuchsia lilies, bordered in white. “It’s flowers,” I whispered to Makay.
“Well, open it!” With Nate on one hip, she dragged the door open.
“I have a delivery for Lily Crawford?”
“There.” Makay thumbed at me.
I signed his delivery pad and took the flowers. “Thank you.”
I’d no sooner shut the door than Halla was out of the bedroom and peering over my shoulder. “Well? Who sent them?”
I was just as curious. There was only one man I’d been dating. I opened the envelope and removed the card, my heart doing funny little jumps as if it could already read what was inside.
Sorry, it read. I was wrong. Please forgive me. Love, MJP. P.S. I hope lilies are still magic.
“MJP,” mused Halla. “That’s Mario, right?”
I nodded. “Mario Jameson Perez.”
Halla took a bite of dough from her spoon. “Something tells me he didn’t get the memo about you being just friends.”
Makay found that hilarious. “That,” she announced, “calls for even more cookie dough.”
She was absolutely right.
11
The days flew by, with me having the time to complete many household tasks I’d been putting off because of work. Thursday morning, Halla stayed home again while Elsie worked with Ruth. After dropping off the girls, I drove to Teen Remake for my first official day on the job and attended the opening ceremony for the next Teen Nature that I would be helping out with on Friday and Saturday. The kids looked excited for the most part, some trying and failing to look bored. One girl kept staring at her father, as if she’d never seen him before, and I felt a rush of . . . envy? My father had never gone on any camping trip with me, and the fact that this father was here meant he was trying.
I was going to like it here.
Within forty minutes, they were on buses heading toward South Mountain. The rest of my four hours, I sat in group therapy sessions, which was apparently part of my training. It was a lot like my sessions on the roof with my girls, and before I could help myself, I was contributing as much as the therapist, a large black woman whose name was Jill.
As the kids filed from the room, Jill put her arm around my shoulders. “Lily, you’re a natural. In another couple weeks, those girls will be telling you everything.”
I grinned at her a bit sheepishly. “You’re the one who’s great with them. I think you’ll have me telling you everything in the next few weeks.”
Her laugh made me feel happy inside. “Oh, honey, we all have issues, and the more we can get them out, and talk about how we dealt with them, the more we can reach these kids. I know therapists will tell you that you need some distance, and it’s true—for a therapist. But you’re here to be like their big sister, at least with the girls. You just love them and leave the distance to me.”
“That I think I can do.”
“I know you can.”
Jameson came in then and said, “Hey, can we borrow her for a video game contest?”
I was glad to see him, but there was no way I wanted to play today. “I’m not that good.”
He grinned. “That’s what I’m banking on. You’ll be on the other team.”
“What?”
“Trust me.” The words spoke volumes.
“She can go,” Jill said. “But she’s only scheduled until twelve, so you be sure to let her go by then.” To me, she added, “Now with the boys, you can leave a little distance, or they’ll be flirting up a storm. They won’t even mind if they lose to you.” She gave a hearty laugh and waved us out the door.
Jameson took me to the room where I’d seen him playing before. A crowd of kids had gathered for the contest. “Two against two,” Jameson explained. “The others are here to cheer us on.”
His team player was a Hispanic boy, and my partner was a young man of indeterminate race. “Hey, sista,” said the boy, offering me a fist bump. “I’m Felix. Don’t you worry. After you get killed, I’ll still beat ’em.”
“Okay.” I sat down on the couch, and the game began.
Jameson and his partner quickly ganged up on Felix, so I took my time learning the game. It wasn’t all that different from the games I played with the girls, except instead of shooting everyone, you had to beat them by talking to teachers, doing service for needy bystanders, and preventing attacks on your competition by evil terrorists, all of which gave you points. You stopped your opponents from winning by asking them to help you perform different tasks, which they had to do, or lose points, and then while they were occupied, beating them to each kind deed.
While Jameson and his partner inundated Feliz with requests for service, I found my way through a maze to the mayor of the city and got permission to start a Feed the World campaign, saving a cat, an old man, and a little girl on the way. Then I went for the jugular and prevented attackers from taking out my competition with a toilet bomb. By the time Jameson realized what I was doing, I’d earned enough points to win the game.
“Way to go.” Felix gave me another fist bump. “You like my game?”
“You made this? Yeah, I like it a lot.”
Felix grinned. “I’ll burn you a copy, and give you a link where you can send all your friends to buy it. It’s gonna pay my way through college.”
“You have to graduate high school first,” Jameson reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah. You nag like my old man.” We all laughed.
It was time for me to go, and Jameson had another group session, but he walked with me into the hallway. “Are we okay?” he asked.
I’d texted him a thanks for the flowers, but we hadn’t talked since. Two long, torturous days. “Yeah. Fine.”
“Good, because I’ve been wanting to ask—would you like to come to Sunday dinner at my parents’?”
His parents? Before I had too much time to get excited, my logical self kicked in. “Wait, doesn’t your family live in Tucson? That’s what, about a two-hour drive?”
“Yeah. So it’s really a full day, not just dinner. I don’t go home that often, but I sort of mentioned you to my mother, and she’s been after me to invite you.”
I wondered if this was before or after our argument Friday night. Still, he had talked to his mother about me, and excitement over that vied with my reluctance to leave the girls. My mind raced over the possibilities. But in the end, I knew it wasn’t going to work. “You know, it sounds fun, but with the weekend hours here and looking for a new job, I won’t be spending as much time with the girls, except on Sunday, and I can’t
leave them all day.” Can’t, meaning I didn’t want to.
“Oh, didn’t I say?” His smile widened and his eyes gleamed with his customary amusement. “They’re invited—in fact, my mother would have my hide if I didn’t bring them. Payden’s coming with me, and I was thinking of borrowing his mother’s van to fit us all.”
“You sure your mom wants all of us?” My mother would be throwing a fit. It was one thing to call a caterer for her elegant dinner parties, but quite another to feed runaway girls.
“You kidding? My mom loves to cook, and she’s used to doing large amounts.” He gazed at me with his head titled to the side, an expression on his face that was both pleading and hopeful. “Please come?”
“I’ll talk to the girls.”
“Great. They’ll so want to come.” He took a few steps back into the room where the teens were sitting in a circle on the carpet. “Make sure you tell them I have two really good-looking brothers in high school.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
I watched him turn and join the circle of kids. There was no counselor, and that told me he’d completed whatever hours were required for him to run this session alone. Would that be me someday? I hoped so because it was a lot more interesting than making sure cereal packers met their daily quotas.
“I can’t believe he’s taking you home to meet his mommy,” Saffron teased as Ruth and Elsie darted inside the apartment to inform us that Jameson had arrived in his borrowed van.
“You sure you won’t go with us?” I asked Saffron.
“Nope, I’m sort of away from that whole family dinner thing right now, no matter how cool the family. It would be different if you weren’t just friends, but why should I waste my time if he’s not going to be around in a few months?” She winked and flashed me a grin. “Don’t worry. I’m going to hang out with Russ instead, but I don’t like him enough to get into trouble. We’re just friends.”
“Friends with kissing benefits,” Zoey shot back, with more than a little envy in her voice. Zoey might try to hide herself with pounds, but like every other girl, she dreamed about having a boyfriend who really loved her.
Saffron laughed. “Yep. It’s a beautiful relationship.”
“Just friends” was Saffron’s way of protecting herself. That worked fine for now, given her age, but someday, she’d need to get beyond what happened to her—with her family and with losing the baby. I planned to learn enough before then to help her when that time came.
Saffron grabbed the bags of snacks I’d put together and passed them to me. “Have fun, you guys.”
“You too,” I said.
The rest of the girls and I thundered down the stairs, Halla in her wig and Ruth in her boy clothes. At least Elsie’s hair was brushed. That was some progress. We met Jameson on the second-floor landing, just as our neighbor was coming out for a smoke. The neighbor’s face was dark with stubble, and on one of his arms was a tattoo of a dragon.
Elsie noticed him and buried her face into me as we passed. The reaction wasn’t missed by Jameson. “Is that the neighbor you told me about?” he asked in a low voice when we reached the last stair.
The girls had already started across the parking lot to the van, where Payden had opened the side door for them, too far away to hear us. “Yes—the one who freaked Elsie out last week. I don’t even know his name.”
“Maybe you should report him to the management.”
“For what, smoking? Besides, I’m too worried he’s been taking notes on how many girls I have living with me. My lease says up to three people for the one-bedroom apartments, and I just had my landlord sign the foster parent form that says he’s aware that Zoey and Bianca are living here.” I sighed. “The landlord might not even care about the others. At least, he hasn’t said anything, and there are a bunch of people here who don’t follow that rule. I swear, one family here has like twenty-five relatives in a two-bedroom apartment. But if DCS ever talks to him, I don’t want him to know anything officially.”
Jameson glanced up at the second floor, where my neighbor was no longer in sight. Maybe he hadn’t been coming out for a smoke but to see what was making noise on the metal stairs. “We should look him up on the child predator list. They have one, you know. But what you really need is to move. I’ve been looking up different places. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.” We’d reached the front of the van. “But I’ll probably need to find a second job first. I’m no longer working for my dad.”
He stopped walking. “You’re not?”
I didn’t want to vilify my parents, though part of me felt they deserved it. “We came to the mutual conclusion that I wasn’t going to work there anymore.”
“Good for you.”
When I raised my brows in puzzlement, he added, “You hated it there.”
“How come everyone seems to know that? It’s not as if I complained.”
“I can just tell—your eyes are different when you talk about the factory. Look, it’ll work out. I’ll help you find a place you can afford.”
I gave a gentle snort.
He laughed. “Did you just snort?”
“Um, no. Maybe. I just think you’re biting off more than you realize.”
“Hey, I’ve got connections.”
“Well, I’m going to need more than just an apartment at the rate I’m picking up girls. I seem to get at least one on every major holiday.”
“Wow, if I used the term ‘picking up girls’ like that, someone would put me in jail.”
I snorted loudly this time. “Yes, it was a snort. You’re funny.”
Again the deliberate grin that sent delicious heat through my belly. “Good. I like to see you smile.”
His dark eyes held mine, and the heat spread through my limbs. I felt rooted to the spot, held by his gaze. His face shouldn’t be so familiar to me, but it was. For several heartbeats we stood there, as if at the mouth of a raging river—and I wanted more than anything to jump inside and get wet, without worrying about drowning. Before meeting him, I’d been so careful with my plans, my feelings. Maybe I was a lot like Saffron, holding back because of the love I’d been denied as a child. Yet I’d had Tessa, then Makay and the girls, and here was Jameson, staring at me like he’d never seen a woman before.
Was this how the beginning of love felt? I didn’t know because it was certainly the first time I’d ever experienced it.
If only so much didn’t ride on trusting him.
The sliding door on the van opened. “Hey, are we going or not?” Payden asked. “It’s already getting a little stuffy in here.”
“Right.”
The connection broken, I hurried toward Payden’s sliding door, but Jameson sprinted after me and opened the front passenger door instead. “You’re riding here with me,” he said, offering me a hand up. “If that’s okay.”
I nodded and took his hand. His touch felt warm and comfortable and exhilarating. I wanted more. More of him. More than friendship.
He tipped forward, brushing a kiss over my lips. It was all I could do not to grab him and kiss him again.
“I hope you’re ready for this,” he said. “My family can get loud.”
I glanced toward the two rows of back seats, where Zoey and Halla were arguing about bands as Ruth tried to play peacemaker. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
12
The supposed two-hour trip took an extra half hour with all the potty breaks, and the girls and their tiny bladders became a joke between Jameson and Payden. Between the stops, we sang along with CDs and played the alphabet game, which the girls claimed Jameson and Payden cheated at by using the gas line warning signs. The warnings were periodically pasted on wooden posts along the roads, and the men couldn’t possibly see the letters they alleged were there. But by the end of the trip, the girls were also using the signs, skipping all the way from A through J, or L through P, or R through W. Only the K, Q, X, Y, and Z we
re missing from the sign and had to be found elsewhere. They went through the alphabet dozens of times before they finally grew bored.
We pulled up at his parents’ house, which was a squat, stuccoed affair. The whole thing could almost fit into the kitchen and family room of my parents’ house. Shaking the image from my head, I followed Jameson up the walk and waited as he knocked on the front door. It swung open to reveal a teenage version of Jameson.
The boy hugged his brother and blushed as he was introduced as Tim. “Come on in,” he invited. “Everyone’s in here.”
I wouldn’t be my mother’s daughter if I didn’t notice the outdated wallpaper and the short, emerald green carpet in the living room that might have been popular in the 1990s. Tim led us through the room to the kitchen, which had to be the largest space in the house but was barely able to fit a long wooden table. The kitchen ceiling had boxes of fluorescent lighting that would have my mother shaking her head, but to me it felt just right. There was no mistaking the sense of coziness here.
The kitchen connected with a small family room that was set down a couple feet, separated from the kitchen by a few stairs. Most of Jameson’s family were gathered there, and at least three different board games were in play. A TV also blared, but nobody appeared to be watching it.
A woman I assumed was Jameson’s mother turned from the sink. “Ah, you’re here,” she said, drying her hands before hugging him. She was of average height and weight, with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that put me at ease.
“You must be Lily,” she said. “My son goes on and on about you. Your eyes, how good you are with the girls. I am so pleased to meet you. I’m Heidi.”
“Uh, Mom,” Jameson said. She laughed as he quickly began introducing the girls.
“Are you guys hungry?” Heidi asked when he was finished. “Dinner won’t be ready for several hours yet, but I have some chips and stuff on the table.” She gestured to the table, which was covered with clear plastic. The legs were intricately carved, and the surface gleamed even beneath the plastic. Now this piece of furniture my mother would covet. “Please, help yourselves.”
House Without Lies (Lily’s House Book 1) Page 13