by Jade West
I shrug. “I was just wondering… about you…”
He laughs, and it’s a lovely sound. “What are you wondering?”
“I dunno, just stuff.” His smile makes me smile. “I just… don’t know anything…”
“About me?” He stops at traffic lights and his hand reaches over to squeeze mine. “You’ll get to know everything, Laine. Just give it time.”
Everything. I like that thought.
“Ask me a question,” he says. “Whatever you like.”
So I do. I just ask him.
“Won’t Jane mind me sleeping in her room?”
“No,” he says. “She won’t.”
I look at him, but he’s staring ahead. The lights turn green and he drives on.
“Will you tell her about me? That I’m staying, I mean.”
“No,” he says, and his smile is all gone.
I wish I’d never asked. I should’ve picked another question, something about the office or his house or his car. I stare out the window, and the route is already becoming familiar. The roads get quieter and there’s the big tree I know means we’re five minutes from home.
“I’ll tell you about Jane,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”
Kelly Anne’s stupid paranoid speculations make me nervous, and I’m not so sure I do want to hear about Jane.
I feel his eyes on me for a moment. “Maybe talking about Jane will help you understand the ground rules.”
“It will?”
He tips his head. “Maybe.”
I don’t say anything until he pulls through the gates and takes us up the driveway. I grab my college bag from the backseat, and he grabs his briefcase, and we’re home again. Home.
He puts the kettle on and pours me a glass of juice, and I wonder if I’ve ever told him I don’t like hot drinks all that much. He seems to know.
I sit at the table and watch him make his tea, just waiting. His eyes are so serious.
“Ground rules,” he says, and I get a strange tickle between my legs.
He sits opposite me and I watch his hands around his mug. They’re so big. So strong.
“What are they?” I ask. “The rules, I mean.”
“I want to know you’re safe, Laine, always. I’ll need you to check in often. I don’t want you taking rides in people’s cars, I don’t want you heading anywhere you don’t know. Accidents happen that way,” he says. “When people are careless.”
“Careless,” I repeat. “I don’t take rides in many cars, Nick.” I smile. “I don’t have that many people that offer.”
“A pretty young girl like you would have plenty of people offering to give you a ride, Laine. Maybe you just don’t see it.”
“I don’t.” I laugh. “I’ve never seen it. Kelly Anne is the popular one.”
“Kelly Anne is reckless,” he says. “Reckless and foolish, and selfish on top. You’re too good for her, Laine. I’d prefer it if you didn’t let her drag you into any more situations.”
I nod. “I’m not planning on it.”
“Good girl,” he says.
I meet his eyes, risk a smile. “Is that it? The ground rules? That I don’t take rides in strange people’s cars and don’t hang out in clubs with Kelly Anne?”
“No,” he tells me. “It’s much wider than that.”
That tickle again. It’s something in his tone. Something so… strong.
“I want to take care of you,” he says, and I can’t stop that feeling between my legs. It makes my thighs clench together. “I want to look after you. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked after you, Laine. I want to be the first.”
The first.
I want him to be my first. In every way.
“I can, um… take care of myself…” I offer. “You don’t need to…”
“I want to,” he says. “It gives me great pleasure.”
And I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what we are, and I don’t want to ask, and I do want to ask.
I do ask, but it comes out messy.
“You mean, like, a um. You mean like a… a guardian… or something like that?”
His eyes burn me and I can’t look away. “Say it, Laine. Say what you mean.”
My cheeks burn. “Like a, um. Like a dad?”
“Is that what you want?”
Yes.
I know that’s what I want.
But I’m all icky again. All screwed up inside at the thought of wanting him like that. Wanting him the way that makes me all tickly between my legs.
“What?” he asks. “Tell me what you want.”
I take a sip of juice and it’s hard to swallow.
“You can tell me, Laine. You can tell me anything. We talk, about everything. That’s another of the ground rules.”
I nod, force down another sip of juice.
“This is a strange situation,” he says. “For both of us. I was driving, just driving, and there you were, lost in the rain, needing someone. Just like I needed someone.” He drinks some tea but his eyes are still on me. “Sometimes I think life has this way of putting people together in the most unlikely of circumstances.”
“Like fate?”
He smiles. “I like to think of it as synchronicity.”
“I believe in fate,” I tell him. “I believe in horoscopes, too. I read mine every day.”
“Maybe you should read mine,” he says, and there’s humour in it. “I’d love to know what fate has in store for us, Laine. I think it’s good things.”
“Me too,” I say, and I mean it.
“So,” he prompts. “What is it that you want?”
I shrug, gesture around me, to the beautiful room in his beautiful house. “This,” I tell him. “This everything. It’s… it’s like a fairytale.”
“Beauty and the beast?” He laughs.
“No!” I laugh with him. “Cinderella! I’m the scrubby servant girl and you’re Prince Charming come to save me.”
His eyes glitter. “I’m not all that charming,” he says. “Not when you get to know me.”
But I don’t believe him. I tell him so and he laughs again.
“Maybe this could be a fairytale, Laine,” he says. “If we want it badly enough. Life is full of magic, I think, you just have to trust in it.”
“I believe in magic,” I say. “I haven’t seen much of it, not until now, but I know it’s out there.”
“Maybe it’s right here.”
My heart daren’t even hope. I feel it lurch, and it scares me how much I want this. It scares me how hard I’m falling, falling right into him, falling right into his life.
“I hope so.” My voice is a whisper.
He holds out a hand and I take it across the table, and his fingers grip mine so tightly.
“Let me care for you, Laine. Will you do that?”
I nod. “I’d like that. Very much.”
“And you’ll stick to the ground rules? Let me keep you safe?”
“I’ll stick to the ground rules,” I say.
“Good girl.” His smile gives me tingles on tingles, and my heart races.
I take a breath, stare at my hand in his. “And that’s what you want? You want to take care of me? Like I’m…”
“Like you’re my little girl?”
My cheeks must be like beetroot. I close my eyes as I nod.
“And what else do you want, Laine? What did you want on the landing last night? What did you want in bed last night as you wriggled and squirmed?”
I can’t open my eyes. I just can’t.
“You,” I whisper. “I wanted you.”
“Is that still what you want? Not out of gratitude, or because you think you should. None of that is necessary, Laine, I promise you.”
I shake my head. “No… not because of that…” My heart is in my throat. “Just because… because I want it… because I like you…”
I hold my breath as I wait for him to answer, but his response shocks me enough to open my eyes.
&
nbsp; “I need to tell you about Jane,” he says.
“About Jane?”
“My rules can get… intense. I need you to understand why.”
I nod, and my eyes are wide and focused. I’m pleased that he doesn’t let go of my hand.
“Jane was my little girl,” he says.
Was.
“I was young when I met her mother. Louisa was lost, just like you were. I found her sheltering under an awning during an autumn thunderstorm, upset because she’d argued with her piece of shit boyfriend. Jane was just a baby, fast asleep in her pushchair, none the wiser for her mother’s predicament, thank God.”
“So she wasn’t…”
“Mine?” he says. “Not biologically, no. But she was mine in every way that matters. I was the man she called daddy. I was the man who read her bedtime stories and tucked her up in bed at night.”
My eyes urge him to continue.
“I was young myself, relatively. Still climbing up the corporate ladder, coping with my father’s death. This was our family home, I inherited it naturally, and it was lonely here before Louisa came, just as it was before you came.”
“Did you bring her home, too?”
He smiles. “I did, yes. I brought her and little Jane home with me, and made Louise cocoa while she dried off. I listened to her stories about her loser boyfriend and her sad life, and how she was so scared for tiny little Jane.”
“You rescued her. You rescued both of them.”
“Yes. Yes, I did. But she rescued me right back. Saved me from a life full of nothing but work and loneliness.”
I take a breath. “She didn’t grow up here, did she? Jane, I mean.”
“She didn’t grow up, Laine.” He takes a breath. “She died when she was five. A car accident. Her and her mother alongside that sorry sack of shit I took her from.” I see his eyes darken. “She left me a note before she went. He wanted to talk, she said, needed some help, she said. She didn’t want him, but for some crazy reason that day she took our little girl and climbed into his car. Maybe she didn’t realise he’d been drinking.”
I feel the blood leave my face. “I’m so sorry.”
“I should’ve been here,” he says. “I was working late. Stupid client meeting.”
“But you couldn’t have known…”
“I didn’t keep them safe,” he tells me, and I feel the pain from him. I see it in his eyes, in the hunch of his shoulders, in the tightness in his voice. In his everything.
I squeeze his hand right back, as hard as I can. “I’ll follow the ground rules,” I tell him. “I’ll stay safe, I promise.” I feel so sad. So sad for that little girl with the pretty pink room. So sad for Nick, too. The whole thing feels so sad I can hardly draw breath.
“I just need you to be safe, Laine. I really need you to follow the rules.”
I nod. “I will. Cross my heart.”
He smiles such a sad smile. “I’ll love you, Laine, if you’ll let me. Hell knows, everyone needs someone to love them.”
My heart hurts.
My heart knows that feeling.
I feel my eyes well up, and the tears spill, letting the sadness in my heart tip all the way over. “I’ll love you, too, Nick. I’m so sorry about your little girl.”
He runs his thumb over my knuckles and for that moment I’m sure I see his eyes are watery too.
And then he moves, takes a breath and gets to his feet, and he’s in-control Nick again.
“Chicken for dinner,” he tells me. “I hope you like chicken.”
I tell him chicken sounds really good.
Chapter Ten
Nick
Laine tries to smile as though everything is A-ok as I prepare dinner, but she’s thinking about Jane.
It’s a phenomenon I’m familiar with, once people find out about such a loss. One that has long since found me avoiding almost all mentions of my little girl’s name. It makes people feel awkward. Pity, sympathy… it’s a fine line between the two.
I don’t want either.
“It’s ok. You can talk about her,” I say as I peel the carrots.
She spins her empty juice class on the table top. “I just… I can’t imagine the pain…”
“Hopefully you won’t ever have to.” The peeler works so methodically. I lift my eyes from the growing pile of carrot sticks. “It was a long time ago.”
“Still,” she says. “It’s so horrible… it must’ve been…”
“Bad,” I say. “It was bad.”
I hope that will suffice. I have no desire to dredge up the long nights of misery, or the countless hours of therapy, or the emptiness Jane and Louisa’s passing left in my life.
“I’m so sorry,” she tells me, and I believe her. Those blue eyes glassy and melancholic, the sadness written all over her pretty face. “Is that why you rescued me? Because of Louisa?”
“No,” I say. “I rescued you because of you.”
She nods. “I’m so glad you did.”
“So am I.”
She smiles and it’s both sad and breath-taking. “What did she look like?” she asks. “Jane, I mean.”
I hesitate for just a moment, long enough to finish up a carrot and dig my wallet from my suit jacket. I flip it open and pull out the little picture. Jane’s sweet little grin, her blonde pigtails. So happy. She looks so blissfully happy on that photo.
Laine takes it from me with dainty fingers.
“She was so pretty. Such a beautiful little girl.”
“Yes, she was,” I say. “A tiny blonde angel.” I pause, staring at Laine staring at Jane. “Like you.” She hands me the photo and I slip it back inside my wallet. “Louisa was blonde, too.”
“Am I much like her?”
There’s something in her tone — a hint of breathlessness, and that awkwardness she conveys so well. Her sweet self-consciousness is addictive.
I know she must be as confused as I am, spiralling around the same dilemma, just trying to ride the currents.
Lover or little girl.
Louisa or Jane.
I feel her brain ticking. I see it in her eyes, just as I feel it behind mine.
“You remind me of her sometimes. Just a fleeting memory here and there.” I resume my peeling. “But you have an innocence Louisa didn’t.”
“Kelly Anne says I’m a prude, she says I’m a big baby. Innocence is dumb stupid, she says.”
“It’s a beautiful thing,” I tell her. “Very endearing.”
She smiles. “It is?”
“Very.” And then I know it’s time to lay it on the line. “Louisa wouldn’t let me take care of her, not in the way she needed. Not in the way I should’ve.”
Laine stares at me. “She wouldn’t?”
I shake my head. “I should’ve set the ground rules earlier. It would’ve kept her safe.” I laugh a sad laugh. “Should’ve, could’ve. Didn’t.”
“She didn’t let you?”
“Louisa was reckless, right from the beginning. Rebellious. Addicted to the highs of her earlier life, even if she despised the lows. She’d say not, but it was in her soul, that sense of devilment.”
“Rebellious,” she repeats, then lets out a little laugh. “Then we’re really not so similar at all. I barely even cross the road without a green light. Not unless Kelly Anne is involved.”
“Kelly Anne needs someone to show her a firm hand, Laine. Teach the girl to be a lot more considerate of others. She’ll get herself into trouble one day.” I pause. “Only now she won’t be dragging you into trouble’s path along with her. I won’t allow it.”
I wait for a reaction, for any sign of backlash, but none comes.
“Thanks,” she says. “For caring. It’s nice.”
I smile. “See if you still think that when you break one of the ground rules.”
Her expression doesn’t change, and I’m sure the implication has sailed over her head. “I won’t break them.” She grins. “I’ll be good.”
“That’s my girl.
” I finish up peeling the carrots. “You may well find me a little overprotective in time, Laine, but it’ll be for your own good.”
“I know,” she says. “I trust you.”
At least one of us does.
I start on the parsnips.
Laine
Nick can cook. But that figures.
Nick can do everything.
I eat up my chicken and vegetables, and it’s all just perfect, just the way I like it. I never want to go back to microwave meals and pasta again.
I never want to go back to any of it.
My heart feels tender at the thought of poor little Jane. A horrible sickness, as though it’s too big a pain to understand. And I suppose it is.
They say it’s the worst pain on earth, losing a child, and my heart wants to reach out and hold Nick tight and never let him go.
I just don’t understand why Louisa wouldn’t want Nick to keep her safe. It’s all I want.
That’s a lie.
I want much more than that.
I want everything. Just like she had. Only more. I want all of it, every bit of his love, and his care, and his ground rules.
I’ll give him all of my heart right back.
I eat up every bit of food on my plate and thank him for my meal. He tells me it’s nice to have someone to cook for.
I tell him I’ll cook for him one day. I tell him I can make a mean macaroni cheese. He tells me that’ll be nice.
Somehow I don’t think I’ll be cooking for Nick anytime soon, but that’s ok.
It’s so easy to float around in my happy little bubble around him. So easy to be cared for. So easy to feel young and silly and small.
So easy to feel loved.
“Are you ok?” he asks. “You seem someplace else.”
“Just thinking.”
“Penny for them?”
I want to tell him that I love the salt and pepper at his temples, the strength in his jawline. I want to tell him that I love his gentle smile and the way he felt in bed last night.
I don’t.
“I feel floaty. Like this is a dream.”
“Me too,” he says. “It’s such a pleasure to find that life still has magic in it. It’s been awhile.”
“It feels like fate, doesn’t it?”