“What are you doing here?” I rasped as I took out my earbuds.
“Do you always clean at—” he made a big show of looking at his bare wrist— “zero dark thirty?”
I bent to retrieve my rag and collect my thoughts. My heart was still racing in my chest. Mostly because Jace was wearing the hell out of a white T-shirt and black sweatpants.
Tonight, after the kids and I helped Jace carry his things into the house, we had dinner together. Ryla peppered him with questions, practically forcing Jace to fill us in on how many jobs he had (more than a handful)which was his favorite (Young Wills),and his position on chocolate (pro). This led to a discussion of Ryla and Max attending Young Wills. Ryla’s position being definitively pro whereas Max’s expression made me think he fell somewhere between the ‘no’ and ‘hell no’ range. After Jace went to his room for the night and I got the kids wrangled into bed, I laid awake, my mind alive with perseverative thought.
So, I’d decided to clean.
“I was looking for any party remnants from yesterday. Plus, I can catch up on my—” I paused, almost blurting outthe title of my book,American Thighs,instead responding with, “medical journals.”
Because obviously, listening to a medical journal while dusting a library at 12:30 a.m. was much less weird than listening to a bounty hunter romantic suspense audiobook.
Insert laugh track here.
Jace tilted his head, eyes playful as he walked slowly toward my side of the room, scanning the rows of bookshelves. “You listen to medical journals, huh?”
I turned back to the bookshelf, running the rag over its shelves. “It’s what all the cool kids are doing,” I replied, a sarcastic lilt to my voice.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he took his time inspecting the room. The library had wall-to-wall bookshelves except for the row I was currently dusting that had a fireplace centered in the middle of the wall. Across from the fireplace sat two leather couches facing each other. Large leather chairs were placed sporadically throughout the library, providing ample reading space. I often would curl up on my mother’s lap on the chair by the window, wrapping my finger in her long, silky hair, listening to her as she narrated all the different characters from the stories we’d read together. Judy Blume was one of our favorites. I’d gotten the biggest kick out of Ramona and remembered getting a little mad at Beezus’ attitude toward her sister. I’d always wanted a sister.
Now, thinking of Ryla’s antics, I had to wonder what kind of karma was at play here. My sincerest apologies to Beezus.
Jace casually worked his way around the room until he was on the same side of the library as me, at the opposite end of the row.
“This whole place doesn’t come with its own cleaning crew?” he asked, continuing to casually study the shelf’s contents as he ambled closer to me.
“It did come with one,” I grumbled, continuing to dust systematically down the rows of shelves, moving closer to him one book at a time. “But I cancelled them on Saturday.”
In an effort to stick it to my father, I’d cancelled all cleaning services, housekeeping services, and grounds crew. In doing so, I’d merely stuck it to myself. But that email to Jeffrey felt so good, it was almost worth it.
“They not do a good job or something?”
“No, they were great.” I dusted the next shelf a little harder.Like goddamn cleaning angels, I thought, finding Jace watching me. “My father likes to hold things over my head. Like if he does something for you, you owe him. I didn’t want him to have another thing over me.”
Jace’s easy smile fell. “You can ask me and the kids to help you clean. You could put it on Brian, no, wait”—Jace snapped and pointed at me— “Barry.”
I lifted my eyebrows at him. “You want to clean?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he replied. “But I’m a pretty decent cleaner. My sister moved out of the house when I was eight and my chores doubled. I can dust, mop, clean toilets, you name it.”
I stood on my tiptoes to reach the topmost shelf. “If you’re willing to clean with the kids, have at it. But I’m warning you, it’s miserable. Ryla argues with me the entire time and gets mad if I redo anything after her. And Max “takes a break” after cleaning for ten minutes. They’ll wear you down.”
Jace held up his hands as he walked a few more steps toward me, the air compressing around me the closer he came. “No promises, but I have my ways.” And then Jace had the audacity to wink at me, having no concept of what that did to the sixteen-year-old girl inside of me.
I shook my head, trying to shake some sense into that simpering teenager, telling her to have more self-respect and stop drawing hearts around our names. She, in true sixteen-year-old fashion, raked her eyes over my threadbare college T-shirt and black leggings, finding them lacking.
“What are you doing in here?” I changed the subject, moving to the next shelf.
“I was getting some water and thought I heard something,” Jace said absently, then whistled. He shook his head and hooked a thumb at the expanse of law volumes in front of him. “This is some collection. Do you think your daddy’s read ’em all?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. He reads incredibly fast and has an almost eidetic memory. That entire side is history.” I pointed to the wall opposite us. “One of his favorite things to do at the dinner table was quizzing me on Revolutionary War facts.” It was one of my happy memories of childhood, before my mother died.
“Sounds like my childhood,” Jace said, grinning. “Except with baseball facts. You’re not a big history buff, I take it?”
“My mom was. And I actually liked it, even if it wasn’t my thing.”
“What was your thing?”
