Green sea glass set in sterling silver. The one I saw at the mall, and never stopped thinking about.
My breath catches. “Jesse...you didn’t.”
“You worked so hard. I’m so proud of you, baby.” His voice is low, and I don’t know what to do. It’s too much.
But he pulls my right hand up and slips it on my finger. It fits like it was custom-made for me. I stare at the green stone, and tears sting my eyes.
“I wanted you to have something to wear every day,” he says softly. “To remember how far you’ve come. You’re going to continue kicking ass.”
My throat is tight, but I look up at him, holding his hand in mine.
“You…you really think so?”
Jesse cocks his head back, beaming at me. Then he wraps his arms around me like armor. I breathe in the scent of his cedar cologne and soap and let myself be held. His arms are the safest place I’ve ever been.
His lips brush my hair. “I know so, princess. I’ll be right there with you, you’ll be unstoppable, Pen.”
I pull back just enough to see his eyes—clear and steady.“No, Jesse.We’llbe unstoppable. Together. Always.”
I hold out my pinky. He laughs and loops his around mine.
We kiss our hands and seal the promise.
33
Jesse
NOW
The black coffee’s gone cold again as I stare at the gray clouds outside. It's the third reheat, which Penny always said was foul—but she’s never tasted prison coffee. I’ll take this organic roast, microwave reheated and all, any day.
Cold coffee isn’t my problem; my focus is—or lack thereof. Nothing holds my concentration. Not the mug wrapped too tightly between my hands, not the emails from work that I should’ve replied to a day ago.
Fuck, I’ve managed to waste a whole morning doing absolutely nothing. And the morning slid right into the afternoon, in a house that’s still and quiet. Too fucking still.
I almost miss when everyone was on edge, because now it’s just polite words and a lot left unsaid. I feel like I’m going insane.
My foot taps the wood floor obsessively as I glance toward the front door. The girls took Tank for a walk. They invited me, but I declined. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I have no self-control left.
I’m living on a prayer that I can gain Penny’s coveted trust again, and yet the trust for myself has run dry. I can’t imagine anything more torturous than walking beside her and not touching her. Not holding her hand or bringing her knuckles to my lips. The way her skin stuck to mine as we lay somewhere between sleep and awake, it’s all that’s looping in my mind. I can’t stop seeing her vixen smirkwhen she showed up in my doorway, risking it all, knowing that whatever she asked me to do, I would say yes to.
I’ve always been defenseless against her.
Now that I’ve had her, I can’t pretend I haven’t. But that’s not my choice.
The dining chair scrapes the floor, and I’m up.
An idle man is a dangerous one, and I’m right on the edge of losing control. I don’t know what her long game is, but I went ten years without her, and the idea of going ten more is fucking terrifying.
But I know that’s not what’s on her mind right now. She’s made it clear. It’scomplicated, she says.
Penny’s a planner, a fixer, and right now, fixingusis too big a task to take on amidst everything else she feels she has to fix.
The door slams behind me as I grab the ax in the backyard. Something I’ve done all week when I feel like I’m on the verge of losing my shit. Picking up the ax, I swing it until the dead tree that’s been lying in the yard is cut up into enough wood for every fireplace on this street.
The funny thing is, my friend in LA texted me last night, asking how I’m adjusting “out there in the boonies.” I just laughed, because the Jesse I was in LA isn’t the one I am here. I don’t miss California, because everything I missed ishere. So close I can almost reach it. And yet, it still feels just out of grasp.
Like it’s still not mine to have.
