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“But we convinced her not to,” Mateo said, as if reminding the nurse of that fact.
“You all need to leave now,” she said, stepping inside the room and closing the door. The last thing I saw was Jack smiling at me from the bed, completely satisfied.
“We tried buying you some time,” Liam told me.
“Fortunately, you did not need much time,” Mateo said. He blushed, then added, “Or so it appeared.”
“Come on, then,” Liam said. “We need to return to the station to finish out our shift. We’ll walk you to your car.”
Liam put an arm around my shoulder, and Mateo held my hand from the other side. It was such a strange feeling, having sex with Jack Franco and then taking a stroll to the parking garage with his two best friends. Friends I was also actively sleeping with.
But for now, I didn’t care. All three of them had survived the night, and for the first time in my life, I was seeing clearly.
36
Alyssa
The first thing I did when I got home was check on Smoke since Jack was in the hospital. After he was fed, Brandi joined me while I let Smoke outside to go to the bathroom. Even though it was pushing midnight by this point, I caught Brandi up on all the drama. She seemed shell-shocked by the whole thing.
“So he almost died…”
“I don’t like to phrase it that way,” I said. “But yes.”
“…and then he said he’s been in love with you all this time?”
“That’s correct, yes.”
Brandi laughed like she couldn’t believe it. “And I thought I had an eventful evening.”
I frowned. “What happened to you tonight?”
“First, the police came by and asked me about the house. And about our mother.”
“You didn’t tell them how she messed with the fuse box, did you?”
“Of course not,” Brandi replied. “But I get the feeling they don’t care. They’re making their mind up about something. And along those lines, the insurance guy called me before I went to bed. He said they’re still investigating the fire, and they won’t be paying out the home insurance claim.”
I felt all the energy go out of my body. “Seriously?”
“Sorry for ruining your big Jack Franco revelation.”
“It’s fine. Well, no it’s not fine. But it’s whatever. We’ll handle it the best we can.”
“I’ll look into lawyers tomorrow,” Brandi suggested. “Kyle has some names.”
But my sister sounded scared. Or maybe just weary. I couldn’t blame her; we had been relying on that insurance money. It would be a cruel twist of fate for our mother’s dementia to take one final thing away from us.
The next morning, I was woken by a knock on the door. Jack was standing there, wearing normal clothes and an exhausted smile. The only hint that anything was wrong was the boot on his ankle, and the crutch under one arm.
I threw myself into his arms so forcefully he almost fell over.
Using Jack’s truck, I drove us to a place called Diane’s Diner. I wasn’t hungry, but Jack insisted. And he ordered a huge pancake breakfast when we sat down.
“Worked up an appetite, huh?” I said.
“You have no idea.”
While Jack ate breakfast and I sipped on coffee, we talked. And talked. And talked. He explained his perspective on every interaction we’d ever had as kids, and then I did the same. It was like comparing notes on a shared history, both versions similar and yet totally different at the same time.
