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I looked up at Pierre, who appeared to be making love to a loaf of bread he was cutting. Figuratively, of course. He had one palm on the bread and his cheek practically pressed to the table beside it as he gently dragged a serrated knife through it.
“Okay,” I said, telling myself I was only taking his help for Pierre’s sake. Not mine. Not out of some long-shot hope that we’d end up crossing paths again if I took him up on this.
“Great.” Jack started to stand.
“No,” I said, pointing at the stool. “This time, you’re eating the food. Like it or not.”
A half smile crossed his face. “Fair. I’ll make some calls while I’m here and see about getting you that branding consultation.”40NolaJack left my life as quickly as he came. Much to Griff and Ben’s disappointment, his “vacation” lasted until about an hour before we closed up the restaurant.
The following day, I mostly managed to continue with business as usual. Wake up early, take Griff to school, man the helm of my quickly sinking business. Rinse, repeat.
Except I felt the spark of possibility from Jack flying all the way here. He was torn between what he should do and what he wanted. What if I could convince him they were the same thing? What if I didn’t just meekly tell him I understood that he was being a well-intentioned idiot?
Those were the thoughts that led to a spiral of events. First was mentioning to Griff that it’d be fun to go visit New York to see Luca and Lindsey, wouldn’t it? Next was glancing at airline tickets and realizing they were startlingly cheap if we drove to Orlando first. Next was booking them and telling Pierre he could have two days off.
Before I knew it, I was dragging my suitcase into Lindsey and Luca’s apartment with Griff tagging behind me.
Totally not here for some grand apology tour. Not at all. I was here to visit my friends, not to scheme up some kind of way to win Jack back.
This was probably the part where the narrator of my life would chime in and reveal that the heroine of this tale was not an entirely trustworthy one. He might even cough and mutter “bullshit” in his fist at that particular point.
Well, screw you too, narrator.With Griff safely in Lindsey’s care, I went for a walk. My walk happened to take me roughly a dozen blocks to the street where Jack’s building was. It also led me right up to the door where a bored looking doorman in a coat eyed me.
“Just going to see a friend,” I said, even though I’d been through this routine before. You needed to be on the list to get into Jack’s building, and the doormen had never failed to check before. But I’d also never tried casually brushing past them.
The guy reached out, gently touching my arm and giving me a stern look. “Your name?” he said, swiping through a list on his phone.
“Same name as the last fifty times,” I joked.
Unamused, he waited.
“Nola Castille,” I said.
He flipped through his phone, then looked up and shook his head. “Not on the list.”
“Think you should check again, maybe?”
“It’s alphabetical. You’re not on it.”
Alrighty then. It looked like this was the part where I had to get creative.
I called Damon Rose and asked if he could possibly find a last-minute babysitter for Griff. It was a stretch, since losing my ties to Jack probably meant losing any obligation Damon might have felt towards me. But I was gratefully surprised when he grouchily complied and set me up with Chris’ wife, Belle. She even agreed to swing by and pick him up.
I called Lindsey next. “Hey,” I said, “I need a favor. A kind of big one. And I already got someone to come pick up Griff, so don’t worry about that. Can you bring Luca and that Halloween costume you guys used last year? Remember the UPS package delivery team?”
“Um,” Lindsey said.
“What?”
“We kinda used that in the bedroom a few times. We had to modify the package so there’s a little hole for a hand and the front of the pants is kind of cut open.”
I stared at the brick wall I was standing in front of, wishing I could smuggle a bottle of bleach inside my brain and put the pathways forming that particular memory out of their misery. “Can you find some way to un-pervert the costume or not, Lindsey? This is a big deal.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll figure something out. Where do you need us?”41BenI wasn’t like most kids. I knew that. It’s also how I knew the babysitter my dad hired for me had something called dementia. I knew that meant she saw little demons who told her things that weren’t true.
Normally, dad made sure he knew babysitters really well. But this time, he said he needed to do something really important and that he’d only be just out for a little.
