“The dining room is missing something.”
“What? It looks great.” He glances around. “And we have more cooking to do.”
“No,” I insist, rocking on my heels, thoughts whirring. “We need to bring in some of the old story in order to tell the new one.”
He scrapes his hand over his jaw, looking a little uncertain.
“Trust me on this,” I say.
“They’re back at the house,” Kiara says. “Want to take a look?”
“Yes. Perfect!” I hurry to the kitchen. Jack doesn’t seem fully convinced, but he doesn’t stop me. “Let me grab my purse. Jack, you better call Hazel right now!”
“I have something to tell you,” Kiara says once we’ve arrived at her place. “A good something.”
I slide out of her car, following her to the house. The pink front door makes me smile, like always; it’s what I’d want if I lived down here permanently. “Ooh. Mysterious. Spill it.”
“Chester and I went out to dinner the other night. And”—she leans in as she unlocks the door, biting her lip with excitement—“we’re going out again tonight.”
“Oh my god!” I screech, pulling her into a hug.
“I know!”
“That’s so cute. I could tell he had a crush on you.” Or maybe a little more than that, according to Jack, but that’s not my secret to tell. “How was it? I mean, great, obviously. Did he kiss you?”
“Not yet.” She gives me a knowing look. “Are you and Jack, you know...”
“Oh! No.” I laugh slightly, kicking off my shoes and following her upstairs. I don’t want to lie, but also, I don’t want to betray Jack’s confidence. Besides, there’s barely anything to tell. We hooked up. I’d like it to keep happening until we return to New York. The end. “We’re just friends.”
Kiara stops at the top of the stairs. “I’ve noticed how he looks at you.”
A jolt of electricity hits me. “Um, how?”
She looks thoughtful, considering her words. “He softens when he looks at you. It’s like he slows down, you know? I never saw that with anyone else.”
“Ever?”
“Ever,” she echoes. “It’s been a long time, and I don’t know about everyone he’s been involved with, but yeah.”
I fight to keep the smile off my face. “You sure he’s not thinking about how much more peaceful his life is going to be once I’m out of his hair?”
“Uh-huh,” she says, in a tone that makes it obvious she doesn’t believe me. She pushes open the door at the end of the hallway, revealing a small bedroom with boxes stacked by the dresser and art leaning against the wall. “Here, we put the stuff in his old room.”
I peer inside. “Jack’s?”
“Yeah, when he started living with us. Dad convinced him after another foster placement fell through.”
I stare as her words sink in. “He was in foster care?”
“He didn’t...?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Kiara drags her teeth over her lip. “Shit. I figured he’d have mentioned something by now.”
Foster care. Suddenly, everything Jack has said—or rather, hasn’t said—about his parents makes a lot more sense. Heat creeps up the back of my neck. I don’t know what I assumed about his family situation, but it wasn’t foster care. The thought of Jack as a little kid, shuttled from house to house in his own hometown, makes my heart ache. Despite my current annoyance at my family, they’ve always been there for me. I couldn’t imagine my life without them.
“He didn’t say anything.” I take a few steps into the room, searching for lingering evidence of Jack. An old cookbook, a pair of shoes. A stack of CDs. The room is pin-neat, a quilt folded at the foot of the bed. I sit on it, fiddling with my braid. “What happened? Was he always...”
