Page 80 of Beg Me

“It’s not a struggle to care about you, babe.” He reaches for my hand. “Let’s call it a day and go home.”

My hand slides into Jory’s without a second thought, because strangely, what I need right now is to go home with him.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

Jory

Rain pelts the windows, coming down in angled sheets. Thunder rips through the air as lightning cracks across the sky. Gus stands at the living room window watching Mother Nature like she’s putting on a show just for him.

“I’ve never seen it do this before,” he says in awe. “The sky looks like puke. It’s green.” He looks at me over his shoulder. “How long can it do this?”

“I’ve seen it rain for a week straight.” I press the first few notes of the bridal chorus on the small keyboard I found at a thrift store beside Miller’s Market today. It’s been a few years since I played anything, but it’s coming back to me like riding a bike. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yeah.” He turns back to the window. “I saw it rain a couple of times when we visited Papa Ernie in Ohio, but it wasn’t like this.”

My fingers come to a rest against the keys. “Did you talk to your mom today?”

He nods.

Deidre texted me yesterday and said she was flying to Ohio because her dad was sick. She didn’t want to worry Gus but wanted me to know what was happening. I woke up to another message this morning. They’d ruled out a heart attack, which was her biggest concern, and she thought it was going to be okay. I haven’t brought it up to Gus, as she requested, but I’m not sure if she’s said anything to him or not.

“What’s she been up to?” I ask, trying to prod some information out of him to see what he knows.

“Nothing. We didn’t talk long because she was gonna take a nap. She just wanted to make sure I was doing that math packet.” He snorts. “I assured her that you were taking my math homework very seriously.”

I grin, shaking my head, and go back to the keyboard.

“We should come back here next summer,” he says, flopping into the recliner by the fireplace. “Don’t ya think?”

“Sure.”

“That’s not a very convincing sure, Dad.”

I chuckle, wishing he wasn’t quite old enough to read me so well. He wasn’t this good at it even last year.

My gaze doesn’t lift, and I keep focused on working out the right notes for Audrey’s wedding. There’s not a good way to explain to an eleven-year-old that next year won’t look anything like this year. That, by next year, his friends here will have moved on and that he’ll have new friends and routines and maybe even sports in Nevada.

Markie will have forgotten about us.

And I’ll be across the country with Gus.

I draw in a breath, feeling the air squeeze its way into my lungs. Thinking about how things might look next year just reminds me of the changes headed my way, and that one of them is walking away alone from this special couple of months in Sugar Creek.

I’ve been fixated on what happens when I leave the Royals next year. I never imagined that I’d be dealing with that theme much sooner. This small town was supposed to be a quiet stopover, a place for Gus and me to get to know each other. It wasn’t intended to be … this.

“Well, Gus, I think coming back here would be great, but I’m just not sure it’ll be feasible.” I shrug. “You never know, though.”

“You need to think about it. Why wouldn’t we come back? We know people here. We can fish—or I can. You probably suck at it.”

I fire him a look that makes him laugh.

“And I can walk all around town with my friends,” he says. “I could never do that back home. I could get a bike next time, and it’d be fun.” He squirms in his seat. “You like it here, too, yeah? I mean, you have Markie here. You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

“I’m not sure that has anything to do with you.”

“Oh, come on. I baited the hook and cast the line. You barely managed to reel her in.”