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Troy smiles. His warm, knowing eyes crinkle at the corners, and something inside me stirs. “I promise you, Jess, you’re safe. These men and women are on your side.” He gives my hand a small squeeze, and the tension in my body eases a tiny bit. “Nothing bad will happen to you in there.”
I nod, but I’m not sure if I’m nodding because I believe him or because I’m agreeing to go in with him.
We climb out of the truck. Troy puts a scarf on Butterscotch that proclaims he’s an emotional support dog, and we walk through the building entrance. Troy signs me in as a visitor and leads me to a sunny rec room.
Two women in their forties are playing what looks like a heated match of table tennis. The blond has an above-the-elbow amputation and whacks the ball over the net. The brunette doesn’t reach the ball in time, and the blond woman scores a point.
She hoots and raises her arm in victory. “And the reigning champion wins again!” She puts the paddle on the table.
Cheers and laughter rise from a group of individuals sitting near them, and the woman she was playing against laughs and high-fives her.
“This way.” Troy takes me to a small table where two elderly men are sitting, studying the fanned-out cards in their hands.
A man with shaved-short white hair looks up from his cards. “Hey, Butterscotch. You want to help me beat Frank’s sorry ass?”
Troy bends down and unhooks Butterscotch’s leash. The dog walks over to the man.
A woman my age with dark-blond hair and a scar-free face joins us and smiles at Troy. Her pale skin turns luminous. “I didn’t realize you’re volunteering today, Troy.”
“I’m not,” he says. “We just dropped by for a few minutes to talk to Bill and Frank.”
I glance around the room. I’m not the only person here with visible scars. One man has burn marks on his cheek and jaw that look several years old. Others have what could be shrapnel scars on their faces or arms. And those are just the scars I can see.
For all I know, Troy also has scars on his body from being in the Marines.
“Troy, are you going to introduce us to your beautiful woman?” Frank grins at him. A scar bisects one of his bushy white eyebrows.
“This is Jessica,” Troy explains, surprising me. I thought the man meant the woman who’d said hi to Troy. “She just moved to town. She’s the one who bought Iris’s house.”
Both men wince.
Huh?Is that not a good thing? Do they know something about the house I don’t? Something Troy and the house report failed to mention?
“I take it you’re still looking for a property to flip then,” the man with Butterscotch on his lap asks, his voice a grumble of either disapproval or disappointment.
“Flip?” Troy was interested in Iris’s house?Myhouse?
“It’s nothing,” Troy tells me like he’s half-heartedly swatting away an annoying mosquito.
The man with Butterscotch huffs. “It’s not nothing. He was planning to renovate the house and sell it. And give the profit to his best friend’s widow and her two-year-old daughter.” The man studies me, and I suddenly feel naked, as if he’s stripping away my layers, determining if I’m worthy of Troy’s attention.
I stare at Troy, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.
Troy sighs, the sound heavily resigned. “I told you my best friend lost his life to his battle with PTSD. He committed suicide, leaving his wife and daughter to go on without him.”
“And because he killed himself,” the man with Butterscotch says, “his life insurance was void.”
Oh.I turn to Troy. “And my buying Iris’s house prevented you from helping them?”
That’s why he was so eager to help me. Is he going to tell me the house isn’t salvageable and try to convince me to sell it to him? So he can flip it?
Fuckers.I retreat a step.
“It’s okay.” Troy’s brow creases, and a silent plea glints in his eyes. “There’ll be other places. Anyway, that’s not why I brought you here. Jess, this is Bill, Frank, and Katelyn.” The men wave at me in turn. Katelyn regards me with disinterest. “Katelyn’s one of the center’s recreational therapists,” Troy explains.
My lips tilt into a wonky smile, partly because of the scar, and partly because of Bill’s news about Troy’s plan for Iris’s house. Has he really given up that easily on the house? I don’t know what to believe.
“You must be the new woman in Troy’s life that Delores mentioned.” Frank flashes a toothy grin that’s stained with age, but it’s as cocky as it probably was when he was younger.
