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I felt the flood of sadness overflow as another little part of my heart broke. "No, Mom. You're not selfish. We're family. This is what we do for each other. I just wish I could do more." I cleared my throat and tried to gather myself. "I'm going to clean up a bit, do a little laundry, okay? How about you take a shower when you're ready, and I'll take you out to dinner?"
She shook her head. "No, you don't have to do that. Don't you have a girlfriend you'd rather take out?"
"Mom," I said, giving her a frank look. "The day I have a girlfriend, you'll be the first to know."
She smiled at me, and behind the drawn, wrinkled face, I saw a glimmer of my pretty mother, the woman I'd worshipped as a little boy. "Okay," she said. "I'll go get dressed."
"Give me a couple hours," I said. "I'm gonna cut the grass, too."
When Mom had slipped away to her bedroom, I pulled out my phone and texted my brother. As expected, there was no response. I put my phone back in my pocket and got to work as anger began to eat a little hole inside me.
Things couldn't go on this way.
By the time I slipped back into Juliet's house that night, I was exhausted. My days off usually went this way, filled with maintenance, cleaning, and worry.
I was just stepping out of the shower, a towel wrapped around my waist, when I heard a gentle knock at my bedroom door and my stupid heart jolted in eager anticipation. It wasn't exactly professional to answer this way, but I wasn't really on duty either, not until the morning. Still, I pulled on a pair of shorts quickly before answering, keeping most of my bare chest behind the door as I opened it.
"Hey," I said, wishing everything inside me didn't feel immediately lighter at the sight of Juliet standing there in a soft pink sweater and jeans, her feet bare and her hair loose.
"Hey," she said, meeting my eyes and then dropping my gaze immediately. My stomach tightened.
"What's up?" I asked.
She laughed lightly, and shifted her weight. "Honestly? Nothing. I just wondered how your day was."
This was new.
My blood warmed at her interest, my heart picking up a quicker beat and a smile immediately coming to my face.
But this was dangerous. And I was pretty sure we both knew it.
Chapter Five
Juliet
Ididn't really know what I was doing. I'd spent the day wishing Jace would return, and I hadn't left the house all day, staying mostly in my room to avoid Chad, who I wasn't fond of.
But I was beginning to realize I was very fond of Jace. And maybe it was more than fondness.
It was probably a terrible idea.
But I couldn't stop myself from going to his door. I just wanted to see those dark eyes light up once before I went to sleep.
When he answered the door shirtless, I lost my breath. Every muscle in his torso was defined and cut. He wasn't huge, but he was substantial, and I itched to run my hands over that body, to feel his big arms around me. He was inked, too. Not excessively so, but there was a tattoo on his left pec that intrigued me, an intricate symbol with a circle in the middle and three points. Celtic maybe?
I managed to ask how his day was, and I was sure I hadn't mistaken the sadness that passed through his eyes.
"It was okay," he said, his voice gruff, like he was covering some emotion. "Saw my mom. Took her to dinner."
"It must be nice to have her so close," I said. Jace didn’t talk much about his family. I’d known they were local, but I didn’t know much else. “You grew up in the south, you said. When did your mom move?”
"She moved out here after Dad died. When I got back, I got her a little house. My brother came out too."
"I'm sorry about your dad." I knew what it was to lose parents. It was like a door that opened inside that you thought should have led somewhere, but which just spilled out emptiness, an emptiness you couldn't fill. I'd been trying to shut my own door for years.
"Nah," Jace brushed it off. "He was sick. Got into some things he shouldn't have."
That didn't sound good. I wanted to know more—maybe everything, but I didn't ask. "I'm sorry."
