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Tears spring in James’ eyes and I want to look away.
But I can’t.
“Why would you think that?” she says softly.
“Because …” My voice suddenly sounds too young as if the past is reaching out from inside my throat, but I manage to choke out the rest of the words. “Us McKennas ruin everything we touch.”
Echoing my dad’s words tastes foul, but somehow it still sounds like the truth.
I try to take my hand away, but James resists, instead getting on her knees and shifting herself closer to me. She lets go only to cradle my face with both hands.
“Ozzy,” she whispers, her mouth against mine, her lips soft and warm. “If anything, being with you has felt like quite the opposite of you ruining things.”
My eyes find hers, seeking more of an explanation for what she just said.
She sits back on her heels, hands falling onto her lap, gaze to the ceiling in thought.
Then she looks down, pinning me with her stare, she says, “When I’m with you, I feel like you see the person I am behind all the cracks … behind all the versions of myself I’ve created to please others. It’s like you’ve always seenme, from the very first day we met.”
My heart wants to burst into a million little pieces.
I stroke her cheek with my thumb and smirk, hoping to alleviate some of the tension.
“Is that right, Jimbo?”
She nods. “Yeah, it is, salad boy.” Her smile so full of genuine sincerity.
And somewhere deep inside of me, a small part of me begins to heal, knowing I could be that person for James.
That Iamthat person for her.
41
JAMES
“Yeah she’s a total bitch,” one of the suits says.
I pretend not to listen while I replenish the half-empty wine glass, bottle in hand, a white cloth draped over my wrist, with my other arm tucked behind me. Men like him always act as if the waitstaff is invisible. It does make for juicy gossip when swapping stories back at the server station.
“A nag too, always calling to see when I’ll be home. Or whining about me spending more time with the kids. Next, she’ll be asking me to throw on an apron and help with dinner!” He barks a laugh, and the three other men at the table mirror his energy.
I internally groan when I realize he’s talking about his girlfriend. My eyes dip down to his left hand, finding a wedding band on his finger—worse, hiswife.
One of the men chimes in with a similar story, bemoaning about his girlfriend and calling her crazy.
I leave the table quietly, feeling slightly rattled.
While I punch in an order of agnolotti, I can’t stopthinking about what they just said—what they just revealed, seemingly unbothered that a complete stranger was standing within earshot. How vicious those remarks sounded, said with zero culpability, about the women they claim to love.
My stomach sinks, my past crashing into me, swallowing me like a tidal wave and reminding me of how I used to be treated. That could very well have been me they were talking about. Thinking of the kind of vitriol Zachary could spew directly to my face, I can’t imagine the shit he said about me behind my back.
My head swivels unconsciously to the kitchen pass, my gaze finding Ozzy effortlessly. I watch him exchange some words and a laugh with Itzel, and relief washes away whatever shit feeling I was experiencing only moments ago.
It’s an intricate kind of relief.
One that soothes hidden cracks within me that I still don’t know how to reach on my own. It tells me, with unequivocal certainty, that Ozzy would never speak about me like that.
It’s a staggering kind of relief.
