Page 72 of Don’t Go Stealing My Heart

She went from stiff to rigid. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend like this is easy for you. In the light of day, when we aren’t in bed, my past won’t be so easy to ignore.”

Easy wasn’t the word he’d use. He’d spent the last few days stewing, looking for reasons to cut Clementine off, hoping she’d give him an excuse to forget her. The second he saw her at the festival he only wanted a reason for her to stay. Yes, she’d lied to him, had targeted him and his family to steal a painting. But her confessions now had been devastatingly real. If there was one thing Jack understood, it was the importance of forgiveness.

He kept her pinned against him and moved his lips by her ear. “The week before I went to the school dance, when Derek, Darrin, and Dale hung out with me, they dared me to do something bad.”

“Did you toilet paper someone’s house?”

“Much worse.”

“Knock a mailbox off its stand?”

He’d laugh if the memory didn’t still bite. “It was bad enough that I spent the night in jail.”

She rolled onto her back and gaped at him. “Say that again.”

“At fifteen, I spent the night in jail.”

“One more time.”

He couldn’t help chuckling, and she smiled. An awed smile. A sweet smile. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose. “You’re dating a felon.”

* * *

Clementine softened against him, too amused to worry that this night was a fleeting glimpse of perfection. Not-Maxwell Elvis Jack had a dark side. “I need details.”

He leaned his weight on one elbow and stroked her hair. “It’s not a nice story, part of my past I’m ashamed of.”

“Then we have something in common.” Sort of.

He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “As you know, when that shit-show went down, I was obsessed with being cool for a minute. Ditching Marco was an awful thing to do, but I also worked one day a week for a local veteran. I volunteered to hang out with him and play Scrabble or Boggle or read to him. Mr. Hawthorn would talk about the women he’d picked up when in the Navy, go on about the bands he loved and how he danced better than Fred Astaire. He was probably full of shit, but I always liked listening to him, and he’d let me sit in the old Corvette he kept in his garage.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy.”

“You would have liked him.” Jack kept playing with her hair.

She purred and nudged his side. “What did you do?”

“Hawthorn used an oxygen mask. The guys asked me to sneak in one night and steal the mask and tank. They said we’d put it back by morning, that it would be fun to use it.”

“Assholes.”

“I was the asshole who said yes. I had a key to get in but didn’t count on Hawthorn waking up. He’d always been such a deep sleeper. I figured I could slip in and out, do the same after. No harm. No one would know.”

She scrunched her face. “He caught you and called the cops?”

Shadows darkened his eyes. “He saw me and screamed. It was the middle of the night, and he didn’t recognize me. He got up too fast, tripped and fell and smacked his head on his dresser as he went down. Completely passed out. So I called 9-1-1. Couldn’t even lie when the cops came, blurted that I broke in to steal the oxygen tank and mask. I never implicated the other guys, but my sense of self-preservation just flat-out fled.” He shook his head like he wished he could fly back in time and scold his younger self. “Turned out Mr. Hawthorn also broke his hip. And later, like six months or so, he died.” He winced on the last part.

She reached up and traced his broody cheekbone. “That’s not your fault, Jack.”

“Yeah, it kind of was. The hip break weakened his body. His immune system slowly worsened after that. It was the root cause.”

All because of stupid kids being stupid. “It must have devastated you.”

He frowned for several beats. “Thing is, he wouldn’t press charges against me. The cops urged him to, even with my family name, but he refused. He made me sit with him in the hospital instead, bring games. Listen to his stories while I choked on my shame. He only mentioned what I did once. He looked me dead on and told me screwing up happens, that we all make bad choices to please others or fit in. What defines us is rising above and forgiving ourselves. Forgiving others.”