Jack pushed Pops’s wheelchair and rolled his eyes. “Next time I’ll leave both of you in lockup, and I’ll go to lunch without you. Find myself some better company.” Not that he really minded their complaining. It seemed nice and normal to be this way, walking home from a lunch that he had to admit was definitely lacking in taste. “Take Jamie off by myself.”
“Jamie wouldn’t do that, would you?” Pops glanced at them over his shoulder. “She has respect for her elders, unlike you.”
Jamie laughed. “I would never abandon you, Will.”
“See?”
Jack kissed Jamie’s temple and whispered in her ear. “We can outrun these two, you know. Just say the word and we’ll cross the street and lose them in the park.”
She hooked her arm through his and smiled. Beamed, actually. He was hoping it was love and afterglow from the night before. And it would never rub off. He loved seeing that smile directed at him.
“Austin’s faster than me,” she told him.
“Hey, Austin, go grab me a coffee, will ya? There’s a deli right on the left.” He handed him a five when Austin shrugged in bored acquiescence.
“You’re crazy to give that kid money. He might not come back,” Pops said.
“You know, you’ve got to have trust. If he takes off, so what? But if he doesn’t, well, that’s a good thing.” He should have trusted Jamie in the beginning. Should have given her more reason to trust him.
“You’re a good man, Jack-o. But that lunch did suck.”
Jack laughed. They were almost to the deli when he suddenly saw him, Jim Peters, Jamie’s father, standing across the street in front of his building. Jamie made a soft sound next to him.
She was wearing an orange-colored tank top and a white floral skirt that fell above her knees, and when he glanced over at her, he saw her face was the same color as her shirt, her freckles stark and vivid on her pale skin. It struck him again how beautiful she was. How much he loved her.
“Sweetheart…I didn’t know he’d be here. Do you want me to talk to him?”
Jamie shook her head. “It’s fine. I want to speak to him myself.” She stepped in front of the deli store right as Austin came rolling out, a coffee in one hand, a big cookie in the other.
“Watch—”
Too late. Austin slammed into Jamie, who tripped over Pops’s wheelchair. Jack grabbed her arm to steady her and flinched when coffee hit him in the chest. When the commotion died down, he saw they were all covered in coffee splatters except for Austin.
“Shit. Sorry.” Austin took a bite of the cookie and stepped back a full foot, like he was thinking of bolting.
Jamie blinked, a big brown wet spot on her breasts. Jack patted his pockets as if napkins were suddenly going to materialize. Pops wiped drippage off his cheek.
Then she started laughing. Jack brushed at his own wet T-shirt and grinned in relief, glad to see Jamie was still Jamie. She didn’t sweat the small stuff.
“It’s okay, Austin,” she said. “Accidents happen.” Her gaze was already floating across the street to her father.
Jim had spotted them. When Jamie waved to him, he paused a minute, then raised his hand back.
They all stood around, covered in coffee, waiting expectantly as Jim crossed the street.
It occurred to Jack that maybe the rest of them should leave. But Jamie was gripping his hand and not easing up as Jim stopped in front of them, hands in his pockets.
“Hi,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”
Jamie nodded.
Jim nodded, his eyes panicked and raw, as he looked away.
Jack stood helpless, wishing he could do this for Jamie.
But he didn’t need to.
She stood tall and proud, compassion in her eyes, and said, “I forgive you, Dad. And I love you.”
Jack was so damn proud of her and so scared for her heart, he realized he was holding his breath.
“Well, say something,” Pops told Jim after a long second had dragged out. “Girl tells you she loves you, you don’t just stand there gawking at her.”
Her father swiped at his eyes, blinking hard. “Jesus. I love you, too, Jamie Lynn. I always have. Every damn day I’ve been without you. God, I can’t believe this. I didn’t cry when they sent me to prison and here I am crying in the middle of Hudson Street.”
“Dude, don’t worry about it,” Austin said.
“Happens to the best of us,” Pops said.
“Can the two of you—” go to hell came to mind, but Jack restrained himself. “Go get yourself a better lunch.” He pulled out a twenty and handed it to Pops, who waved it smugly in Austin’s face.
“I get to hold the money again.”
“That’s only ’cuz I can’t hold the money and push you at the same time.” Austin dropped his skateboard in Pops’s lap and grabbed the wheelchair handles. “How fast can we get this thing going?”
Jack winced as they hit the door with the footrests on the chair, but they made it into the deli with minimal swearing and more speed than was probably advisable.
But at least they were gone. Now if he could get Jamie to release his hand from her iron grip, he could exit, too, and let her talk to her father.
Jamie was aware that Jack was trying to gently remove his hand from hers, but there was no way in hell she was letting him leave her. Her father was still just kind of staring at her, and she felt like at any given second her legs might give out. She needed Jack’s strength, support.
“After all this time I can’t believe I’m looking at you,” her father said, shaking his head. “That you’re this close. You’re beautiful. And you look like me. Except you have your mother’s eyes. Expressive.”
She wasn’t sure what to say, so she just smiled. This was his move.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just wanted to protect the both of you. I loved you and your mother more than anything and I was just a damn coward, Jamie Lynn. Do you understand that? That I was weak, not that I didn’t care.”
“I understand. And trust me, I know a thing or two about being scared.” She’d been putting Jack and herself through hell for the past two weeks for that very reason. An image of the night before popped into her head. Well, it hadn’t been all hell.
“So things are going well for you? You like your job, living in New York?”
“Yes. I love my job and I’ve been happy here. I have great friends and…Jack.” His hand squeezed hers.