CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jake
Present Day…
“Which do you hope it is?” I asked Jagg as he stretched his fingers, preparing himself to reach into the empty coffee canister we’d decorated into his dream bowl for his first catch-up birthday trip.
“I don’t care. They’ll all be good.”
Now, Jagger was popping his knuckles. Apparently, pulling out a piece of paper took preparation. When he started stretching, Skye rolled her eyes, but I just laughed. The kid was hilarious.
A few jumping jacks later, he was ready. “Ohhhh… I’m so excited,” he exclaimed as he swirled his hand around in the bowl. He pulled it out, and opened the paper, frowning at the words.
“Lu…” He frowned harder. “Lu-i…” With a long sigh, he thrust the paper at me, crossing his arms over his chest in a gesture of true annoyance. “It’s hard being five,” he announced, and it was hard not to laugh as I opened the slip for him.
“Ohhh… this will be fun,” I said with wide eyes.
He jumped up and down. “What will be fun?”
Teasing, I held out the paper for him to see. “This!”
He huffed. “You. Are. Exasperating.”
I grinned. His expression was an exact replica of Skye’s when she was annoyed. “Liberty Island!”
All annoyance evaporated as he began whooping, then dove on the couch to do a flip. “We need to get him in gymnastics or something,” I said to Skye as he flipped backwards. “Or karate. How are you even standing at the end of the day?”
She looked embarrassed. “Well, classes are a lot of… you know.” She stuck her hands deep into her shorts pockets.
Shit.
Guilt smacked me in the face. Money. She hadn’t had enough money to send our kid to those kinds of classes. How stupid was I to think differently?
Money meant absolutely nothing to me. I carried around my AmEx Black and several hundred dollars in cash wherever I went. I never paid the bills. My accounting office did that. I swiped and never thought another thing about it.
I was thinking about it now.
“I’ll pay for it,” I blurted, and Skye’s face went from pink to red. “Seriously, I’ll set up an account for you and Jagg. Everything you need will be covered.”
Instead of gratitude, I got a fingernail poked into my chest. “I don’t need your money,” she hissed, keeping her voice low. “I’ve been getting along just fine, thank you very much.”
I held both hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I wasn’t questioning that. It’s just that—”
“Just what?” she snarled, and I had no idea where this was coming from. “Just that you feel sorry for me?”
“No!”
“You think you can come in and buy back five years of memories?”
I was getting angry now. “Hey, that’s not fair. But no. I’m not trying to buy anyone.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what are you trying to do?”
“Take care of my kid,” I practically shouted.
She glanced over at our son, who was now standing on the couch, staring at us with wide eyes. “Hey, Jaggy. Why don’t you go put on some shoes and pack a change of clothes in your backpack, okay?”
He shook his head, his wild brown hair swirling around his head as he did so. “Stop shouting at each other. You said we weren’t supposed to shout.”
Skye took a long breath and pushed her hand through her hair. “You’re right. Jake and I were just talking about something we didn’t agree on, but you’re right, I shouldn’t have shouted. Now, will you please go put on your shoes.”
His eyes went from her to me, and I nodded. “I’m sorry too. That was wrong of me. While you get your shoes, I’ll get on my phone and buy tickets for the ride to see Lady Freedom.”
Jagger didn’t take his eyes off me. “So you’ll stop fighting?”
I held out a pinky. “Pinky promise.”
Jagg climbed down off the couch and wrapped his little finger around mine. “Alright. I’ll get my shoes.” Then he turned to his mother. “Don’t mess this up for me.”
Skye’s jaw dropped. Mine did too. We both stared after him as he stomped down the hallway. When he was out of earshot, she whirled on me. “Did you hear that?” she hissed, her voice barely above a whisper. “Me! He told me to not mess things up. You get to ride in on your shiny black convertible and pay for day trips and karate classes.” Her voice broke. “It’s not fair. You’re the hero, and I’m the… I’m the shrew who messes things up.”
I pulled her to me, unable to think of what else to do. She fought me, pushing against my chest, but I held on, my lips in her hair as I squeezed her tightly.
“Please, Skye. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’ll try to do better.”
As I made promises with soothing words, she began to relax against me. The fingers that had been pushing sank into my back, pulling instead.
She raised her head to look up at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like a crazy person.”
I kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and finally her mouth. “I didn’t mean to turn you into a crazy person.” She scowled, and I laughed, but before she could say anything, I kissed her again.
“That’s more like it.”
We smiled against each other’s lips before turning to our son. His tongue was poking through his missing teeth as he grinned.
“Yeah, it is more like it,” I said and squeezed Skye tighter.
“Did you get tickets?” Jagg asked.
“Tickets?”
My little boy rolled his eyes in a big boy way. “Statue of Liberty. Duh.”
“Jagger,” Skye scolded. “Be nice.”
He gave a what’s the big deal shrug. “I didn’t cuss.”
I bit back a laugh. “Do you have a habit of cussing?”
His eyes slid to his mom and then back at me. “Uh, no. But Tommy Gardner cusses all the time. His parents let him watch HBO, so he knows all the good words.”
Skye crossed her arms over her chest. “You were at Tommy Gardner’s house just last week.”
Jagg’s eyes went wide. I could practically hear him say oh shit in his mind. “Well, um, about that…” He scratched his head, his mind churning for something to say. “Aren’t you ‘posed to be buying tickets, Dad?”
I bailed him out and pulled out my phone. “Yep. Want to help me?”
He leaped for an excuse to get out of that conversation. “Here, I’m super good at phones.” He yanked it out of my hand. “What’s your password?”
Shit.
I glanced at Skye, whose brow was still a little furrowed. I had a feeling Jagg wouldn’t be going to Tommy Gardner’s house anytime soon.
“Here, let me type it in.”
Jagg held my phone to his chest, looking wounded. “You don’t even trust your only son with your password?”
Shit.
This kid had some devil in him.
I glanced at Skye again. “It’s S-K-Y-E.”
With his tongue poked out of the side of his mouth, he typed it in. “Hey, that’s Mommy’s name.”
When I glanced up at Skye yet again, her face had grown soft and her eyes glistened. “My name is your password?” she asked. “Since when?”
Since as long as I’ve had a phone.
I shrugged. “A while now, I guess.” She sniffled and ran a hand under her nose. “Okay, more than awhile. Maybe six, seven years. Maybe eight. Nine. I don’t exactly remember how old I was when Uncle Paul let me have a phone.”
We stared at each other, the years falling away.
Skye had been with me the day I got my first phone. I’d thought I was the shit with an iPhone in my hand.
As soon as I bought it, I took a picture of the two of us. We didn’t call them selfies back then, but that’s what it was. “Hey, bud. Can I show you something?”
With great reluctance, Jagger handed me my phone back. I flipped to gallery and accessed the photographs I’d stored in the cloud. It was still the first photo, or last in the gallery as it was. I clicked it, and my heart squeezed in my chest.
This was just about the time I’d realized that what I felt for my friend was more than friendly. She had turned fifteen the week before and we’d already been best friends for years. She had started really getting her breasts by then, and an ass. My stick-straight friend had become curvy in all the right places. When we wrestled, my hand would accidently touch her breast and I’d get a hard-on in an instant.
And here we were in full color.
Jagger giggled. “You look so young. Your hair was like a hippie, Mommy. And Daddy looked like a nerd.”
Skye laughed. “Let me see that.” When she snatched up the phone and looked down at the screen, the very end of her nose turned pink. “I remember that day.”
I nodded. “It was a good day.”
She continued to look at the photo. Her hair fell in soft waves down to her ass and she had a flower over her ear. I’d put it there, finding it on the side of the road before we went into the store. Mine was very short on the sides, and the top was about three inches long, was swept back from my forehead and fell over to the side. It was the style back then, but Jagg was right. I looked like a nerd.
“I can’t believe you kept this,” she murmured, and before I could stop her, she swiped the screen. Her eyes flew up to mine. I didn’t need to look to know it was another picture of her, this time alone. It was of her profile as she looked out of the store’s window. She swiped again, and it was another picture of her. Then another. And another. And another.
Dozens of photos later, she looked up at me again. I cleared my throat and just shrugged. “Just messing with my new camera,” I said lamely.
She swiped back a few times and held the phone out to me. It was a picture of her ass as she rode her bike in front of me, the little short shorts showing the very edge of her butt cheeks. “Just messing, huh?”
I scratched my head. “Aren’t we supposed to be getting Liberty tickets?”
“Yeah!” Jagger yelled and snatched the phone from his mom’s hand. He narrowed his eyes. “Yuck. It’s a butt. Why did you take a picture of a butt?”
I tried to snatch the phone away, but the little guy was quick and kept swiping. “Who’s he?” Jagg asked, turning the phone to where I could see.
Shit.
It was a picture of Skye, Trey, and me hanging out by my uncle’s pool. It was another selfie, but instead of looking at the camera, Trey was looking at Skye, adoration in his gaze.
“That was our friend, Trey,” Skye said after clearing her throat. “Your middle name is Daniel, just like his.”
My eyes flew to hers, and she gave me a watery smile.
“Wow. I’m named after him? Can I meet him? Pleeeeease!”
Skye ran a hand over Jagger’s silky strands. “I wish you could, but Trey’s in heaven now.”
“That’s sad.” Jagg looked down at the picture again. “How’d he die?”
My eyes stayed on Skye as the memory washed over us both. I didn’t think either of us could talk about it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
It was time for a diversion. “Hey, bud. We better hook up with some tickets, don’t you think?”
Jagg’s face brightened, and he thrust the phone at me. “Yes.”
I tapped a button, and Trey’s face disappeared. I forced cheer into my tone. “Let’s see… tickets, tickets, tickets.” I pulled up my search engine and found the right place. Then checked the clock. “Crap.”
“Crap what?”
“Don’t say crap, Jagg,” Skye scolded, and I gave her a sorry look.
“It’s better than sh—” he snapped his mouth closed, then tried again, “shoot.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m going to need to talk to Tommy Gardner’s mom, aren’t I?”
Jagg’s eyes grew huge. “No! Don’t do that because… um, because…” His little shoulders fell in defeat.
“No more cussing?” she asked him.
He huffed. “No.”
“And no more HBO?”
He looked downright petulant. “But… a little blood and guts never hurt anyone. It’s just fake. Tommy said so.”
“Oh, he did? Well, I disagree.”
Jagg’s hand went to his mouth. “Is it real?”
Skye barked a laugh and covered it with her hand. She put on a show of coughing before she could speak again. “No. What I disagree about is that blood and guts never hurt anyone.”
Hoping it was an okay thing to do, I jumped in. “Your mom is right. I saw all that in real life, and even when I see movies now, it reminds me that war and fighting isn’t good.”
“Then why did you go to war?”
Shit. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Just because something isn’t good doesn’t mean it isn’t right. I love our country and was fighting for our freedom. Freedom for other countries too, for people who weren’t able to fight for themselves.”
“Did you kill anybody?”
There was about to be a Jake-sized hole in Skye’s front door. How in the hell had we gone from visiting the Statue of Liberty to my childhood crush on Skye to… this? I looked at Skye, hoping she would help me out. She just gazed back, her face carefully blank.
“Only the really bad guys who tried to hurt good people,” I confessed, not wanting to lie. But the truth hurt too.
There was one innocent person I’d killed. Trey. I killed Trey too.
Not through my actions, but by my deeds.
Trey crying and yelling at me in the voicemail message.
The sound of his scream.
The screech of the tires on the road.
The silence.
Skye’s hand closed over my arm, and she took my phone gently away from me. “So… you seemed disappointed about something regarding the Liberty tickets?” she prompted with a soft smile.
I blinked hard and rubbed the back of my neck, turning my head to release some of the tension. “Yeah. The shuttles leave at eight-thirty and nine, so that means we missed it for the day.”
Jagger’s face fell in disappointment.
“But, if it’s okay with your mom, we can schedule for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is forever and ever away,” he whined.
I laid a hand on his shoulder. “So maybe we could do something else that’s fun. Remember me telling you that I live near Central Park?” I glanced at Skye, and she gave me an encouraging nod. “Maybe we could go there for today and to Liberty Island tomorrow. How does that sound?”
He whooped. “Two days with Dad sounds amazing!”
When he launched himself at me, I tossed him over my shoulder and started tickling him, not letting up until he was begging for mercy. It took him several minutes to stop giggling once I was done, and I just allowed myself the joy of holding him tight.
“This is going to be the best day ever,” he said, both of his hands on my cheeks.
I stared into those big brown eyes and love flooded over me. “Yeah, it will. So how about we get started?”