Jade was so hard to read at times, and it worried me that I’d lost my touch. Seeing the truth in people’s eyes and picking up the deception in their reactions were things I’d prided myself on for nine years. Yet somehow, a tiny brunette with eyes that resembled the hottest part of a flame came into my life, and I found myself all sorts of turned around.

She’d cry one second, show affection I wasn’t used to the next, and before I knew it, she’d shake her head and laugh, as if the whole thing had been a joke. I had no idea if I’d done something right, wrong, or what. But she didn’t have anything other than a suitcase full of clothes and her car, and with her money dwindling from her savings account while she tried to feed, clothe, and diaper her child, the last thing she needed to do was buy furniture for my house. 

“I didn’t do much to your room. I wanted it to be feminine yet give you a canvas you could make your own.” I wasn’t sure how she’d react, considering what had happened after the last two rooms I showed her; although, I could tell by the look on her face that she loved the white-washed wood and pastel coloring.

“It’s absolutely beautiful just the way it is.” She ran her fingertips along the bedspread and peered at me from over her shoulder, the slightest smile gracing her lips. Maybe it was because she’d just used the word “beautiful,” but that was all I could think of as I watched her eyes light up.

“If the dresser isn’t big enough, just let me know. The store had a bigger one that matched the bed. I only chose this one because I thought you’d rather have the mirror instead.”

“You picked out the furniture? I thought you had someone come in and do it for you?”

I tried to play it off by shrugging and moving into the hall. “She did most of it. I only picked out the set for this room because I figured it’s something I could keep for guests when you’re done with it.”

Jade didn’t say anything else, only took one last glance into her room and followed me out.

I led her to the kitchen and gestured for her to take a seat at the table. “There’s really not much else to show you about the house. You see the living room”—I waved a hand toward the open space—“and my room is over there.”

She glanced around, taking it all in.

“I figured you’d want to go over this again.” I grabbed the few sheets of paper off the bar and sat next to her at the table. “I retyped it all and printed it so we’d have a clean copy. But I wanted you to go through it so you’d know I added everything we talked about before.”

Jade took the papers from my hand and began to skim, more than likely searching for the additions. “I see you’ve included maid duties.” She peered at me out of the corner of her eye and smirked, her brows lifted and arched. “Where’s the pen?”

I placed the same pen we’d used at the restaurant in her open palm, and then leaned forward to see what she was writing.

“You have on here that I’m expected to ‘pick up’ after Aria. This isn’t specific enough. Please, Cash, elaborate. What specifically do I need to make sure I pick up?” She tried to act stern and professional, but the way she held her lips tight proved she had to hold back her smile.

“Considering I don’t really know what she has or what she could possibly make a mess with, I have no idea how to be more specific. I just know the thought of stepping on Legos when I come home late on a Friday night, or waking up on a Saturday morning to find a naked Barbie doll on the coffee table doesn’t sound like fun. Just basically pick up her, you know…kid things.”

“I can handle that.” Humor danced in her tone as she jotted down notes, such as: Put away naked dolls and No Legos. “You also have shopping on here. What kind of shopping are you looking for? Clothes? Shoes? Cars?”

I couldn’t contain the bubble of laughter that erupted at her last question. “I won’t usually be here during the week, so the fridge might be a little bare. I normally go grocery shopping once a month and stock up on chicken. Occasionally, I’ll hit up the fish market while I’m home, but I eat what I buy and don’t keep leftovers. I like fresh veggies, so I’ll grab enough to last me two days. As you can tell, I don’t keep things around that’ll go to waste. So I just ask that you handle the food shopping. And if it’s not too much trouble, if you happen to be at the store on a Friday, I’d greatly appreciate you picking up vegetables from the produce department so they’re fresh.”

“Wow, you’re really making this easy on me. If the secret gets out, you’ll have quite a few maids looking for employment.” She pulled her lips to one side. “On second thought, it might be best if no one find out about this arrangement.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m sure you could find someone who would do a way better job at cleaning your house than me.” She didn’t waste any time before going back to the list in her hand. “What about the other bills?”

“Like what? Electric and water?”

“And cable and internet.”

“I already told you. Don’t worry about them.”

“No…you said rent. You never said anything about all the other expenses.”

“Yeah…because it’s all included.”

Rather than say anything else, she lowered her head and began to jot down another note under the section for “maid duties.” She added a few more things, such as sweeping and dusting, probably to make up for the utilities, but I didn’t argue. If this made her feel better taking a room in my house for free, then I wasn’t about to say anything.

We finished going over the agreement, making tweaks here and there, more so to add clarity than anything else. She wrote a few more things down and made fun of me for some of what I had added. At the end, she made a joke about how this was more of a roommate disagreement with all the changes and scribbles. Then I agreed to have a new one with all the latest inclusions ready and attached to the fridge by the time she moved in.

I’d suggested that she move in next weekend so I could be there to help, but she made a good point that I hadn’t thought about. She needed time to acclimate Aria to a new house, with new rules, as well as being around me. Jade figured it made more sense to tackle one at a time, and to give her a week to adjust before having her so close to a man she hadn’t met and wasn’t familiar with.

The plan was for Jade to move in next week, putting one more weekend between now and when she settled in, but when I handed her the keys, I told her she was welcome whenever she was ready. I had to leave early Monday morning, so she’d have all week to decide.

About an hour after she got home, I received a text saying she’d be heading over on Monday with Aria. She wouldn’t tell me much when I asked if everything was okay, only that she’d had a run-in with her ex. But again, just like every other time I’d asked about him, she told me it was complicated and she didn’t want to talk about it.

* * *

It was just after one in the morning when I pulled around to the back of the house. Everything was dark, inside and out, so I assumed Jade had gone to bed. Ever since finding out about Aria, I’d become more aware of the time at night when we’d talk on the phone. Her early bedtime made more sense when I realized she had to get up every morning with her daughter, and I found myself hesitating before calling, not wanting to wake her. But she’d told me not to worry about it, and if she was asleep, she just wouldn’t answer.

Yet every night this week, she answered when I called.

Tonight was late, though. I didn’t expect her to still be awake when I got home. Normally, I’d arrive at the house around eleven, but my day hadn’t gone as planned. In fact, nothing had gone as planned since I’d left the house early Monday morning. All week long, I’d thought about Jade. About her moving in, about Aria and how she was adjusting, and then getting home to spend the weekend with them, excited to finally have someone to come home to again. Yet my job had a different agenda.

And now I wouldn’t be able to see Jade until morning.

I held my side, feeling every step, every move, every fucking breath I took, and unlocked the back door. The soft creak of the hinges as it opened had never bothered me before—I’d never noticed it, never had a reason to pay attention to the natural groans of the house. But now, consciously aware that there were two other people asleep inside, every sound seemed magnified.

The lamp on the corner table in the living room between the couch and loveseat had been left on. This was something else I wasn’t familiar with. Walking into a pitch-black house late at night was what I was used to, not having a beacon of light lead the way from the back door to my bedroom.

Peeling off my shirt left me winded. I had to grind my teeth, my jaw clamped shut so tightly I could’ve broken a molar, just to keep the agony from rushing out of me in an animalistic roar. I could deal with a lot. Not many things threatened to break me, but the pain that started on my right side radiated throughout my entire body. It sent a wave of unbearable heat ripping through my torso, nearly sending me crashing to the floor on my knees.

Slowly, I managed to pull myself from the haze of physical anguish long enough to get a shower and wash off the stress of the week. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and start over in the morning, spending the day with the only person who made me feel like less of a monster and more like a human.

Jade had once told me that I allowed her to be someone else—that I didn’t see her as an unwelcome houseguest or a mom. I understood that more than anyone. When she looked at me, she saw a network engineer. She didn’t see the blood on my hands, the days spent hiding in plain sight, the nights cloaked in darkness, sneaking around, plotting. I’d detonate, implode, if I didn’t have some level of normalcy…even if it was only over the phone here and there and in person on the weekends.

As the water swirled around the drain, I thought back on my week. God, it’d only been six days, yet it felt like an eternity. Like I’d lived a hundred lifetimes since I’d last been in the same room as someone with a pure heart beating within their chest.

I’d tailed my mark long enough—three weeks to be exact—and had the ins and outs of his days tracked. There wasn’t a minute of his entire existence I hadn’t been made aware of since he hit my radar. The weekend warrior—sometimes referred to as the babysitter or part-time shadow—kept detailed logs of his comings and goings, which matched everything I had on him already. This week should’ve been easy. It should’ve been a quick grab and go…but it wasn’t.

I hated doing the sweep at the end of a week, knowing I would be gone for two days and ran the risk of not seeing it through, but I didn’t have much of a choice. The plan was to wait until after a phone call we anticipated he’d get on Wednesday, assured it would give us valuable information. The call never came, so we waited. By Thursday night, I’d notified my boss of my decision to hold off until the following Monday. We were pushing it too close to the weekend.

To my surprise, the phone call had come in early this morning. I’d been alerted to the transcript, and once I confirmed we had what we needed, I was left with no choice but to order an imminent sweep. I knew his schedule, so it was nothing more than waiting for a blind spot and using it to ghost him. Movies show a man standing on a sidewalk all the time while a bus drives by. As soon as the bus passes, the guy is gone. That’s what I did. One minute, my mark was there, the next…gone. Like a ghost.

The window of opportunity was small, but I had confidence I could execute it. I’d done it hundreds of times over the years with very little problem. And this time, like the handful of previous sweeps gone wrong, it was out of my control. A memo had come down, but by the time it was supposed to reach me, I had already gone dark. The phone call we’d expected on Wednesday, the same one that came in early this morning, informed us of a visitor who would arrive on Monday, hence the need to move rather than wait. However, intel discovered the visitor was already here, and that was information I hadn’t received in time.

I’d gone in for the sweep, oblivious of the danger I’d unknowingly walked into. In the hair of a second between grabbing my mark and making him vanish, his friend attacked from the side, almost taking me down. And he would have if I hadn’t been high on the natural adrenaline I got from the task. It wasn’t as smooth as I had planned, or as flawless as I’d prided myself on, but at least it wasn’t a failure. Rather than one devil incarnate, I brought in two.

I also came home with a slightly broken body.

After my shower, I dried off and slipped into a pair of gym shorts, but I decided to forgo the shirt. I figured if Jade and the kid were asleep, it wouldn’t matter, and I hoped by morning, I’d be able to endure the pain long enough to cover my chest. But as of right now, the ache was too fresh, too aggravated, too unbearable to slip on a shirt.

As soon as I walked out of my bedroom, on my way to the kitchen for water, I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to move. It appeared Jade had been sucked into the same time freeze as I had. She stared at me from across the house—which from where we were was only the span of the living room. She was heading my way, tired eyes wide and mouth barely parted.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t wake you, did I?” Earlier in the bedroom, I’d tried to muffle the discomfort of undressing, but now I worried I hadn’t been as successful as I thought.

“Oh, no. I was awake—waiting up on you, actually.”

“Yeah, I got in later than expected. Thanks for keeping the light on.”

“I didn’t hear you come in, but I heard the water running. I was just coming out here to turn off the lamp. Figured you’d be tired and crawl into bed after your shower.”

The entire time we stood apart, nervously talking as if we’d never met, her eyes remained on mine. But I guess curiosity had gotten the best of her, because her gaze trailed down to my chest, her hands fisting at her sides as if she had to physically restrain herself from touching me, despite the length of space between us. It was odd, especially coming from her, since she’d never given me any indication that she even found me attractive, much less…this. Although, what was even stranger was how it didn’t turn me off like it normally would have coming from anyone else. I ignored it, stopped the thought from lingering, and assumed it had been because I’d felt a level of comfort with her that I didn’t normally have with other women.

I took a step toward her—actually, toward the kitchen for water, but she remained in the entryway so I had to pass her to get there—but stopped as soon as the harsh, panicked gasp left her lips. She immediately covered her gaping mouth with her fingertips, her impossibly wide eyes glued to my right side.

“Oh my God, Cash,” she whispered beneath her breath while rushing to me. “What happened?” Not once did she look me in the eyes, but rather, kept her focus on my battered ribcage.

The second her finger came in contact with my skin, I winced. Although, it hadn’t inflicted any pain. I wasn’t sure if my dramatic reaction was premature, knowing how bad it’d hurt if she touched it, or if it was caused by the spark of electricity when her skin met mine. Either way, it had happened, and she immediately took a step back, her worried stare finally meeting mine.

“How did this happen?” she asked again, not accepting my silence.

“Hazard of the job.”

“You need ice.” And as if she were a trained nurse in the emergency room, she scurried into the kitchen, rummaged around in the freezer, and came back with a wadded-up dishtowel. It was clear in that moment she was a mother. A nurturer. A healer. And because of that, I dismissed my need to be a man, and allowed her to care for me.