Page 68 of Hot Irish Halloween

Nothing mattered.

Jack trained harder, and longer, increasing his workouts until his body groaned, until he could end the day falling into a mindless, dreamless sleep or drown in a bath of ice. Yet every morning, he woke up clutching her pillow to his body as if he’d been holding her. Disgusted with himself, he’d leave the house and everything in it that reminded him of her and not come back until the next bedtime.

“What’s wrong with you?” Charlie asked him that question at least once every day.

“Nothing,” he’d mumble. “Everything’s grand.”

He was too busy to have dinner with Deirdre and Bran. His mother kept pushing to speak to Penny on the phone, pushing to come over and meet her. And when he didn’t produce their precious Penelope, Dierdre showed up at the house one day and more or less demanded he let her in. Jack did not. He cracked the door open enough to talk but no further.

“Is Penny in there? Because I’m starting to think she doesn’t want to meet me. Have I offended her? Did I say something?” Dierdre asked with her hands on her hips.

He remembered that pose well from his childhood when, once again, he’d misbehaved or gotten into a fight at school. She’d be so tired from work but had to deal with his shite anyway. The child he’d been had felt a twinge of guilt about that.

Now Jack only shrugged. “Can’t think of anything. Chat later, I’m busy right now.”

Before he could shut the door entirely, Deirdre exhaled sharply. “Jack Valentine, what is going on? You’ve been doing your best not to see or talk to me or your father. Not a word from Penny when I can get you on the phone. Now you open the door and let me in.Now.”

She wasn’t going to drop it and leave. Fuck it.

Shuffling away from the door, he let it swing open and allowed Dierdre to enter. She stared at him when she got a good look at him.

“Jesus, you got big again.”

“I was never small,” he retorted listlessly.

“You’re definitely bigger,” Dierdre said, eyeing him critically. “I guess all that working out you’ve been doing…” He could practically see her mind working. Her coffee eyes bounced back up to his face. “And you could do with a shave. And your hair needs a good cut. You look like a werewolf. One of those mangy ones that lives in the subways in those movies.”

“I love it when we get together,” Jack said with a sigh.

Giving him a “hmph,” his mother slowly walked through the living room. She ran a finger along the mantle, and it came up gray with dust.

“When’s the last time Colleen was in here?” she asked. Colleen was the woman who came by to clean once a week. He was still paying her but he hadn’t let her in since…

He shrugged. Another “hmph.” Jack suddenly spotted the pregnancy books he’d stopped reading at the end of the mantle right around the same time she did.Fuck.The plan had beento tell his parents the news when they were back in town. Obviously, that plan had gone to shit like everything else in his life.

Dierdre touched the book stack and turned back to him with the biggest smile.

“Jack…I’m going to be a nana?”

Quickly, he shifted his gaze. He couldn’t stand to see what was going to happen to that smile when she realized how quiet his house was and why.

“I suppose.”

A silence fell on them, blanketing everything in stillness. Jack shifted from foot to foot, like he was in his corner and waiting for the buzzer to go off to get in the mix.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?” The question wasn’t a question. Dierdre’s voice was soft, so soft he wouldn’t have heard her if there had been any other noise. Another long pause followed. Then she spoke again, haltingly. “What happened?”

The wall of fire that he’d kept stoked all these weeks since Penny had burned down his hopes and left them in ashes threatened to weaken under his mother’s soft, wounded words. He shook himself and ignored the weakness. “Does it matter?”

“Of course, it matters,” she exclaimed. “Whatever it was, you need to fix it.”

He still wouldn’t look at her. “Why are you assuming I’m the one that did something that needs fixing?” His chest was thumping, and his fists clenched. The boiling liquid in the cauldron inside him was rising, threatening to topple the lid.

“It doesn’t matter who did what. For God’s sake, Jack, there’s a baby involved! You’re not a teenager anymore, and neither is she. Talk to her and fix this. I know you have your pride, but you’ll have to get over it.”

A buzzer went off on his wristwatch. He held it up, turned on his heel, and headed toward the coat closet. “I’ve gotta go for myrun.” There was a vest in the closet, weighted down with metal bars. He shrugged it on over his T-shirt, then followed up with a thick zippered hoodie and his knit hat. Penny had made it. He’d almost thrown it out but decided that would be a waste. Soon as winter was over, he’d toss it, along with all the other things she’d left behind.

Dierdre followed him out the door. “Jack, are you fighting again? Is that why she left? You’refighting? Why? Why would you do that?”

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