Page 10 of This Time Around
“I thought you said he handled your parents’ case.” He shouldn’t contradict her, but at least her eyes didn’t flare with defensiveness like they used to.
“His firm handled the case. It’s a very large law group.” Allie pressed her lips together. “Wade heads up a division devoted to the entertainment industry. He’s in a position to make partner, so it’s important to show everyone he’s committed.”
“Of course,” Jack said. “Gotta climb the ladder.”
Was he baiting her? He wasn’t sure, but certainly his words smacked of insults he’d hurled years ago. It’s all about the money, isn’t it, Al? That’s all that matters to you.
He’d both hated and loved the way her eyes glittered with anger. Well, someone has to figure out how to keep a roof over our heads, and you’re too busy playing video games to contribute anything.
He’d showed her. Not then, admittedly. Not when it mattered, not until years after they’d split, but still. He started to apologize—for his snark just now or for not pulling his weight sixteen years ago, he wasn’t sure. But before he could say anything, Allie spoke.
“You remember that time we went camping?”
The question startled him at first—an olive branch? He found himself smiling. “Yeah. It was your first time. Camping, I mean. I couldn’t believe you’d never slept outside.”
“Please,” she said, lifting her mug for a sip of tea. “You met my family. Our idea of outdoorsy was using the crosswalk instead of the Skybridge to get around Pioneer Place mall.”
Jack smiled. “You were a pretty good sport about it.”
“Yeah, right up until the moment we were attacked by that giant swarm of mosquitoes and you realized you’d packed air freshener instead of bug spray.”
“It did smell nice.” He picked up his coffee and took a small sip. “And all the bugs made for good fishing.”
“I suppose so.”
“Which would have been better if I’d remembered to bring anything to cook with,” he mused. “Or matches.”
“I wasn’t going to bring it up.” She smiled over the rim of her teacup, and Jack had a flash of memory. Allie looking calm and unsurprised in the midst of his latest screw-up—forgetting to register for classes? Not budgeting enough to pay the water bill?
After years of her nagging, it was her eventual calmness that had bothered him most. The moment she’d stopped looking disappointed by his failures and started looking like she expected them.
“Well, it’s water under the bridge,” he murmured, not sure whether he was talking about the camping trip or the bigger picture.
“Right. And hey, we got to figure out how to make fire without matches.”
“I still can’t believe we pulled that off.”
She laughed. “It took half the night, and a little bloodshed.”
“Man make fire,” he said in a caveman voice that always used to get her laughing. “A good life skill for our résumés.”
Still smiling, she took a dainty sip of tea. Silence stretched out between them and Jack wondered what she was thinking. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. “I was cleaning out my parents’ old storage unit the other day and found one of your boxes.”
He didn’t have to ask what she meant by that. Back then, his idea of housekeeping involved shoving everything off counters and tables and piling it into a box. Junk mail, bills, half-empty packs of gum—all of it got stuffed in a box and lugged to the garage to be dealt with “later.”
How the hell was he supposed to know there’d be no later for the two of them?
“What was in the box?” he asked, almost afraid to hear.
“Lots of things,” she said. “A pile of clues you made for me. Remember how you used to do those treasure hunts?”
He nodded as something squeezed tight in his chest. “I remember.”
“You’d leave them all over the house. Things like, ‘If you want some good lovin’, go look in the oven.’ And when I’d check there, I’d find another clue that said something like?—”
“‘Our love isn’t creepy, so go look by the TP.’” He grinned. “That was my personal favorite.”
“I remember they all led to where you’d hidden that bucket list thingy you made.”
