Page 10 of Steel & Jenna
Bugs, think about bugs. Roadkill. Mr. Corrin getting his morning paper in an untied bathrobe.Anythingexcept fiery orange hair, freckles, and a stunning pair of hazel eyes… Fuck!
That train of thought backfired fast.
Jack tried to clear his throat. “We can, uh, we can start reading as soon as you’re ready for bed.”
“Are you going to marry her?”
Jesus H. Christ. He needed to get Lilly off of this topic of conversation andfast. The zipper of his jeans was but so strong. Goddamn his teenage hormones for being so fucking inconvenient.
“Are you going to finish your dinner so you can go brush your teeth?” he asked her pointedly instead of answering her question.
Her eyes narrowed on him. But she continued eating, so Jack considered that to be a win. Just as he was finishing up his can, she passed him hers. She’d eaten just over half, which was really good for her.
He escorted her to the bathroom while finishing up her can of beans and wieners. The green beans alone would not have beenenough for him. He was secretly grateful Lilly was so small that she couldn’t eat a full can on her own.
Eating the canned food cold sucked more for him than for Lilly. She’d been eating cold food for most of her life, so it didn’t really make a difference for her. Jack partly suspected that she was under the misapprehension that hot food was specifically something that schools alone offered. After all, she wouldn’t really know any better.
But Jack did. His mom used to cook all sorts of meals, like lasagna, mac and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, or mushroom casserole.
That had stopped around the time she got pregnant with Lilly and things had started to get worse with his dad. John Duncan would go to his grave denying Lilly’s paternity.
From the snoring he could now hear from the other end of the trailer, his dad would be out for a long time. Hopefully, they would get a good night’s sleep because they had to be up at four in the morning to start his paper route. Jack had his alarm clock under his pillow, so it would wake him but not the entire trailer. When Jack had first started his paper route when he was eleven, the alarm clock his mom had bought him had been louder than Jack had anticipated. His dad had threatened to smash the thing if he heard it go off again.
Jack couldn’t risk oversleeping; he’d had to come up with a different way to have it go off. His mattress and pillow were so thin that they muffled the alarm clock’s sound but not the vibrations. Jack was such a light sleeper, always keeping an ear out for their dad, that it always woke him up.
Back in their room, Jack slipped off his jeans. Lilly had a nightgown Jack had made for her out of one of his old shirts and some lace he’d found in his mom’s sewing supplies. Though they had bunk beds, Lilly rarely slept on the top bunk anymore. After their dad’s ranting about ‘getting rid’ of her, Lilly had been terrified to sleep on her own, even though Jack was in the room with her. Adding the cinder block to their door helped, but it hadn’t been enough. So Lilly slept in his bed with him.
She was always against the wall, so Jack was between her and the door. It worked for now because she was so small. Jack knew theywouldn’t be able to squeeze into a twin bed together for much longer, but he’d do anything to give Lilly peace of mind.
Settling herself in, Lilly clung to her lion, her eyes big with anticipation for her new story. Jack needed to remember to hide both the lion and the books in the morning before they left. He didn’t want his dad to find anything of value or a reminder that Lilly was still living in his trailer. John Duncan would destroy it out of spite.
By the light of the lantern overhead, Jack opened the first book. “‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis.
“‘Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy…’”
CHAPTER 4
2 YEARS, 4 MONTHS, 20 DAYS
Monday morning was extremely hurried and hectic. They were up at four in the morning to get his paper route done. He’d been late for that too because he didn’t want to return to the trailer after dropping off the last paper. Instead, he got Lilly and himself ready for school, hid away the new books, grabbed out the cash needed for Lilly’s monthly lunch tab, and then got on his bike. The wagon would just have to come to school with them.
At the elementary school, Jack took Lilly’s hand and walked her to class. He knew where to go because he’d also had Mrs. Zarin for first grade. He suspected the first grade teacher actually lived at the elementary school, because he’d never seen her outside of it.
Other parents and students were walking about. He spotted the principal, Mr. Hyde, talking with a few parents at the entrance to the school. Jack pointed the man out to Lilly to ensure she remembered him from the year before.
“If anyone gives you a hard time, you go straight to Mrs. Zarin or Mr. Hyde. Do you understand me?”
Lilly nodded. As excited as she was to start school, she was also extremely nervous. It didn’t escape his notice that she hadn’t had many friends in kindergarten the year before.
Being the first day of school, the morning work program that allowed parents to drop off their kids earlier than the school day started wasn’t in effect. Instead, it was more of an open house where the parents got to meet their kids’ teachers and talk with the principal. The after school program took place in the cafeteria and Mrs. Zarin would escort those students signed up for it there. Lilly would be safe at school.
Hand in hand, Jack walked Lilly to Mrs. Zarin’s classroom. The older woman was standing outside her classroom in a multicolored dress. The embroidery made the fabric into diamond sections. Jack was pretty sure she’d been wearing that same dress on his first day of first grade too.
“Jack Duncan, is that you?” Her wide smile lifted the tops of her cheeks against the large framed, round glasses in front of her eyes.
“Hi, Mrs. Zarin. I’m surprised you remember me.”
“I rememberallmy students.” Though she was still smiling, there was a bit of a warning in those words. Like she was telling him that she would always be keeping an eye on him because she’d once taught him.
