Page 3 of Steel & Jenna
She needed shoes and clothes. That did not include the list of supplies the school had sent for a starting first grader. He had the full list in his wallet but he knew the basics she would need. A backpack, pencils, crayons, ruler…
Not to mention his own list. Jack had gotten a lot from pilfering the school’s trash cans at the end of last school year. Students threwaway perfectly good supplies because they were secure in the knowledge that their parents would buy them new supplies in the fall.
Jack was going to need to be careful with certain supplies. It wasn’t like the thrift store sold #2 pencils. He wasn’t going to have any choice but to buy some things new.
And new was expensive.
“Hold on,” he told Lilly, even though she knew the drill. Jack couldn’t remember the last time his father had given them a ride anywhere or offered to help them or even said something nice to them. There hadn’t even been a question about his father supplying them for the new school year.
But that was fine with Jack. He didn’t need his father. He didn’t need anyone. He had Lilly, and that was enough for him.
CHAPTER 2
The thrift store had two pairs of pants that fit Lilly and there was a sale on shoes, so Jack was able to get her two pairs of those too. There was a pink backpack with stenciled flowers that had a small tear in the seam. Jack promised her he could fix that once they got home. Lilly said she had enough shirts to start the year, which was a relief because he was down to eleven dollars when they left the thrift store. He’d have made it work, but was glad he didn’t have to. When Lilly tried to get him to buy a new pair of shoes for himself too, Jack told her he’d grab some next week after he mowed some more lawns.
He wasn’t sure if it was a lie.
At the dollar store, they picked up some pencils, notebooks, and crayons, plus a tissue box her first grade teacher asked to be donated. As much as Jack didn’t have the spare money to donate to the class, he also knew how cruel people could be. He did not want Lilly to show up in hand-me-down clothesandnothing to donate to the classroom.
Grant Street Elementary School unfortunately was over a mile away from his high school, which meant he was always going to be late for his first period. He didn’t care, though, and would accept the detentions for it. He’d already forged their dad’s signature to enroll her in the early morning and after school programs to help keep hersafe and occupied while he was at school himself. Depending on what his last class of the day was, he might just skip it so he could get to her faster.
He also needed to make sure he grabbed enough cash from his stash to pay for her lunch meals for the month. The paperwork mailed to their dad regarding Lilly’s schooling said that the elementary school lunches were seventy-five cents or a dollar to include a dessert per day. As much as he wanted to offer her the option of having that dessert, he couldn’t. Jack estimated Lilly’s lunches to be around fifteen dollars for the month, which he could swing and it saved him time from having to pack her a lunch. When he explained this to her, she’d been disappointed about not having the treat the school offered, but said she understood.
Jack mentally vowed to get her ice cream or something special whenever he could as an alternative.
The lunches his high school offered went up this year. They were now a dollar-twenty-five, estimating his lunches to be around twenty-five a month if he did that. It would mean working more hours or picking up more odd jobs around town if he wanted lunch too.
But he didn’t need lunch. He would be fine.
The sun was starting to set. They needed to get back. Jack wouldn’t care about riding back at night if it was just him, but he did not want Lilly on his handlebars in the dark. He was regretting not bringing the newspaper wagon. It didn’t matter if they weren’t going to fill the wagon; it would have been safer for her.
As it was, the backpack they’d found for her at the thrift store was currently packed with her new clothes and their school supplies. Jack had it slung over one shoulder because it was too small to fit over both and too heavy for Lilly to currently carry.
They were walking down the sidewalk to where Jack had parked his bike when they passed a group of girls around his age. Jack moved Lilly closer to him, keeping her between the stores and himself so she wasn’t near the road.
Port Townsend, Washington, was a small town on the Olympic Peninsula. They were about two hours north of Seattle with bigtourist traffic during the summer for fishing tours, surfing, and hiking trails. Most of the summer visitors had departed after Labor Day earlier in the week, but there were some stragglers.
At a glance, Jack recognized one girl in the group. Justina Henshaw was in his grade and a local. They’d never spoken, at least not since their own elementary school experience. Most of the kids in their school caught on pretty quickly that Jack did not come from money, nor did he have the best home situation. In a small town like Port Townsend, it was well known who lived at Four Corners.
Kids were cruel. Rich kids were crueler.
Not to say that Jack even wanted to be friends with the rich and popular, but there were times when he envied the ease in which they lived. He wondered if any of them even knew where the thrift stores were in town.
He had his buddies at school but rarely saw them outside of school since his mom’s departure.
Actually, that wasn’t accurate—he’d been seeing them less and less outside of school since the first time his dad had hit his mom.
The other three girls in the group didn’t look familiar to him. He assumed them to be city girls based on their clothing. The afternoon was in the mid-sixties already and would only be dropping from here.
Shit. Maybe he shouldn’t be waiting to get Lilly a new winter coat, but he didn’t have enough on him now. The dollar store had cleaned him out, leaving him with a pocket full of loose change. Fucking Mr. Barlow. If he’d paid Jack like he’d promised, Jack would have had enough to not even debate the question.
He didn’t get paid for his paper route for another week.
Jack let out a resigned sigh. If he had to dig into his money stash to get Lilly’s lunch money for the month, he might as well grab an extra bit to get her a coat. Saving for her future wasn’t worth her being cold now.
Lilly was prattling on, but Jack wasn’t paying attention, lost in his thoughts. Like she was trying to get out all her allotted her words for the day before they got home. She was smart enough to know that their father did not want to see or hear her in his house. It was habitfor Jack to always stand between them whenever their dad was home.
They were passing by a used book store when Lilly stopped.Thathe noticed right away, always seeming to have a sixth sense of her location.
