Page 58 of Steel & Jenna
“I want extra cheese in mine!” Lilly replied, running over to the stovetop. On instinct, Jack put his hand out to stop her from getting closer. She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m not a baby, Jackie. I wasn’t going to touch.”
Jack’s look was filled with skepticism. “Why don’t you get the utensils out while I get the bowls down?”
Though she wasn’t happy about it, Lilly walked over to the drawer to get the silverware. Jack turned to Jenna, gave her lips a quick kiss, and then stepped away to get the bowls down. Jenna headed over to the cupboard to start pulling down glasses and fill them with water.
After a minute, Mrs. Zarin entered the kitchen. Her face lit up at seeing the kids setting the table while her husband poured her a glass of wine. The large serving bowl was filled with chili and brought over to the table. She ordered Jack to put a shirt on before they sat down.
Once everyone was served and they started eating, Mr. Zarin turned to Jack. “We wanted to run something by you, son.”
Jack chewed and swallowed his chili. The spices made his tongue tingle. “Sir?”
Mrs. Zarin reached over and took Mr. Zarin’s hand. “You’ve had your license for a few months now. Mr. Zarin feels you’re a responsible driver. He wants me to get a new car, since my transmission has been acting up. We thought about it and have decided that we don’t need his old truck anymore. But rather than trade it in, we wanted to offer it to you.”
The spoon fell out of Jack’s hand. “What?” he gasped. A quick glance at Jenna showed she was just as surprised. He turned back to the Zarins. “I mean, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t afford much. There’s an old Jag in the paper that I was going to look at tomorrow?—”
“Jack,” Mr. Zarin interrupted. “We’re not selling it to you.” He reached into his pocket, took out a keyring with two silver keys. “We’reofferingit to you.”
“But…I mean, the value of the truck…” He cleared his throat. “It must still be worth something.”
“It is,” Mr. Zarin confirmed. “That’s why we want to give it to you. You and I will go down to the DMV next week and change the title over to you. You’ll be responsible for your own gas and insurance, which isn’t cheap, especially for a teen driver. But the truck would be yours.”
He pushed the keys across the table.
Jack caught them before they toppled to the floor. He was soshocked that he had no idea what to say or how to react. Atruck? His own vehicle. It was a dream. The old beater he’d been looking at in the paper was cheap because it needed work. Hardly would have been safe for Jenna or Lilly to ride with him until he fixed it up.
But he’d been driving Mr. Zarin’s truck for a while now. Mr. Zarin had taught him to drive in it. Rarely was he able to drive solo, but that was fine with him. It was Mr. Zarin’s truck and Mr. Zarin’s rules, after all.
A truck of his own, though! That was… His eyes landed on Jenna. Paying for gas to get down to Seattle would be a lot, but worth it! And they’d be able to go out, just the two of them. He could pick her up and drop her off like a gentleman. No more needing Carolyn or the Zarins to drive them around like children.
Freedom.
It was their first taste of freedom. A rite of passage that took him one step closer to adulthood. And one that wasn’t going to take a huge chunk of his savings to accomplish.
“Thank you, sir.” He looked from Mr. Zarin to Mrs. “Ma’am. Really, thank you.”
“That truck got me through a lot,” Mr. Zarin told him sternly. “Treat her right and she’ll treat you the same.”
Jack nodded once. “Yes, sir.” He looked to Jenna and the two of them shared a large smile. He twirled the keyring on his index finger. “Can I offer you a ride home?”
She held up a spoonful of chili. “Can I finish my dinner first?”
CHAPTER 13
Despite having just driven her home, and their heavy make out session in his new truck, the phone was ringing as Jack was walking back inside the door. The keyring Mr. Zarin had given him had the truck’s door key and the key to the ignition. Jack added his house key and the key to the back shed to the ring, which somehow made the ring seem complete. He had a houseanda car now.
Well, the house wasn’this, but it felt like his. One day, he’d walk through a front door and it would be Jenna waiting for him to get home instead of calling him on the phone.
“I’ll get it!” was shouted before the pounding of socked feet. Jack shook his head at his sister’s silliness and started taking off his jacket, hat, and boots, as Lilly answered, “Hi, Jenna!” without inquiry to who the caller was.
This was routine for them. Though normally, it was Mr. Zarin and Jack who drove Jenna home. Jenna would wait a half hour and then call, which was generally right when Jack and Mr. Zarin were walking back through the front door.
Jack walked into the kitchen where Mrs. Zarin was still washing dishes from dinner. From out the window, Jack saw the shed light on,which told him where Mr. Zarin was. He thought it odd that Mr. Zarin wasn’t helping his wife, shrugged it off. Jack hopped up onto the counter by the drainboard, grabbed the towel off of Mrs. Zarin’s shoulder, and then started drying the dishes as Lilly talked with Jenna.
Mrs. Zarin smiled up at him, though after his last growth spurt he didn’t need the counter’s help for that. He was nearly as tall as Mr. Zarin now and loving the additional height. He certainly wasn’t complaining about his new muscles either, especially because Jenna loved to rub her fingers all over them.
Lilly was sitting at the kitchen table with her schoolwork in front of her. Mr. and Mrs. Zarin had a rule that homework had to be done on Fridays before anything fun happened over the weekend. Jack didn’t mind, because that meant he could spend time with Jenna without worrying about homework Sunday night after she left. Plus, he was pretty sure he would abide by any rules the couple enforced because living with them was a hundred times better than living with his father.
Lilly was fed, cared for, and now had a sense of family. She remembered their mom, but they were fleeting memories, and their dad… Well, what did it do to a little girl’s psyche to know that the man who was supposed to be her father didn’t want her or love her? Mr. Zarin was more a father to Lilly than her own had ever been, be it John Duncan or another sperm donor.
