Rebecca Frost

Jamie

Jamie wasn’t sure what to do with his phone. It seemed to be tricking him. Or maybe his eyes were the issue. Either way, he sat in the food truck, frowning down at the messages. Every time he clicked between them, the other one was still there. Things weren’t cleared out yet, so he still had a while before he could move the truck, but he jumped when someone pulled open the passenger door and climbed up into the seat. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” Jo explained, or maybe confessed, but then she got a good look at him. “Are you okay?”

Well, that was one solution to the problem. He handed his phone over.

Jo frowned at the message from Mom. “Wait, what?”

“Go back to the conversation with Allan.” At least he wasn’t the only one confused.

She tapped a few things and presumably saw it: Allan’s offer to say anything else. Jamie’s tongue in cheek response. And then Allan’s You know what? Fair. Just don’t out me when I tell her it’s the reason I asked her to come this weekend.

Jo tapped again, probably back to Mom’s message, clearly bursting with joy and pride, informing him that Allan would be moving not only back to Marquette, but into the guest bedroom come December. “Uh.”

“So I’m not seeing things?” He took his phone back when she held it out.

She shook her head a little, like she’d been stunned by a blow. “That’s, uh. Wow. I feel like maybe we shouldn’t take advantage of his post-breakup state, but also, like.” Jo started to grin. “I’m not going to argue.”

Jamie absently stuck his phone back in the cup holder. “He didn’t even think it over. He just told Mom, so now it’s as good as done.” Although Allan had at least given himself a few months to make the change. There was a deadline, but he had time.

Jo reached across the gap for his hand, hesitated, but said it when he met her eyes: “You’re not abandoning her.”

That made him tilts his head and bite back an argument. Of course it felt like he was abandoning her, and of course Jo saw that. “When I moved back, we all thought it was going to be until she died. Hell, my name’s on the house.” Because he was the local child, he was also her power of attorney and all the rest. They’d have to get it all transferred to Allan, since he’d be the one homeless if she died on his watch.

God, that had to make him an awful son. Didn’t it?

She squeezed his hand but didn’t say anything.

Jamie took a slow breath, nodded, and squeezed back. “Did your dad enjoy his lunch?” Ricky had told him which order was theirs and then handed it out by saying This one’s made with extra love only to have Kent step right up for it.

“You didn’t hear him say he enjoyed eating your meat?” Jo rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’ll tell you later.”

In a crowded restaurant, he assumed. “I can’t wait. Did you ditch them so you didn’t have to hear him keep talking about it?”

She laughed. “Dad wanted a nap. I told them about the apartment.”

The apartment he’d paid for without even consulting her. No matter how awkward and committed Kent was to the bit, he couldn’t be cool with Jamie taking that much control, could he?

“I worded it very vaguely,” Jo admitted with a little shrug, still holding his hand. “You got a call from the apartment manager. I didn’t try to figure out if I should say he or we picked it out.”

“Covering for me?” Although Allan also asked Jamie to cover for him, so maybe it was okay.

“I don’t think they would’ve cared. Mom said she didn’t want to ask about plans in case I didn’t have any.” She smiled and waited until he met her eyes. “They’re happy for me.”

“They don’t even know me.” Great, he’d just blurted it.

But Jo shrugged. “You’re the guy who convinced me to try again after Jake. That’s pretty special.”

“Plus I’m not a serial killer.” That was probably too defensive, but they still had dinner to get through tonight, and Jamie had never done dinner with the parents before.

“I’d say it’s never too late to start, but most of those guys kill in their twenties.” Jo leaned in to kiss his hand. “Stick with the food truck.”

“Damn. Fine. Did Ricky already tell you we’re not doing lunch today?”

Jo nodded. “My parents aren’t planning on seeing us until dinner, so I thought I’d hang out at your house until then?”

His house, which was actually Mom’s house, and wouldn’t have to be his much longer. “Yeah, absolutely. I’m probably going to be boring, but you’re welcome to stay.”

This time she grinned. “I like boring.”

Jamie supposed he knew that, but it was good to hear. Outside things cleared up enough for him to get going, so he squeezed Jo’s hand before he let go—funny how that was the signal that you didn’t really want to let go—and the two of them buckled up. He only lived a few blocks away, but it took some maneuvering to get the truck back into the driveway. He had some unloading to do, so he handed Jo his keys.

She gave him the sort of smirk that meant he had to prepare a sigh. “Am I going to your couch or your bed?”

And there was the sigh, but he had an answer: “Bed.”

Jo winked before she went inside.

Being with Jo was good, because he could focus on Jo and the current moment. Being alone, even if it was only long enough to unpack the truck and get everything ready to sit for a while, meant thoughts crept back in. She’d out and out thanked him for getting the apartment and even worded it to her parents to make sure it didn’t come across as controlling or weird, so how long would it take him to accept that? But it wasn’t just the reality of the apartment and Jo staying, because now Allan was moving up, and according to Mom’s texts she was thrilled at the prospect.

Thrilled at Allan being here, and more or less indicating that Jamie could then move out. He wasn’t just replaceable—he was surpassable, and that was the issue, wasn’t it? If Mom thought there was someone better to have around, even if she’d accepted his company for these past years, then what was to say Jo wouldn’t come to the same realization?

Jamie paused before he turned out the light in the garage, because come on, that’s what Jo had to be thinking too, right? It wasn’t her parents, but hey, she’d lived with someone else for years, and kept up her friendship with her college roommate, and the two of them came together and told her they’d found someone better. One of them had already promised her forever, in front of a whole crowd of people, while the other stood as her maid of honor and held her bouquet and fixed her veil.

Okay, maybe he needed to take a step back, get over himself, and remember that Jo had her own reasons for being iffy on the subject even if he thought some sort of promise would make him feel better about the whole thing.

---

Chapter Forty-Five- coming November 14

Jo

I hadn’t planned on driving up to Jamie’s yesterday, so I hadn’t planned on driving back to the apartment again this morning. It’s not like my parents are going to mention it, exactly, but at least if I’d walked up after the archives there wouldn’t be an obvious sign of absence. As it is, I get inside, check my phone, and see Dad’s sent me another text: Are you doing breakfast with Jamie or do you want to join us? Either he heard me come in or his timing was oddly impeccable.

At least I’ve got an easy answer: He’s already at the farmer’s market. Did you have a place you wanted to try?

Amanda told us about one. Meet you outside in 15?

That probably means something other than Babycakes, but there’s Trenary Toast, also right there downtown, and Java Bay isn’t that far away. There’s Provisions, too, which will be more or less downstairs from my next apartment, but their menu’s limited. Mom’s only good with a single option if she’s the one who picked it.

It’s a deliberate, foreign thought: my next apartment. I’ve been in the one in Traverse City since I moved back. It’s not sentimental—I’ve barely even hung anything on the walls—but at least I had it. And yeah, it’s a studio apartment, and I don’t really like it, so if Jamie was told it was the last one-bedroom, then he’d want to get it for me. At first I didn’t care just because I didn’t care about anything, and then it was a novelty for a while, but now it’s getting old. I can’t even bring myself to make my bed every morning when I can see it all day and think that I really should be the kind of person who makes her bed every morning.

Right now it doesn’t matter, because I’ve got a bedroom door I can close so I don’t have to confront it. I take my backpack into the bedroom all the same, though, to put yesterday’s clothes in the hamper and re-pack with a new outfit. I’m not going right back to Jamie’s, but the entire point of the backpack is the new outfit.

Back in the day, women wore so many jewels and gems because it was all they had left if their husbands kicked them out. I got a lawyer and escaped with more than just my maiden name back, but it still kind of feels like Jake turned me out with only what I could carry. He took my home, my best friend, all our friends … honestly it’s not such a surprise that my new friends here were all Jamie’s friends first. I’m good at melding into a group, but not so skilled at striking up new friendships on my own.

If I lose Jamie, I lose everything again.

God, stop it, Jo. If you want to be grumpy about something, figure out how you’re going to get your furniture from downstate. I hate moving, but on the plus—hah—side, I don’t actually have all that much since the divorce.

There’s a knock on my door, not shave and a haircut but Dad’s own rhythm, so I shoulder my backpack again and go to answer it. Before either of them can say anything, I announce, “Jamie got a call from the apartment manager yesterday that there was only one left, so he put money down on it, and I’ll be moving in there next month.” It’s close enough to point to, and from here it doesn’t matter which building I’m pointing at. I think they’ve got different numbers, so it’ll be the bigger one, but the email just had an apartment number on it.

Dad blinks, but Mom nods first. “I think we’ve got one more move in us.”

Uh. They really don’t have to—

“Okay, but if there’s not an elevator”—Dad points toward the same building—”I’m driving the truck and turning your stuff over to your game night friends.”

Well. That was easy. “There is an elevator, but I think they’ll be happy to help. Thank you.”

Mom slips an arm around my shoulders, which is kind of a trick with the backpack, but she’s had practice. “Good. I didn’t want to ask if you didn’t have plans. And Helen …”

“She seems lonely,” Dad agrees, tilting his head toward downtown to suggest we start walking. “Jamie’s been with her for, what, years now?”

I nod. “Since 2021.”

“And there’s another brother,” Mom clarifies. “A younger one.”

I nod again. “Shane. He’s in Houghton.” And it’s weird, because this is summer, so that means both he and his kids are off school—he teaches fifth grade—but they haven’t come to visit. I get that he’s in the middle of a divorce, except the middle seems to have lasted the entire time I’ve been up here, but wouldn’t the kids want to see their grandma? They’ve got to have some sort of custody agreement worked out for now, and Shane could bring them over even just for a day trip when he’s got them.

“Have you met him?” she wants to know.

This time I shake my head. I’m not even sure Jamie’s spoken to Shane since I’ve met him. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Trenary Toast,” Dad answers, and he gets it right, so maybe Brent or Amanda told him how to pronounce it. “I’m getting the breakfast sandwich on the cinnamon roll.”

I haven’t tried it. Obviously their cinnamon rolls are good, but I’m not sure I want one with ham and egg on it.

“Yeah, I’m not sure about that one, either,” Mom confides. “I might just go right for a cinnamon roll.”

“Not a serial killer,” Dad recites, making us roll our eyes and laugh together as we head up the hill.

---

Chapter Forty-Four

Jamie

When Jamie checked his phone, there was a text from Allan: I know the horse has left the barn but for the record I said I’m glad you found Jo and I hope you stay together. Anything else you want me to say? He couldn’t entirely tell the face the little emoji was making, but it was probably meant to convey the idea that, even if Allan recited it perfectly, it might get mangled in translation.

Jamie considered the question. He was already dressed and ready to load the truck, waiting for Jo to get out of the shower because she wanted to help him. What the hell? Nothing ventured … You can tell her you’ve been thinking about it long and hard and you’d like to move back to take care of her. Send. Let Allan decide it was a joke if he wanted.

Jo came down the stairs, hair still a little damp despite his hairdryer, and poked her head into the kitchen. “Do you load up and go down there without coffee?”

“Ricky brings me coffee.” He stuck his phone in his pocket. “I think it’s so I don’t chew him out if he’s late.” Then he blinked, because maybe there was another part to that question. “I can get some started for you, if you want.”

“No, that’s okay.” She had her backpack, because she always had her backpack, except this morning it felt like she was leaving him. Jo slipped into her shoes, face turned mostly away from him. “I figure I’ve got to go back and pick up another change of clothes, anyway, so I can grab coffee somewhere on my way by.”

Uh. She was in a different dress from yesterday, because Jo apparently lived in dresses, at least during the summer, and it wasn’t like she’d spilled anything on it.

She caught his eye and apparently his confusion. “So I can stay tonight, too?”

Oh. Right. “Of course.” She’d turned it into a request sort of question, like maybe he hadn’t reacted because he didn’t want her to stay.

Jo caught his hand and squeezed it before they left the house, Jamie locking it behind them since she had all her stuff. He wasn’t sure what Mom would think of him giving Jo a key. If it were his own place, then of course, but …

She put her backpack in her car while he went to open the garage and then helped him load up the food truck. He usually did it alone, so the two of them made quick work of it, and then Jo took his face in both her hands and kissed him softly. They were in his driveway, so it wasn’t entirely public, but she kept it toned down, anyway. And he had this fleeting thought, not necessarily an urge, that he could pull her into the garage, hit the button, and keep on kissing her as the door closed. But he hesitated, and they honestly didn’t have time, so he just caught Jo’s smile as she waved and went to get into her car and left first.

Right. Okay. Jamie got his keys and his phone out of his pockets, climbed into the food truck, stuck the phone in the cup holder, and started the engine. He had to proceed as though it were any other day, and nothing important—or significant—had happened. Was this normal? Or were other people just not as affected by this kind of thing, possibly because, by the time they’d hit their late forties, it wasn’t new anymore? You had people like Shane, who were sick of their wives before they’d even married them, but also people like Allan, who happily looked forward to the next relationship despite the end of his most recent one, and where did Jamie fall?

The farmer’s market wasn’t working in his favor today. It gave him too much time to think. Jo was happy about the apartment, which was good, but she also wasn’t ready to even talk about a wedding, and that … well. It shouldn’t be disappointing, because who really talked marriage after a couple months? Even if he’d actually asked, and she’d said yes, imagine telling everyone about it. Ricky and Chase wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but even their group, the ones who’d seen it from the beginning, would probably hesitate before they responded. Besides, it was Jamie’s first relationship, ever, so the fact that it was his longest—and he was somehow convinced it was going to last—wasn’t much of an argument.

And okay, maybe Jo had a point: he’d gotten the apartment so they didn’t have to make these decisions and have these discussions just now, except having the apartment meant he wanted to move right on to looking at houses, asking her what her dreams and absolutely nevers were, and focusing on narrowing that search and getting the next step nailed down. Yeah, it would help if she committed to forever. She’d done it before, with Jake, so obviously it wasn’t one of her absolutely nevers, but …

She’d done it before, with Jake, and when it ended she had everything ripped out from under her feet and ended up running back home to try to rebuild from scratch. Right. Jake was only photographs and speculation to him, but he was real to Jo, and Jo’s only point of comparison for a relationship. Especially a relationship that included words like forever and wedding.

Now he’d talked himself around to feeling like a jerk again. Thinking he was doing it all wrong, even though she’d told him this very morning that she thought he was doing a lot right. They had the apartment, so he should be grateful for that and give it time before he wanted to reach for the next step. Hell, the apartment was a promise: an entire year. That was a long time, much longer than her lease at Brent and Amanda’s, so why wasn’t it enough?

---

Chapter Forty-Three

Jo

We’ve started the negotiations, but this one was more like laying down the rules. After everyone left Jamie suggested we agree to no phones in the bedroom, and I suggested we go right to bed. Easy. I’m not sure I want to call physical contact a negotiation, but … well. That one’s a work in progress. He’s got a queen-sized bed, so we can basically each sleep on our own side, and I wish I could just zap certain memories and not have to think about the only other person I’ve shared a bed with, but I eventually fall asleep.

The first time’s always awkward. That’s what I keep telling myself.

He’s got a clock on the bedside table—and only one bedside table, because there’s only one of him—so I can see what time it is when I wake up. It’s early, pretty much too early for a Saturday, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to fall back asleep. Jamie’s still out, snoring softly, but I don’t know how deep of a sleeper he is, and I’m, what, suddenly too shy to shift around and get comfortable in case I wake him up? There have to be things I do that annoy him, but right now I can’t think of any time he shows his annoyance. Mostly he just seems happy, if not surprised, that I’m still around.

Look, I know that I’m not all the worst things Jake and Tess said about me. At least I know I’m not all of those things all of the time. We’re allowed to have bad days, and we’re allowed to lean on our inner circle on those bad days, okay? Especially the members who’ve spent so much time leaning on us. But I’m not perfect, and even if Jamie and I are somehow perfect for each other, there have to be things about me that he doesn’t like. Right?

Okay now I’m lying here frowning up at Jamie’s stucco ceiling trying to think if there’s something about Mom that Dad doesn’t like, or vice versa. Exactly how negative am I going here with doesn’t like? I don’t think there’s anything they hate about each other, but there have to be things that annoy them about each other. I mean, I love them both deeply and they still embarrass me, usually on purpose.

They’re high school sweethearts who went off to college together even though their parents tried to get them to pick different schools. Their parents also tried to convince them to wait to get married until after graduation, like marriage automatically means pregnancy. Mom’s parents assumed she’d drop out, and I guess I’ll never really know what Mom and Dad were thinking in the moment, but the way they tell it, they were confident. They knew what they wanted, so they went after it.

Technically I think they wanted to adopt more than one kid, but they didn’t even foster any others after they got me. I was their handful, and they’ve never blamed me for it, but I’ve wondered sometimes.

Okay mostly I wondered after Jake and Tess told me they were in love. That’s the first time someone really shook me by showing me the happiness was just a mask. As far as I can tell, my parents are in love, and they’re happy—not just satisfied, but happy—with the way their shared life is going. It would be better, of course, if they hadn’t had to help me through my divorce and all, but they were ready and willing all the same. They had the means to support me and, like being a handful, they’ve never made me feel like I was too much, or it was my fault, or I was holding them back from something.

I’m not a disappointment to my parents. How strange and wonderful is that?

Jamie takes a deeper breath and rolls over, tucking his hands under his pillow as he sort of squints at me. “It’s way too early for you to be awake.”

“Are you the pillow police now?” But obviously he’s at least not completely asleep, so I roll over and mirror his pose.

He gives me a lower wattage version of his lop-sided grin. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I mean, rarely.” I shake my head a little. “I’m fine. I used to be able to hit snooze and fall back asleep, but lately I’m just awake when I’m awake.”

Jamie frees a hand so he can reach out and cup my cheek. I can tell he’s trying to figure out how to word whatever’s on his mind, though, so I wait. “I just think I’m doing it all wrong,” he admits with a little shrug. “Telling Mom, not telling Mom. Sleeping with you but not sleeping with you.”

Oh, okay. We’re getting serious before seven a.m. This doesn’t feel like a casual lying down conversation to me so I sit up, crossing my legs and turning so I can face him, catching his hand between both of mine. “First, I think you’re doing a lot right.”

He takes his hand back long enough to push himself up so he can lean against the headboard and then returns it to mine.

“I can’t tell you how to handle your mom, because I’ve got even less of an idea than you do.” I duck my head and kiss his hand. “Okay, and you’ll also notice I didn’t show you Dad’s text until after you showed me hers, because we’re not ready for that conversation yet.” Shit, I’ve brought up his frown line.

“You and I might be,” he says slowly. “Not with our parents, but us.”

I close my eyes, but I’ve still got his hand. “I don’t want to get married again just so I don’t have to check divorced on every damn form for the rest of my life.”

Jamie takes a slow breath. “And if we had that conversation now, you’d feel like you were doing it that way?”

“I thought the whole point of the apartment was giving us time so we don’t have to have that conversation right now.” I try not to snap it, but it was the thing that made me feel like I could relax. “Like, yes, it will be a conversation, but …”

He tilts his head, considering my face. “Allan said there’s no way I can be without you. Like I was fine before you, because I didn’t know what I was missing, but I can’t miss you.”

Okay but that’s Allan’s judgment when he barely knows me, thanks.

He’s known Jamie for decades, though. That assessment is really about Jamie.

Fuck. “We did the big white wedding because Jake wanted the big white wedding.”

“Meaning you don’t want another one?” he asks softly, eyes locked on mine, “or that, if I want it, I’ll get it, too?”

“Do you want to marry me?” God, that sounds too much like a proposal. We can’t be doing this now.

He shrugs one shoulder. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. The movies tell me that’s how it’s done.”

I really can’t commit to this right now. Seriously I need that apartment, because the apartment buys me time to face down the ghost of Jake freaking Cooper. I’ve never really confronted that question: exactly how much of my first marriage was me just giving Jake what he wanted, and how much was me ignoring what I wanted? Except it’s not fair for me to take things out on Jamie by doing the opposite of what I did with Jake, just because I’m thinking all this now. Nothing I can do would hurt Jake the way he hurt me, because he just doesn’t care.

Jamie cares.

Okay. I reach for his other hand, too. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to say, how the truth’s going to form itself into words, until it comes out: “I love you.”

He blinks, then blinks again, and pulls me in for an awkwardly angled but very sincere hug. “I love you, too.”

---

Chapter Forty-Two

Jamie

Unlike most Fridays, Jamie had to keep checking his phone. Mom didn’t usually text from bridge—she was too busy playing cutthroat cards—but tonight it was a series of photographs, chronicling a lovely evening with her firstborn child: the paddle boat. Their table for dinner. Their hotel room. She even sent him some musings that really didn’t need to be addressed tonight: I think we need to repaint the back porch. Do you think Stu and Howie would like a paddle boat ride? I’m thinking of redoing the shutters on the house.

He understood what was happening here. She needed to know she was still important in his life, and maybe Mom and Allan had talked a bit about him and Jo on their way, because Mom was also now worried about the future. If she got Jamie talking about the house and committing to changes and updates, then he was still committed to it, and therefore to her. God, he hadn’t even mentioned the apartment to Allan and already Mom was grappling with it.

Maybe it was good, because that meant she’d have plenty of time. She could work through her feelings and yeah, she’d probably recruit Shane to try to guilt Jamie into staying and choosing Mom over Jo like that, except even moving out wouldn’t be choosing one over the other. It was his future, and he could still be there for Mom and be involved in her life without being stuck under her roof.

The roof needed to be replaced before they thought about the shutters. Jamie debated, then gave Mom’s message a thumbs-up and set his phone down again.

All of them were there, and maybe the rest of the group had already anticipated Mom’s neediness because they’d picked Monopoly instead of something where Jamie had to pay attention to every single move. Because he was distracted, either as a means of poking at him or since he wouldn’t actually be paying attention to everything, the others were back on Ricky and Chase’s itemized list.

“I give Jamie five hundred,” Jo proposed.

Ricky nodded. “Valid move.”

“Jo gives Jamie seven fifty,” Dune suggested.

Ricky shook his head. “Jamie gives Jo seven fifty.”

Trevor had a little pad of paper out and added to his notes as Chase ignored the conversation and took the dice.

“Jamie gives Jo five hundred,” Talon proposed, moving his hand to rewind the conversation because they’d missed something.

This made Ricky tilt his head back and forth. “Probably not.”

“Is there something between five and seven fifty?” Jo asked, trying to read Trevor’s handwriting upside down.

“Honey, there are lots of numbers between five and seven fifty,” Ricky responded haughtily.

Chase tilted his head. “Fifty-dollar increments.”

“Well, shoot,” Trevor grumbled, tearing off that page and starting a new one. “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

He shrugged. “Nobody’s actually asked before.”

Even though he still had one eye on his phone, Jamie grinned and leaned over to nudge Jo’s shoulder. “It’s that curiosity working in your favor.”

“Killed the cat,” Mitch cautioned.

“But satisfaction brought it back,” Jo, Jamie, and Dune chorused together.

Chase blinked. “That can’t be the actual phrase.”

“Sai King would argue otherwise,” Dune sniffed.

Jamie’s phone lit up again and he read the preview without clicking on it: Allan seems to think you’re going to marry Jo. Shit. He blinked and belatedly reached to move the phone, but Jo and Mitch had both already leaned in for a look.

“Damn,” Mitch said in a low voice, blinking a bit guiltily because he clearly hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Ricky reached across the table to pick up Jamie’s phone and get the screen to light up again even if he didn’t try to unlock it, and held it so Chase could see it, too. Sure, guys. Just pass it around. When Jamie looked back down at the table he saw Jo’s phone in front of him, unlocked and on a message from her dad she’d left on read: Mom wants to know if we keep June open or if you’re going to jet off to Vegas some weekend and come back Jo Whittaker.

Uh.

After a beat, Ricky grabbed Jo’s phone, too.

Chase shook his head slowly. “You’d have the same initials. You couldn’t monogram anything.”

Jamie blinked, but Jo, who’d apparently already considered changing her last name, countered, “Or we could monogram everything.”

“June’s too soon for a wedding,” Talon argued, craning his neck for Jo’s phone. “Most places won’t even consider selling you a gown less than a year out.”

Okay, but Talon hadn’t worn a gown. Nobody at this table had worn a gown.

Somehow the table was casually discussing a wedding.

Jo reached out for Jamie’s phone and handed it back to him. “Tell her you haven’t even begun to figure out how to ask me yet, so there’s no telling until you get an answer.”

Ricky clucked his tongue. “Dangerous. Now he’s committing to asking you but you’re so capricious you can’t be trusted.”

“So tell her you haven’t even thought about it yet.” Jo shrugged it off that easily.

Jamie shook his head a little. He had thought about it, but not … now.

“Haven’t even considered asking her yet,” Trevor suggested. “Then you’re not committing to asking, ever.”

“Yeah, do that one,” Jo agreed, and when he looked up at her she smiled and shrugged, like she knew that yet was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

He’d gotten her an apartment. She’d been having a bad morning until she found out about the apartment. This was a conversation he’d have to have with Mom at some point, not to get her permission or even her blessing but to keep her updated. I haven’t thought about asking her yet. He wanted to add more, to pad it with something about Allan’s eternal optimism or point out that this really wasn’t the time, but he just sent the message instead.

Mitch handed Jo her own phone. “I notice you haven’t committed.”

“Two votes for Vegas,” Trevor added, nodding at his husband unnecessarily.

“Three,” Dune said with an apologetic shrug. “Beautiful, but I barely remember anything and it was too stressful.”

Talon shook his head. “I wouldn’t do Vegas if we did it again. Smaller, yeah, sure, travel’s stressful, too.”

Jamie warily watched his phone, but Jo shifted in her chair and put her arm on the back of his, offering some of her space if he wanted it. It helped him take a slow breath and rest his hand on her knee. Why should it matter so much what Mom thought about it? Family mattered, but his happiness should come first. Right? And of course she’d bring it up like this, over text, at a distance, because it would eat at him and mean she got space at the front of his mind.

She didn’t know for sure Jo was staying the night, but she was panicking. Maybe it wasn’t about losing her place in his life, exactly, but the idea that someone else was rising in importance. He’d come if Mom needed him, but instead of right here, in the guest bedroom, he’d have to leave the house he shared with Jo instead.

A new message appeared: Maybe we need to redo the roof before the shutters.

---

Chapter Forty-One

Jo

We’re out in the garage again after lunch, because yeah, Jamie’s got a deadline for his packaging and prepping, but I’ve got my laptop so I can click through pictures of a model apartment. “It’s not overlooking the water,” Jamie tells me, and his apologetic tone is at odds with his grin. “They didn’t have any of those open, so I didn’t have to wonder if it’d be worth it.”

Obviously he knew it was a risk, but he also already pointed out that he picked an apartment, not a house. I could check out the other apartment layouts and decide I’d rather have a different one, or I can focus on the fact that my boyfriend kind of already solved my there’s not enough time to make a decision problem. “I don’t have a view of the lake right now, anyway, so you’d just be spoiling me.”

He looks up and his grin broadens, because yeah, he’s already spoiling me.

It’s just such a freaking relief. That’s one big question answered, and even if I can’t offload my downstate apartment right away—they always go fast in Traverse City, so I’m not expecting it to take long—I have some leeway to figure out my next employment step. Maybe I don’t want to put in an application at Babycakes and turn that into work, but there are plenty of other coffee shops around here that aren’t already my fun spots. That makes us into some sort of sitcom couple, the barista and the food truck guy, but I’ve done it before, and I know I like it. There are plenty of other options, but at least that one’s solid.

Oh my God, Jamie got me an apartment. He’s not the only one who can’t stop smiling.

I have time. I do need to figure out a few things—how to get a bed into the new apartment, for example, when mine’s downstate and I won’t be able to get it until my sub-letter moves out, which is after the new apartment opens up, or if it’s just less of a hassle to buy a new bed or even long-term rent one—but those are minor details. If worse comes to worst, I’m sure someone has an air mattress I can borrow. I won’t end up spending the night at Helen’s. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I did, even if the expectation was that I took the guest room, but it’s the sort of thing I feel like she’d mark on one side of the paper and then, somehow, I’d never quite be able to make it up to her.

I take one more look at the apartment photos and close my laptop, setting it aside. “Okay. I can be helpful now.”

Jamie’s grin turns teasing. “Oh, can you?”

“Sure. Do you want me to get my hands all over your meat or your buns?” I ask sweetly.

He sighs and tells me I can start on the coleslaw.

It’s Jamie’s garage, Jamie’s workspace, so there’s no music. He doesn’t have a Bluetooth speaker or even headphones. I could grab mine, or open my laptop again and sacrifice sound quality, but that would feel like an intrusion. Jamie’s quiet is peaceful, not oppressive, and I guess I’m learning to see it that way.

Jamie’s behind schedule, at least based on previous Fridays, but with the two of us we’ll get everything done in time. Ricky or Chase will pick up today’s order and take it to the restaurant before game night, and we’ll get everything else packaged and stored so he—or I guess we—can transfer it to the food truck before the farmer’s market tomorrow.

It’s kind of weird that all his equipment is out here in the garage instead of inside, but there’s not really room in the house kitchen for a chest fridge and all the rest. The garage is at least on the same level as the food truck, so there’s no carrying things up and down stairs, and it’s large and heated. And clean, of course, considering. After PrideFest he found and took care of the hole that let in the squirrels or whatever they were, and he sanitizes things before and after. Honestly it’s a cushy setup, and there’s no way Jamie could live in an apartment because he’d lose this space. Maybe I’ve got an apartment now, but he needs Helen’s garage and her back porch and her driveway to keep up the food truck business. Did Allan and Shane think of that, or were they short-sighted enough to assume all he needed was the truck itself?

Honestly our timing is perfect. We’re just cleaning up when Ricky pulls in, and he gives us a wave but starts to head for the house. “She’s not here,” Jamie tells him with a little shrug, because of course Helen’s car is still in the driveway. There’s no sign that she’s gone.

Ricky pauses, cocking his head. “Left early for bridge?”

“Gone for the weekend.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Allan.”

Apparently that’s enough of an explanation, because Ricky turns toward us. “Nonstop sexy party, then?”

I snort. “Surprise family all weekend. My parents are up.”

He tilts his head. “I did wonder why you made it for four.”

The Rusty Barrel doesn’t actually do reservations. Most people can call ahead the day of if they want to, but since Jamie’s instrumental in so much of their menu, he gets special treatment.

Ricky can’t linger, since he needs to get the order down to the restaurant, but I’m sure we’ll hear more later. For now, though, Jamie closes up the garage and we head inside. He goes to the kitchen and the normal-sized freezer and holds up one thing of spring rolls and one of mozzarella sticks, silently asking which one he should heat up for tonight.

Have I had a single vegetable yet today? I point to the spring rolls.

“Ah, yes, the healthy choice,” he muses, turning to put the mozzarella sticks back. “Do you want to run your backpack upstairs?”

I think he means so it’s out of the way for everyone’s shoes, but it’s also going to be the first Friday where I don’t have a backpack here. Well, I suppose it’s also the first time I’ve parked in his driveway instead of across the street, so I can leave when I’m tired and nobody blocks me in. We’re totally already broadcasting that I’m spending the night. I go over to him first, though, so I can kiss his cheek, and he frowns a little, half teasing, and pulls me in to kiss me on the lips.

---

Chapter Forty

Jamie

There was something Jamie needed to tell Jo, but he hadn’t figured out how—there hadn’t been time to figure out how—and Jo had a look about her. She said she couldn’t stop thinking about him, which sounded like a good thing, but the way she burrowed into his arms on the couch made it seem like a bad thing. This was Jo seeking comfort, and of course he was happy to lie down with her and wrap his arms around her and be there for her, but was this a time when he should ask what was going on or try to wait her out?

Part of waiting her out meant sitting on his news and second-guessing himself.

Jo finally took a deep breath and shifted to prop her head on her hand, not quite looking down on him but not trying to disappear into his chest anymore, either. “I, uh.” She sniffed, even though she hadn’t started crying. Maybe she was close, but she shook her head and pushed on before he could say anything: “I got kind of bogged down thinking about The Future.” Her voice gave those words some weight.

Great. Uh. Obviously, it was an emotional subject, but he didn’t have a clear read on what aspects of the future, and if they were good feelings or bad. “Do you want to talk about it?” Ugh, and his question was far too cautious.

She smiled a little. “I think I’d rather make out, but.” Jo shook her head again and her gaze drifted. “I don’t know if I want to keep doing the research thing. I don’t know if I want to keep doing the Davis thing.” And maybe she felt him tense, because she met his eyes and smiled and swiped at an escaping tear. “I do know I want to keep doing the us thing, but my move-out date feels like it’s just around the corner.”

Okay. He still didn’t know the best way to do this, but this was the moment, so he shifted to pull his phone out of his pocket. The email was already on the screen, because that’s how close the timing was, and he handed it over to Jo. Frowning, she propped herself up more to have a look at it, and he sat up, too, trying to read beyond her frown.

“Wait, what is this?” Jo finally asked, even though it was right there: receipt of a down payment.

“I’ve been looking at apartments,” he explained, and it wasn’t quite trying to walk a tightrope blindfolded, but this felt like something he had to do carefully. “I’d started with houses and apartments, but … the timing …”

Jo scrolled back up. “A one-bedroom apartment?”

Jamie nodded, even though that seemed a bit dangerous when he wasn’t sure how high off the ground he was. “The property manager called this morning to say he was down to the last one with that layout. You’ve got it for a year.”

She blinked. “What do you mean, I’ve got it for a year?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to ask you to move in here.” He gestured around them at Mom’s place. “Not even as some sort of stopgap while we look at houses.”

“Houses are ridiculously expensive in Marquette,” she argued back, but that meant she’d looked.

Jamie nodded slowly. “I’ve got a nest egg. Dad left all of us a lot. The food truck’s doing well, so I’ve been able to keep adding to it.” He licked his lips, because she still hadn’t fully reacted yet. “I didn’t want to buy us a house without your input.”

Jo slowly looked up, still almost hunched over his phone.

“So I viewed the apartments, and that one”—he wanted to reach over to tap the screen, but he also didn’t want to disturb her calm in case it meant she’d turn him down—“is the one I figured would be big enough for both of us, depending on … well.” Shit, he’d stumbled right into the heart of the thing. “If you decide you want to keep me. And then we’ll have time to figure out the next step.” He blinked and sort of rewound some of that in his head. “August 15. You can move in on the fifteenth and then it’s yours until the fourteenth next year.” He carefully pressed his lips together because, if he kept talking, he’d just make things even more precarious.

She shook her head a little. “You got us an apartment.”

“Yes.” Technically it was her apartment, because he had his room here, but yeah, he’d picked it out. She’d never seen it, even though the building wasn’t all that far from where she lived now. That was part of the appeal, a sort of continuation of the summer beyond her planned date, but it was risky. He’d gone ahead and made some pretty big decisions about her future, or at least made decisions that opened up some options about her future, and there was a huge difference between doing all this behind her back and supporting her in the moment when she only needed a little nudge to keep moving in the direction she’d already chosen.

For all he knew, that it’s the last one, so take it or lose it spiel was a lie meant to get him to jump. Well, he’d jumped.

This breath brought the animation back into Jo’s body and she laughed a little as she carefully set his phone down. “God, Jamie.” She reached for his face and he noticed her hands were shaking. For a moment she searched his eyes, but maybe she couldn’t find what she really wanted to say because she ended up shrugging and whispering “Thank you.”

It was plenty. Jamie leaned in to kiss her, and then pulled her down on the couch again, this time for more than just a soothing embrace.

---

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jo

I can’t concentrate. It’s wonderful that Margot has all these questions about a local author whose private papers and all were donated to the archives, and they can only be answered with intense searches and careful photographs of pages, but my mind’s not on it right now. I just want to be with Jamie, and it’s so unfair that my parents came up the exact same weekend Helen’s out of the house, because I can’t just go there and not leave until Sunday. I have to pretend that it’s fine to be away from him, even though the clock’s ticking and soon enough we’re going to be five hours apart instead of a short walk, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I have my apartment, and he has Helen.

The only thing that’s fallen into place this summer is Jamie. Maybe some people, somewhere, are pursuing Davis’s confession and trying to figure out who the other Milwaukee Millennium Murderer is, but mostly they’re treating it like a media stunt. He was very badly hurt and thought he might die, so of course he’d want to send everyone on a wild goose chase from beyond the grave. He got well enough to go back to prison—and lots more people complained about their tax dollars at work—and now he’s in solitary so nobody tries again before the trial.

I guess it’s like Helen said: lightning doesn’t strike twice. I can’t vouch for that as far as scientific accuracy, but I get what she means. I absolutely lucked into the connection because Kara and Tess asked for my help purely as a pity move. They could’ve asked anyone. If Davis hadn’t shown up at my adoption hearing, none of the rest would’ve happened.

So on the one hand that means I’ve come around to Jamie’s side of things: it’s his fault, not mine. I didn’t have his name until he popped in just the once, saying he cared, and then didn’t follow through. Obviously he didn’t know that one day, he’d be arrested for murder because of it, but even if he murdered Sophia and Akira as a perverted means of trying to deal with losing me, he didn’t have to murder my birth mother. He could’ve just walked away.

The fact that I wasn’t born in a hospital and didn’t have a birth certificate or any kind of records worked in my favor, because even though he gave them Cece’s name, she simply drops off the record when she’s kicked out of the house for being pregnant. Her parents are still alive, but they’re protected by lawyers, so basically everyone assumes she lost the baby. It sucks, but it sucks less than some of the other options.

Working with archival material means I can’t check out completely. I’ve got to handle it properly, one page at a time, and take my photos or make some notes on my laptop, and remind myself what Margot’s looking for. Just because she has questions doesn’t mean the archive has answers, but I have to make sure I check everywhere, just in case.

Normally it’s really cool looking at things people haven’t cared about in years, maybe since the original author wrote it. I feel like I know this guy from reading so many of his notes, even though he died when I was three. He writes a lot of his thoughts, and sometimes they’re fragmentary and really hard to decode, but every so often he comes out with this beautiful sentence that’s just been hiding in here. Even if I can’t find answers for Margot, I can get her those sentences.

It’s not enough. I’ve been doing research for a few years now, and it’s been fine, but right now …

There are plenty of coffee shops in Marquette. I could bring back my barista skills. There’s no way in hell that’d pay for an apartment anywhere near here, though. I’d use all my money on gas and all my time on the commute, which wouldn’t really help out in the end. I could go for roommates, but me having roommates and Jamie living with his mom doesn’t work out in our favor, either.

I can’t ask Jamie to abandon his mother and move in with me. Not when he only first kissed me less than twenty-four hours ago. Not when I’ve only known him maybe two months.  I could find someone to take over my Traverse City lease easily enough, but then I’d just be double screwed if things didn’t work out up here.

Yeah, I’m way too distracted to last a full day. Instead of my camera, I go to my messages. I’m useless here. I’m going to push through for another half hour or so, but then can we do lunch? Send. You’re just asking for lunch, Jo. Not the rest of your lives.

Three pages later, I’ve got a response: We can do whatever you want.

God, you can’t read tone in a text. Is he just being friendly and happy at the thought of seeing me, or are there deeper layers there? I’ll see you soon. I said half an hour, and I checked the time, so Margot will get another half hour.

A new message pops in: Not soon enough.

Okay sometimes he deserves to have his whole name thrown at him. I make a note of where I am and return all the documents to the folder. Annika just smiles. “The forecast’s too nice to spend all day in here,” she commiserates, even though she is, in fact, going to spend all day in here. My contract with Margot isn’t full time, but Annika’s position is.

It’s not a long drive to Jamie’s house, but it’s not walking distance, either. Honestly it’s just long enough for me to agonize over it: consider the future? Focus on the present moment? Lightning can’t strike twice, so does that apply to Jamie if Jake already happened? And honestly, if the conditions are right, lightning strikes the same place plenty of times. If it didn’t, lightning rods wouldn’t work. There are ways to attract lightning, which is basically the only way we know how to keep something from being hit: give the lightning something it wants more.

None of this is making any sense. I’m tired, and overwhelmed, and distracted, and I really should be focused on how my backpack is actually useful today because I’ve got my toiletries along with a change of clothes so I can spend hours and hours with Jamie, and I shouldn’t keep thinking about how limited our time might be. Not when I pull into his driveway and see he’s got the garage door open so he can keep an eye out for me and grin the moment my car comes into view. He pulls off his gloves and the hairnet and comes around as I open the car door. “I feel like I should point out, first, that you’re not useless,” he greets me.

“Useless in the archives,” I protest, but I feel myself flush, too, because yeah, he called me out on that. Self-talk matters. I lean back in for my backpack and shut and lock the door, but I can’t not say it: “I keep thinking about you.”

He tilts his head. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.” And maybe he was only waiting for my text because he hits the garage door button, reaches for my hand, and pulls me toward the house.

---

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Jamie

Jo got awkward sometimes. Jamie could think that because it was true, because it often happened to him, and because he didn’t mean it to judge. Okay, those rules probably said more about his own mental state than he really wanted to consider, but he saw the ways Jo responded to him—and to his mom, and to anyone else around them—and figured he could do some things for her. They hadn’t talked about it outright, but she hadn’t told him not to, and he could see how she relaxed a little when the decision was taken out of her hands.

That sounded terrible. It wasn’t like he had full control of her life, but he could see sometimes that she got stuck thinking about all the possible consequences of what might seem to other people like a simple action, turning into Dr. Strange following every possible path with the infinity stones. It still felt like overstepping when he told her what to do, even when it was clearly the thing she’d intended to do, but the quick flash of a grateful smile made him feel better about doing it.

It was weird, maybe, that Jo’s parents weren’t asking him about himself. He had to assume they’d talked about him, the way Mom had talked about Jo with him, but wouldn’t they want to hear the answers from his own mouth? Surely at some point they’d want to know exactly how much the food truck actually made, and if he was living with his mom because there was no way he could support himself, much less their daughter.

Okay maybe they didn’t want to ask that yet because it presumed some sort of solid future beyond just another month of Jo in Brent and Amanda’s apartment. And wait, Jo only had a month left up here? The summer was just slipping away.

“Well, I figure we’ll do dinner tomorrow night?” Mary-Beth said in response to Allan’s questions about their plans for the weekend, raising an eyebrow at Jo and Jamie.

Jo smiled and squeezed his thigh. “I’m planning on bringing them by your food truck for lunch.”

That made him smile more than it really should. “We could still do the Rusty Barrel, though. I could get us reservations.”

“Whoa, eating Jamie’s meat twice in one day?” Allan chimed in.

“Allan Nathanial!” Mom hissed, but Jo’s parents burst out laughing.

“Bet that’s the first time you’ve heard that one,” Kent told Jamie, wiping tears from his eyes.

Jamie shook his head morosely. “Yeah, first time. Nobody’s ever thought of it before.”

“The Rusty Barrel sounds great,” Mary-Beth reassured him, but she was flushed, and yeah, once again Allan’s charm and double entendres worked their way on a married woman. “I mean, for dinner. A rusty barrel as a concept isn’t very appealing.”

“They had that discussion,” Jamie reassured her, hoping he didn’t sound like he’d said this dozens of times before. “It was this whole thing about how upscale they wanted to make it and what sort of expectations people would have depending on the name.”

“What were the other options?” Kent wanted to know.

Jamie shook his head. “More generic things, really. BBQ or Barbecue something or other. They didn’t really want to put a name to it in case management changed.”

“Unlike your food truck,” Mary-Beth put in brightly.

“Hey, that was a brilliant name,” Allan protested. “It’s clear, it’s specific, and it’s easy to remember. Where did you get that? Jamie’s Food Truck.” He shrugged. “Brilliant.”

“Yeah so Allan and Shane actually bought me the truck,” Jamie explained, which meant Jo’s parents laughed again.

Allan shook his head and held up a hand so no one else would jump in. “And it’s your favorite color, isn’t it? Everybody recognizes it, everybody knows the name, and Comic Sans is a good font even if you’re dyslexic, so I stand by all our choices and you’re welcome!”

“Okay, but did you know that about Comic Sans when you picked it, or did someone just come along and tell you later?” Jo interjected.

He pointed a finger at her. “You’re just mad I didn’t look at your files and pull out a name.”

“Wait, what?” Mary-Beth wanted to know, and Jamie winced a little.

“They showed me their Milwaukee file,” Allan explained. “Jo pulled Davis’s name out of nowhere like that”—he snapped his fingers—“so she thought maybe I’d look through it and remember one of Jamie’s creepy neighbors or something.”

Mom sniffed. “As if you could expect lightning to strike twice.” She, at least, didn’t seem to notice the way Kent and Mary-Beth shot their daughter intense looks to see how much Allan knew about where, exactly, she got Davis’s name, but Jo just laughed.

“It can hit me once and Allan once,” she protested, but her smile also dismissed the idea and accepted Mom’s rebuke. “Fine, you used up all your luck naming the food truck.”

Allan laughed and leaned over to nudge her shoulder with his own. “Slightly different impact on the course of the world in general and popular culture specifically, but I’ll take it.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll enjoy the results of your influence tomorrow,” Mary-Beth reassured him, getting them back to the food truck rather than Davis deftly and without even a wink, but Jamie relaxed a little.

“When we eat Jamie’s meat,” Kent added deadpan, causing his daughter to sigh and drop her face in her hands.

Jamie laughed despite himself, more at the combination of Jo’s reaction and Mom’s tight non-reaction, and he gave Jo a side hug before getting up to start busing their dishes. It really seemed like a good time to end things before Mom got too frustrated with Allan and refused to go away for the weekend.

They ended up walking Mom and Allan to the car. Allan shook hands with all the Lewises, but it seemed like Mom was having one of her struggles. She shook with Jo’s parents but gave Jo a brief hug, although it wasn’t really any shorter than the one she gave Jamie. “We’ll be back Sunday,” she told him, either like he’d have to make sure to get the house cleaned up by then or like he’d never been on his own this long before and needed a deadline for survival. Jamie didn’t want to ask what time Sunday, since it would just cause a delay here and now, so he nodded and told Allan to drive safely.

This was also the corner for him to head up the hill, though, so after Allan drove off he had to figure out his own departure. Jo turned to him before he could think of what to say. “Mom and Dad are following me up to see the archives,” she told him, “but then they’re on their own for the rest of the day. I’ll come by when I’m done?”

He wanted to tell her to be done early, but all he said was, “I’m packaging and prepping today. You know where to find me.” It didn’t take as long as the smoking days, and she had his schedule down by now.

Jo went up on tiptoe to give him a kiss and he moved to meet her for a peck on the lips. That made her grin, and blush, and okay, maybe his message had gotten through loud and clear.

“Until tomorrow,” Kent told him, offering his hand, and Jamie shook with him and then Mary-Beth before Jo gestured her parents down the hill so they’d have a gentler slope on the way back to her apartment and he was left alone on his trek up.

---

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jo

I can’t tell if Dad told Mom exactly how he met Jamie or if he just let her assume he saw us walking down together, and I’m sure as hell not asking. I don’t need that conversation on our walk up to breakfast, thanks, especially when I can’t figure out what to tell them about Helen. They know Jamie hasn’t dated before, and they know why I went to talk to him in the first place, so I think they’re ready to tread lightly anyway. It’s also one of those things where I can’t tell if my parents are actually cringe or if I only think they’re cringe, generally lovingly, because they’re my parents.

They knock on my apartment door at a quarter to, and I’m all ready with my shoes on and backpack over my shoulder. “Okay, so do you want to drive up and go right to the archives from there,” I ask, “or walk back down here and get the cars?” They’re not spending the whole day with me, but I can at least show them around. It’s not quite take your parents to work day but I think it’s another aspect of what Dad said: Mom just needs to see how I’m doing, and that means at work as well as with Jamie.

“We can walk,” Mom says with a shrug, not even consulting Dad. I mean, it’s not like we need to: if walking’s an option, she’s picking it. Dad and I catch eyes and grin, but she either doesn’t see or ignores us. “Lead the way!”

“And tell us more about Allan?” Dad requests.

I can’t help the laugh. “He’s a fireman who poses for their beefcake calendar every year.”

“Oh my God, he’s that friend of Brent’s?” Mom fans herself, and I can’t tell how much is pretend.

“He won’t let her hang the calendar in the kitchen,” Dad adds.

Okay this laugh is more of a snort. “Helen keeps it in her kitchen.”

“So basically everybody greets this guy with hi, hello, I’ve seen you mostly naked?” Dad guesses.

“Yeah, you should try it.” He can stick with his intention to make things as awkward as possible.

Dad looks over at Mom, but she just rolls her eyes instead of telling him not to, so I may have created a monster.

They want more information, though, but I don’t really have much: lives in Green Bay. Divorced three times. Currently single. Taking Helen to Munising on the trip he’d had planned for his latest girlfriend—although at this point I wonder if it may have been a boyfriend instead. Does he just make up names for when he’s talking to people who don’t know?

They’ve already got basically everything I know about Helen: volunteers at the library and likes to think she’s hip with today’s youth. Book club and bridge night. No coffee or red meat. Likes to think she’s well-read and some sort of elite since her husband, whom she never talks about, was a professor at NMU.

“Oh, hey, that’s them,” I add when we come up to the one parking lot that’s closest to Babycakes, in case they’ve got questions that maybe I don’t want them asking when a Whittaker can hear.

Jamie breaks into a grin and his shoulders drop when he sees me, which means I smile back, and I notice Allan noticing even if Jamie doesn’t. Rather than nudge him or try to point it out or anything, Allan just waves at us and says “Jo’s parents! Hi!” He even takes over the introductions so I can go over to Jamie and take his hand and grin too much when he kisses my cheek. It’s just my cheek, though, which is why he avoids looking at me while I laugh and squeeze his arm.

It’s probably good that we met up here, though, because once we get to Babycakes we can scope out the tables and push two of them together while Mom and Dad consider all the menu choices. Helen sits to claim the table—and make sure she gets what she considers to be the best seat—and Allan insists on paying for everyone so we get our orders in and then have to sort out the rest of us. Helen’s in one of the chairs, so Allan sits across from her on the bench. I slide in from the other side, so I’m bookended by the brothers, and Dad takes the chair across from me. He immediately turns to Helen and says “So tell me about the work you do at the library,” either accidentally or on purpose leaving out the word volunteer and setting her up to go on and on.

Allan raises his eyebrows at me to give Dad silent props. It’s a bit of a reach, since he’s talking to the other end of the table, but he looks at Mom. “So you’re Amanda’s college bestie.”

She raises her water glass. “Class of ‘97. No, I don’t still have those pictures.”

I blink. “Mom?”

Mom giggles, and I’m not sure if it’s over Allan—who is, after all, older than she is—or at the memories. “There were some parties. It’s fine. Your father was there.”

Oh, man. If she’s calling him my father, then we’re talking wet T-shirt contest pictures at best. I know she was a bit of a party girl in college, which was the main reason why nobody thought their marriage or my placement would stick, but I’ve never seen proof of it. The photos on display are pretty demure, floral-print dresses with lace collars and sensible low heels.

Allan’s grin tells me he’s got more info on those pictures than I do. “That’s a shame.”

Mom clucks her tongue and gives him an oh, you gesture before taking pity on me. “Jo says you’re doing Munising this weekend. Kent and I went there for our honeymoon.”

That gets them onto safer topics like hikes and waterfalls and Pictured Rocks, and I slip my hand into Jamie’s as we just listen. It’s kind of hard to focus with the two different conversations going on, and I don’t think either of us wants to start up a third in case someone points out that hey, we can talk to each other any time and we don’t often see the other people here. Plus it’s like I said: Jamie doesn’t make me feel like I have to say something if I don’t want to.

Our drinks get brought out, and then our food, and Helen’s tea doesn’t stand out so much as her single plain croissant next to all of our breakfast burritos. My parents know how much I’ve struggled with food, starting with the best nutrition my mother could get me but never really having enough or knowing for sure if more was coming—and yeah, I’ve brought up with a therapist how other people’s we were poor but my parents never let us know it posts can be triggering—and then struggling with balance and body issues and how no, I totally don’t have the same body type as my parents. They’re both slender despite their breakfast burritos, and I’m … not … but I can pretend that Helen’s raised eyebrow and sniff is for any number of other things.

I think Jamie’s noticed it, too. He’s never said anything about how little I eat Tuesday nights, like maybe it’s just because I’m not such a fan of chicken or fish, but he sees so much else of what goes on with me.

Like right now, how he leans over and murmurs “Eat your breakfast” in my ear under the guise of giving me a kiss. It’s not even over guilt of cleaning my plate or because Allan paid for it. It’s because bodies need energy, and that’s what calories are.

I probably fail at giving him a normal, not overly grateful, smile, but I also see how Dad’s watching as he listens to Helen and I pick up my burrito and realize I’m hungry enough to eat every bite.

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Chapter Thirty-Six