Please, Mary. Who would want to steal your life?
Nicole’s eyes widen, and then her mouth stretches into an even bigger, scarier smile.
“Oh, we’re going to have fun,” she says.
Chapter Four
Jace
My apartment is quiet, just like it always is, but the energy feels off tonight, like the quiet is louder than before.
My laughter breaks the silence, because that’s a stupid-ass thought—even if it rings true—and it’s such an Asheville thing to think. Energies, auras, inner peace, yada, yada, yada. I’ve probably just absorbed too much of the energy around me in this city, no pun intended.
Yet there’s no denying I feel lonelier tonight than I have in a long time.
I shouldn’t have met Mary and Aidan for hot chocolate. It was an impulsive decision, much like most of my worst mistakes. Still, it doesn’t feel like a mistake.
Mary O’Shea intrigues me more than she has a right to. Far more than any woman has in a very long time. But there’s no denying she’s one of the most uptight women I’ve ever met. She probably has her cereal dumped into labeled plastic containers neatly lined up on a shelf and a color-coded calendar on her phone. She’s the kind of woman who cares what other people think about her and her son, and to be honest, women like that have never interested me. I don’t need a woman to micromanage me.
So why the hell am I thinking about her as anything other than the mother of my buddy?
Aidan reminds me so much of Ben it hurts. So deep in his head he’s not sure how to get out. When he mentioned that the only milk that’s good for human consumption is breast milk, I nearly lost it. Until I saw Mary’s creamy cheeks turn pink. It would take a stronger man than me not to think of her breasts flushing that way too.
I knew right then that I should make my excuses and go. But I didn’t. And then Mary ran up to me after we said goodbye, her cheeks pink again, her eyes warm, and said something to me that obviously wasn’t planned. I can’t deny that sharpened my interest. Because what would it be like to help a woman like her lose control? What would it be like to be the man who made her lose her mind?
There’s a rapping at my front door, and I look up from a Hungry-Man frozen dinner on my thrift store kitchen table. A small smile lifts my lips. I don’t bother answering—this particular guest doesn’t expect an engraved invitation—and, sure enough, it opens and in comes Roger, my eighty-seven-year-old neighbor from across the hall.
Bingo, stretched out on the back of the couch, watches him enter with a look of disdain. Then again, I think that look is permanently frozen onto his face.
“What kind of dinner is that?” Roger asks hopefully, leaving the door ajar behind him. I could ask him to close it, but I don’t. There’s a chance Mrs. Rosa will drop in as well, and this way I won’t have to get up to let her in. It won’t hurt to leave the door open. Bingo thinks he has it too good here to try to escape.
“Don’t get too excited,” I say as I get up and grab another meal from the freezer and pop it in the microwave. “You should know by now that these things taste like shit, but they say it’s food.”
His lips press together with a scowl. “Hmph.”
“What did Meals on Wheels bring you today?”
Roger is living on a fixed income that is pretty broken as far as I can tell. When I moved in here a few years ago, I realized he was eating soup so thinned out he was practically drinking flavored water. I started inviting him over for dinner and leaving cat food in his cupboard. Cleo, an orange tabby cat, was Roger’s only friend at the time. Just like Bingo used to be my only friend. Turns out being imprisoned for grand theft auto helps you figure out who your real friends are—and I didn’t have any. Roger and I have become friends (Mrs. Rosa calls it a May–December friendship), but Cleo and Bingo still hate each other.
Can’t win ’em all.
Roger comes over almost every night now, right around dinnertime, so I always make sure I have enough to feed him too. The only reason he didn’t eat with me last night was because he got roped into playing bingo at the VFW by a veteran he worked with back in the day. The guy had been bugging him to do it forever, and Roger finally relented. But as soon as he got back, he dropped by to let me know bingo wasn’t for him—no insult intended to Bingo the cat—and went straight to bed.
“Meh.” He waves a hand as he sits in the chair across from mine. The table is small and round and covered in chipped white paint, and none of the four chairs match. One is black with spindles, two are white with slat backs, and the one I just vacated is a simple oak. I used to have a nicer set before I went to prison, but I have no idea where it is now. Somewhere in Sydney, North Carolina, probably. I spent my entire life there until my sentencing.
Dwelling on that will only drop me down a well of grief, though, so I try not to think about it.
“What does that wave mean?” I ask as I grab a glass and fill it with ice and water. “Does that mean they skipped you again or the food sucked?”
“How many sandwiches can a man eat?” he grumbles.
“I’ve eaten quite a few sandwiches in my life. It beats canned soup.”
He makes a face and shrugs. “You got home later than usual.”
“I had a thing after work.”
His rheumy eyes brighten. “A thing?”
I laugh as I set the glass in front of him. “Simmer down now. Butterfly Buddies accepted my application. I met my new buddy today.”
He narrows his eyes in confusion. “You sent in that application ages ago. They just called you?”
“Yeah,” I say, trying not to dwell on the insecurities and bitterness that his observation dredges up.
When you are charged with a crime, you get your sentence and do your time. When you get out, you’re free to join the rest of society. That’s nice in theory, but every application you fill out for the rest of your life, from housing to jobs to Butterfly Buddies, will ask if you’re a convicted felon. And for the rest of my life, I will always have to check “yes.”
For the rest of my life, I will pay for a stupid-ass mistake I made as a twenty-year-old kid. A mistake that didn’t catch up to me until I was arrested at twenty-nine, because it turns out there is no statute of limitations in North Carolina when it comes to a felony charge.
The microwave dings, and I pull out Roger’s dinner, burning my fingers as I hasten it to the table. It plops out of my grasp, and I’m thankful for the plastic film covering it so it doesn’t fling out everywhere. I grab an extra fork and place it next to the meal, frowning.
Roger tries to remove the film, but his hands are shaking so much he can’t grasp the edge.
I step in and take off the cover. “You taking your meds, Roger?”
“Yeah,” he grunts, but I’m not reassured.
“Medicare still covering everything?”
He has Parkinson’s, and his medication is expensive. Medicare sometimes makes changes to which prescriptions it covers, leaving him in a bind without a much-needed medication. I’ve gotten it straightened out before for him. I have no qualms about stepping in again, especially since Roger has no one to intercede on his behalf. He never had kids, and he’s outlived his wife and his siblings.