Comeback (30 page)

She hugged me, hard, and I kissed the top of her head. Jessica eased out of the bedroom, giving us a few minutes alone.

“You know you can talk to me about these things, right?” I asked.

“I know. It’s just hard to talk about at all.”

“But you felt all right going to Jessica? She helped?”

Elin nodded, not releasing me. “She helped a lot. She’s easy to talk to.”

I knew that as well as anyone. That was how we’d ended up with Jessica here: because she’d been so easy for me to talk to when I’d needed someone. Today had shown me that even if Jessica wasn’t willing to be in the kind of relationship with me that I wanted, she was still willing to be there for the kids, at least. That was something.

Now I supposed I needed to go about setting things right between us, whatever our relationship was going to be.

JESSICA WAS WAITING
for me in the living room, sitting on the sofa with her feet tucked up beside her, when I came out. She’d left plenty of room for me to join her on the other side. I wasn’t sure if that was an invitation or not—simply leaving enough room for me to join her—but I took it as one. I left a little space between us but not a lot. Until we were talking again, carrying on with our relationship in whatever form it was taking right now, I didn’t want to get too close on a physical level—that wouldn’t do either of us any good—but I couldn’t stand to keep going the way things had been the last few days. There was a massive chasm between us, and not just physically.

She didn’t seem to be bothered by my sitting beside her, though. I took that as a good sign, as I did the way she’d acted around me all day today. We seemed to be moving in a much more positive direction, maybe even closing the distance.

Was the distance between us her fault or mine? I had a feeling it was really more on me. She’d told me her fears and I’d gotten my feelings all butt-hurt, and I’d done what I always do when life throws a wrench in things: I’d retreated into myself.

“Thank you,” I said after a moment. She raised her eyebrows in question, so I added, “For being there for Elin today.”

“I’m here for all of you.”

Not
I’m here for all the kids
. She was including me in her blanket statement. That made me feel even more like an ass than I already did.

I had my hands in my lap, and I fidgeted with them to keep from putting my arm around her shoulders. I hadn’t touched her—not
really
touched her—in too long. Steadying her with my hands on her waist earlier had only reminded me how much I missed having her next to me. The scent of her fresh shampoo was still tickling my nostrils hours later, and I could swear I still felt the warmth of her body under my fingertips.

“Do you think I did all right?” I asked to move my thoughts away from touching her. “Is she too young?”

She shrugged, just a single shoulder. “I think you did just fine. It’s hard to say if she’s ready, but girls mature faster than boys. Elin’s matured faster than most other girls in a lot of ways.”

In more ways than I would have liked. “So you think it’s all right?”

“It’s what I would have done, if that helps. More or less.”

I chuckled. “More or less?”

“I might have said sixteen for real one-on-one dates, but otherwise I was right on board with you.”

“She’s not too young, you don’t think?”

“For a boyfriend?” Jessica shook her head. “I had my first kiss when I was eleven. What about you?”

“Fourteen, but I had my head stuck so far up my ass with playing hockey that I don’t think I even realized girls existed until then.”

She laughed, and I did, too. It felt good to laugh with Jessica. To laugh at all. To talk to her again.

“What I really wish I knew is what Emma would have done,” I said, choking up at the thought of my sister.

“Probably the same thing you did. I think she would have approved of
É
tienne.”

“What makes you so sure?” I honestly didn’t think Jessica knew much about any of Danger’s kids, and I absolutely knew that Emma hadn’t, so I was taken aback by her certainty on the subject.

“Just the note he wrote to her,” she said.

“She showed you the note?” There was a part of me that was hurt that Elin hadn’t come to me with that. But there was a much bigger part that was glad she’d chosen to go to Jessica. It meant my niece felt comfortable with her, safe enough to bring up subjects she wasn’t ready to discuss with me. And she had come to me with it afterward. There was that.

“She and Maddie did,” Jessica said. “He wants to cheer her up. He likes to make her laugh, he said. Based on the conversations I had with Emma about you and me, I think she would like him for that. She didn’t want her kids to be sad that she’s gone. She wanted them to be glad they’re alive. She wanted the same for you, too, you know.”

I inched closer to her until I really could smell her shampoo again, and the faint scent of something spicy wafted around her. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I wanted to bend down and press a kiss behind her ear, but I managed to hold back from doing that. At least for now. “What sort of conversations did you have with my sister about us?”

A tiny smile came to Jessica’s lips, and she dropped her head in a way that, were she any other woman, I’d think meant she was embarrassed. With Jessica, it was more that she was remembering. “She just wanted to know that someone would be looking after you when she was gone.”

I tucked her hair behind her ear since I wasn’t going to let myself kiss her there, just to touch her in some small way. “Not someone. She wanted to be sure
you
were looking after me.” My sister had arranged every damn detail she could arrange, right down to picking out the woman she wanted to be in her kids’ lives. Hell, she’d picked the woman she wanted in
my
life. Unreal.

“Yes,” Jessica said, but there wasn’t really any need for her to confirm it.

I had known my sister far better than she ever would have been able to in such a short amount of time. “Looking after me in what way?” I asked. I didn’t need her to tell me, but I wanted to understand Jessica’s interpretation of Emma’s plans. Emma had already told me exactly what she thought Jessica could be for her children, and she’d told me what she believed Jessica already was for me.

And she’d been right, whether I’d been ready to accept it or not.

Jessica shrugged, but she met my eyes again. “She saw things in me that I didn’t want anyone to see. She realized I felt a lot more for you than I wanted to. She could see that I wanted to help you more than...”

“More than what?”

“More than was maybe good for me. More than I should have if I was going to keep my heart out of things.”

Which, I recalled, she hadn’t. I hadn’t kept my heart out of it, either, but I hadn’t been trying to. “She was always good at seeing more in people than they wanted her to see,” I said. She’d seen things in me that I hadn’t known were there. She’d believed in me more than I ever had. She’d believed I could be what her kids needed, and maybe she’d been right.

I would never replace her. Neither would Jessica. No one would, but I was starting to feel as if my sister hadn’t been crazy in thinking it was best for them to be with me.

“Nicky?”

Jessica’s voice snapped me out of my melancholy.

“Hmm?”

“I asked you a few days ago for some time to think,” she said, and I was instantly on my guard. Maybe I’d been wrong that she’d had enough time to herself by this point. Maybe I should have left her alone tonight, instead of coming out here to sit with her after putting the kids to bed.

“I’m sorry,” I said backing away from her on the sofa. I pulled my hand back to my lap. I’d been playing with her hair, an unconscious action that had just felt right. “I didn’t mean to rush you.”

“You’re not rushing me.” She smiled, and it made me want to smile in return. “I’ve had plenty of time. More than I needed, actually. What I think is that I didn’t treat you very fairly the other day when I assumed you were trying to get some pills from Brenden.”

“You had good reason. And you weren’t that far off the mark. I should have told you, of all people, when I was struggling. But I didn’t. I tried to hide it from you. That was just stupid.”

“Don’t try to excuse away my poor treatment of you,” she argued. “You can’t do that. You deserve better than that, and you need to believe it. The fact is that maybe you thought about ways you could get your hands on something, but you didn’t go through with it, and I had no business treating you as if you had. I was putting other peoples’ faults on you, and that isn’t right.”

“It seems we’re both intent on apologizing to the other,” I observed. I felt my lips quirking up in a smile that I just couldn’t stop.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I do. Like I said, I should have told you I was struggling. If I’m going to stay clean, I have to tell the people who matter when I run into problems like that. There aren’t many people in my life who matter more than you. Do you know that? But I didn’t say a word to you about it, even though I knew how attempting to hide it would hit you if you found out. I let my damn teammates know, but I didn’t tell you. You deserve better than that. I’m sorry.”

She looked thunderstruck, her mouth slightly open. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Are we all right again?” I asked. I reached for her hand, desperate for some small contact with her. “Can we forgive each other and move on?”

She nodded, twining her fingers through mine. The warmth of her touch spread through my body, filling me up from head to toe.

“You know,” she said pensively, “no one’s ever done that with me before.”

“No one has ever apologized to you?”

“Ah.” She shook her head. “Not exactly. I mean, the addicts I’ve loved… They’ve never considered me someone they needed to talk to about their struggles. They’ve always kept me in the dark, or tried to at least.”

“Then maybe they didn’t love you as much as you loved them,” I said. I stopped there, unsure if I was admitting to her that I loved her. She hadn’t quite admitted it to me, either. We’d both hovered just on the edge of blurting out those words, but we were old enough—and maybe wise enough—to know they weren’t words that should be tossed around idly.

They were words that carried a lot of weight.

“Maybe they didn’t,” she said after a moment. She leaned closer and kissed my cheek.

That gave me a far better rush—adrenaline, emotion, whatever—than any pill ever had. I couldn’t promise her I would never succumb to the draw of my addiction again, but as long as she was in my life and making me feel the way she did right now, I had a feeling it would be much easier to fight.

She was worth fighting for.

SINCE THE KIDS
were out of school and Nicky had to head out on the road with the team for five full days, I forwarded the Light the Lamp office’s phones to his house. I took my laptop and as much work as I could load into a file box with me, and I set up shop in the dining room. It was far from ideal, but I didn’t have any better solutions at the moment.

Nils and Hugo had borrowed another video game from Tuck and were camped out in the living room playing it and, for the most part, getting along. Elin alternately sat with me in the dining room and stuffed envelopes—
I want to help
, she’d told me—and hid in her bedroom with a book. Or more likely, with her cell phone, talking and texting with Maddie. I wished I were able to take them out to do something, to get them out of the house since they were bound to grow bored in no time, but no matter how lenient Liam had been with me due to the circumstances, there was work that had to get done.