Iron & Bone (Lock & Key #3) (23 page)

He stuck a toothpick in his mouth and signaled for the check. “You think Becs has room for ice cream?” He nudged my leg under the table with his own.

My head ached, my chest felt like a lead weight was pressing on it. Boner was expecting things from me, Catch was expecting things from me...
Catch was terrorizing me
.

I zipped up my handbag. “I should get Becca home. It’s coming up on nap time. She only takes one a day now. And she’s had a big day. Boy, do I miss that second nap.”

“I’ll bet. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”
Plastic smile.
“Thank you for this, but you don’t have to—”

“Take you to eat?”

“I mean, if it’s part of the Old Man/Old Lady show, I get it.”

He quirked a dark eyebrow. “Jill, you’re trying to tell me something, but I’m not getting it.”

I unzipped my handbag, tugged on another baby wipe, and wiped down my own fingers. “You don’t need to entertain me.”

“You gonna tell me what I need now?” His tone was brittle, slicing.

I shot him a look. “Maybe all you needed was to save me.”

He tossed the toothpick onto his empty dish. “And maybe all you ever needed was to be saved.”

Boner was right.

But I didn’t want to be saved this time. I wanted to handle things on my own. I needed to be able to do that.

I unbuckled Becca from the restaurant high chair.

I would give Catch a day or two to cool off, and then I’d call him. Offer him a compromise. Something. Something that did not involve the Jacks and the Flames.

“
WHO THE HELL
knew babies needed so much shit?”

Grace’s eyes blazed at me from across the stroller department of the baby store in Rapid. A young couple shuffled out of my way.

“A lot of
stuff
. They certainly need a lot of stuff,” I said, lowering my voice.

“It seems to get worse every time,” Grace said. “My nephew was born almost seven years ago, and I really don’t remember my sister needing half of this”—she glanced at me—“
stuff
.”

“See what I mean?”

“I can order the stroller for you.” The petite salesgirl returned from the stockroom. “We should have it within two weeks.”

“That would be great. Thank you,” Grace replied.

“I have your information on file. We’ll give you a call.”

Grace slid her arm through mine and led me to the other end of the store. “Let me show you the crib we picked out.”

“We’re not shopping, are we?”

She elbowed me. “We already bought it. I just want to show it to you.”

“Fine. Show it to me.”

“So, how are things with your old lady?”

“How long have you been waiting to ask that question?”

“I’ve been trying to fit it in since we got on your bike at the club.”

“Grace.”

“I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I want to know.” She squeezed my arm.

“I ever get involved in your drama?”

“No.”

“Okay, so?”

“You’ve never had an old lady before, and you jumping in and saving the day at the party was all sorts of amazing and wonderful, but I’m just concerned about how it’s been for you because—”

“Because?”

“Because I think you really like her—like, really, really like her. And I really, really like Jill. I’d like my baby’s mommy to have a happy, fulfilling, and satisfying pregnancy. And I love you. So, I have a vested interest in the two of you working out.”

“Jesus.”

“You know better than to play it cool with me. Let’s hear it.”

We stopped in an aisle lined with Baby Einstein CDs.
What the hell was that?

“Earth to Boner.”

I met her gaze. “I like her.”

“I know that.”

“But this relationship thing is just until the baby’s born.”

“What?”

“It’ll keep Catch away from her now that the line’s been drawn.”

“Right.”

I slapped at a ladybug mobile, and it spun awkwardly.

“You’re full of crap,” Grace said. “The way you came at Catch, I figured it went deeper than the everyday concern or attraction.”

“Just doing the right thing.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“Are we done here?”

“Mr. Denial? Hello?”

I twisted a heel into the floor. “I’m dealing with it.”

Her eyebrows jumped. “Dealing with it? What does that mean?”

“I mean, I feel shit for her.”

She led me down another aisle filled with night lights and glow in the dark crap. “Good shit?”

“Yes. Very good, good shit. But she just got out of a relationship with that asswipe, and she told me a while back that she wasn’t looking to be anyone’s old lady. We’re hanging out, and it’s…good between us.”

“Oh, good.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I know she likes me. She hasn’t been shy about that, but I keep thinking, maybe it isn’t about me, maybe—”

“It’s about Dig?”

“Yeah. It’s just a voice in the back of my head. But, yeah, maybe it’s her vicarious hero worship of my dead best friend who saved her life when she was a teenager.”

“Have you asked her?”

“No, I haven’t asked her.”

“You’ve got to find out. If you really like her and want to pursue the relationship for real, you need to be straight-up with each other. Are you being straight-up with her?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She twisted her lips. “You need to be, so there aren’t any crazy, stupid misunderstandings and all sorts of petty bullshit.”

“You’re so damn smart.”

Grace pinched my side.

“Ow, woman!”

“What did you tell me a few months ago when my first surrogate miscarried, and I was flailing? You remember? You said, ‘Deal with your shit before it deals with you.’ You also told me to let Miller in, to let him really be there in my heart and not let go. How are you and Jill going to work if you’re only letting her part of the way in, and you’re not sure if she’s all in either?”

“You think I don’t know this?”

“Boner, if you have feelings for the girl, you should pursue it and live those feelings. Enjoy them. My sister only had a few years with her husband and her son, but she enjoyed that time, appreciated that kind of happiness. You deserve that kind of happiness too. You so deserve it, honey.” She stopped walking and pressed her lips together, sucking in a short breath through her nose, her eyes watering. “You’ve been alone for way too long, and I don’t know why that is.”

I shrugged. “I’ve never been normal. So what?”

She leaned into me. “You’re very, very special to me. I know there’s plenty you haven’t shared with me. Maybe you can’t because it’s just too painful. I respect that. Whatever it is though, please don’t let it get in the way of you and Jill, if you really want to be with her.”

I stared at my boots and took in a breath.

“Boner?”

“I’ve never had this before, babe,” I whispered. “This sort of good through and through.”

“And you’re not sure what to do with it? Is that it?”

“No, I know what to do with it, and before you ask, I’m not afraid of it either. I want to soak myself in it, in
her
. I just don’t want it to get taken away, like everything and everybody else.”

“I know. But we don’t have control over that, do we?”

I might.

Her hazel eyes searched mine. “You’ve got to let that go. Otherwise, there’s no room for anything else. That’s what I had to do. You do it, too. Let it go, and soak in it.” She hugged me, planting a kiss on my cheek. “I’m so happy for you. Please, please, Boner, be happy, too. This isn’t a burden. It’s a new kind of freedom.”

Freedom? Not for me.

“Boner, you okay?”

“Yeah.” I picked up a bag of spongy bath toys that had fallen on the floor and put it back on the shelf with the others. “It’s fun between me and Jill. No pressure. Plus, she’s thinking about what she wants to do with her life. She’s had to deal with a lot of shit from her past, and that sucks. We know how that feels, and I don’t want that for her. I just…”

“What?”

“I just wonder if she sees me as one of her new possibilities or if I’m just good enough for now.”

Grace didn’t say a word. We both stood still, right there in the middle of baby car seats, her hands gripping my jacket.

We both knew too well the cost of tiny hopes and the pang of wanting to feel those hopes grow and survive, but not sure if they ever would. For years Grace and I both yearned to live that
other life
that was always just beyond our fingertips. Convinced we weren’t worthy, we rarely—if ever—reached toward it. We had avoided it, surrounding ourselves in the bland, the tasteless, the dull, the stale. But, there came a time when you recognized it, and wanted it more than your next breath, when you’d do anything—just fucking anything—to taste it, to have it for yourself.

And you reached.

Grace and Lock had finally reached, and they had it now.

Grace let go of my jacket and wiped at her eyes. Her gaze snagged on something over my shoulder.

“Oh, nice.” She moved toward a row of plush rocking chairs beckoning to her from across the aisle. She glided her hands over the deep back cushion of an oak-stained one, a small smile blooming on her face.

Something shifted in my chest.

Grace was smiling over baby furniture.

I crossed the aisle and joined her. She sat in the chair and smiled again as she rocked. Fuck, this was a hell of a difference from over seventeen years ago—when she had been lying in a hospital bed, wanting to end her life, after she’d lost her first love and their unborn baby and had been told she’d never be able to carry another one after the emergency surgery she had to have.

Grace had begged me for a way to end it, so I brought her the pills. I didn’t want her to suffer anymore. I only wanted to give her what she wanted. Grace was the one who held us together, and I’d never seen her like that before—no anchor, tossed on the sea, blind, drowning, no will to lift her head up, to even take her next breath.

I was tempted to end it with her that black night of a hundred horrors. She took the pills I’d brought her, and she made me leave.

Butler’s wife, who ended up staying with her that night, figured it out though. The doctors pumped Grace’s stomach, and thank God, she made it.

It was her choice, but I’d made it happen for her. And the unsuccessful attempt only made her more miserable than before, if that were at all possible. I hated myself for it even more, and we could barely face each other after that night.

A month later, without a word, she left South Dakota and all of us behind. All I knew was, with Dig dead, their baby lost, and Grace gone, too, I’d lost everything that meant something to me all over again. Yeah, I still had the club, my brothers, but the meaning of it had been ripped away, broken.

Just like it had been in the aftermath of Hurricane Inès.

Months had gone by after Grace had left without a word, but I had to know, I had to see her, and I was real determined. I’d kept tabs on her sister and stolen her mail a couple of times. I’d finally found a card from a post office box in Dallas under their mother’s name.

I went down there and waited for Grace. One day, she showed up to check her mail—thin, spooked, blank. I followed her home to this tiny studio apartment, and I broke in, not wanting to take a chance that she wouldn’t open the door if I rang the bell like a normal visitor. She was actually glad to see me once she’d gotten over the shock. We got wasted, strung out on booze, weed, and regret—talking, talking, talking—and we ended up kissing. We stopped it and fell asleep on the sofa, holding on to each other.

When I woke up the next morning, she was gone.

I was destroyed, stranded. Again.

But I knew she was right for leaving. We’d only called the ghosts back up that night. It hadn’t been comforting. It had been haunting, and it’d sliced deep and hurt in new, fresh ways.

It had been dangerous to see each other again.

If I brought her back to Meager or stayed with her, we would have only clung to each other, making us something we weren’t, something we weren’t meant to be, and it would have been out of our pain and loneliness, not something whole but something made up of missing.