She did some serious drinking after his exit.
It seemed only fair. He had an unwanted hard-on last night, so she could have an ungodly hangover this morning. For a brief moment, he took pity. Considered brewing her a pot of strong coffee, the only state-of-the-art appliance in the efficiency-sized kitchen. Then thought better. That gesture would be considered kind. He wasn’t kind.
Not to anyone, but especially not to his enemies.
That being the case, he couldn’t explain why he brought her food when she had three dozen muffins individually boxed—tied with pretty ribbon, no less—stacked on the table, or headache medicine, when she’d been a pain in his ass for the last decade.
Yes, he could.
He needed to see if it was still here.
Jameson’s gaze went to the hope chest. The antique looked as if it hadn’t been moved in years, much less filled with anything even remotely hopeful.
Not since the last time he opened it. And placed inside the most hopeful gift he’d ever purchased.
Approaching it as he did a roadside bomb with a red flashing light, he eyed it for a while. Silently moved the magazines sitting on top. Carefully opened the latch, the small key fitting the rusty lock lost years ago.
The hinges creaked and he paused, glancing up to see if the sound woke her.
She let out a rough little whimper that made his balls tighten, rolled her face into the pillow, and started snoring. Smiling because he couldn’t not, he looked inside the hope chest . . . and that smile slipped.
It was still there.
Under his mother’s favorite afghan, the one that reminded him of death, a corner of the thin box showed. Covered in a sunny yellow paper—he paid extra for the boutique to professionally gift-wrap it for him—the edges were still crisp, but the ribbon was flat and misshapen.
A time capsule of sorts, buried inside the chest.
Hope, on the grandest scale an eighteen-year-old man heading off to boot camp could come up with.
Pushing the multi-colored afghan aside, he pulled out the lightweight box. A foot wide and a foot long, it was only a few inches thick and weighed next to nothing.
But it had an important job to do, the contents of that box.
Warm Jameson’s world.
The cheap tag that came free with every gift-wrap, no more than a rectangle of matching construction paper folded in half, was still attached to the ribbon.
Each for the other, two against the world.
Written in his own handwriting.
The phrase in black ink, he’d taken a red pen and crossed out one of the words, editing their special saying to suit the special occasion.
He was so happy that day. And so fucking scared.
Looking back on it now, those ladies in that boutique must have taken one look at him and known, despite his determination to find the perfect item, it was a long shot he’d ever see it in use.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he blocked out the events that occurred next. Silently breathed through the pain that was still fresh, welcomed the rush of anger that replaced it. The box was still there, undisturbed, as if a memorial. A gift he meant to give her, but never got the chance.
Putting it back as he found it, Jameson was glad he’d not made her coffee. That he’d not kissed her back. That he’d not eaten her muffin. And after a quick, gratuitous peek at her under-boob, he turned to leave, catching the glint of broken glass in the rising sun’s reflection though the open blinds.
His mother’s embroidered doily. Propped up on the dresser, the frame busted, the glass cracked.
There was masking tape wadding the corners where Chloe tried to fix it. By the looks of it, while drunk. The wooden frame was cheap to begin with but now it had an uncanny similarity to a pair of nerdy eyeglasses with the hinges taped.
She’d used more tape, the clear kind and several layers of it, on the glass, following the mess of spider web cracks in some kind of Frankenstein-like repair job.
It was comical.
And, at the same time, so fucking sad.
She’d labored, wasting rolls of household tape in an effort to jigsaw puzzle it back together. Like the simple monogrammed gift his mother gave her, worth next to nothing monetarily, but more valuable than life itself.
He looked back at that hope chest.
Magazines in place, in precisely the same position he found them, nobody would ever know he opened it. Nor would they know that inside was a simple gift worth next to nothing monetarily yet more valuable than life itself.
An item deemed hopeless, ten years ago.
“I hate you, Chloe.” He whispered the condemnation, which sounded strangely more like an endearment.
So, why do I still love you?
He left without touching her.
Mission accomplished. Plan C a success.
You know that moment when you’re driving along, minding your own business, heading to the shooting range for a little peace and quiet?
Some pampered me-time if you will, not looking for trouble, when . . . bam!
You suddenly come upon an accident. And no fender bender, this one. It’s a twenty-car pile-up. An accordion of metal, rubber, and steaming radiators, the likes of which make insurance agents stop answering their policyholder’s calls.
You’re not the first on the scene, so you hang back and observe the carnage, happy you weren’t one of those doomed drivers who got himself rear-ended.
Well, today . . . Jameson was that doomed driver. And he was taking it right in the ass from Chloe Morgan herself. Figuratively speaking, of course.
By his own damn doing.
“Chloe,” Cade said, reading the name on the embroidered doily laid out on the worktable at the back of the store. “She your girlfriend?”
“No.” Not looking up, Jameson cursed his big hands, the small finishing staples too tiny to handle. Grabbing a needle-nose pliers, he added, “More like my enemy.”
Removing the embroidered material from the broken frame—along with a thousand tiny shards of glass and a softball-sized wad of tape—had been the easy part. He contemplated saving the old frame for her, unsure whether she’d want it as a keepsake. His mom had given her the gift while on her deathbed, after all.
But then he said, “Fuck it and fuck her,” to himself, and trashed the old pieces and parts. If she valued the item, why the hell was it broken to begin with?
“You’re doing painstakingly detailed repair work on a monogrammed item belonging to your enemy?”
Jameson stopped to glare. “What’s your point, kid?”
Because yeah, he was building a brand-new frame and cutting a clean sheet of glass—all custom-sized—for Chloe. She’d not asked him to, but then again, he’d not asked if he could take the broken possession with him when he left the carriage house this morning.
“No point.” His skepticism clear, Cade shrugged, letting Jameson believe what he wanted. “Let’s go with frenemy, then.”
Securing all four corners of the frame with a bead of wood glue to reinforce the staples, he clamped them and set the project aside, allowing it to harden before he set the glass in place.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“My dad.” His attention on the woodworking tools around him, he organized the area where Jonah spent so much time fixing small appliances and power tools. And the occasional remote-control car when a six-year-old Jameson drove his beloved toy off the rocks near the shore, taking it to his father in tears. He’d hand the cracked pieces to his dad, the RC car looking like the tenth vehicle in that twenty-car pile-up Jameson was currently stuck in, and magically, Jonah fixed it.