“Hadn’t you ought to be getting to the boatyard?” he asks Otto. I mentally put my head in my hands as Anya and Pearl ping-pong looks between them, each with a cup at their lips, trying to look absorbed in their drinks. Daniel’s our saving grace here. But then the sound of ceramic scraping across the marble counter pierces the air and he’s up and gone, declaring he wants to get his assignment done and submitted before he goes out on the water.
“Not today, kid,” Danny calls after him, making him screech to halt at the doorway.
“What? Why?” he whines, his whole body deflating, making him look like a little boy again.
“Yes, why?” I ask.
“Because I said so.” Danny releases Esther. No flex whatsoever? That means only one thing. There’s a delivery or an exchange or . . . I quietly inhale. The delivery is today. I look at my husband. He’s suited. Is something happening before the delivery? And wasn’t Beau supposed to be helping with that?
Daniel stomps off, sulking, and my heart hurts for him. He just wants to go out on his jet ski. I’m pretty sure if he did that every day, he’d be happy. But he can’t because it’s the freight terminal for all illegal weaponry coming into the country for his gun-running stepdad. I growl under my breath, as annoyed as my son. I know that Danny can provide an amazing life for our children, but it’s also a life of constraints, and there is fuck all I can do about it, and that just makes me feel like a shitty mom.
I down my juice, scowling at Danny’s back as he and Otto leave the kitchen. “Don’t say it,” Esther warns, obviously reading me as she always does. “Not today.”
“What’s today?” Pearl asks, too curious.
“Nothing,” Esther and I snap in unison, making her startle. I smile awkwardly and get back to my juice. If we can’t hide things from a not-so curious son, I haven’t a hope of hiding it from a very curious twenty-one-year-old who is also asking too many questions about Brad.
Nolan swaggers into the kitchen, buttoning his suit jacket, looking very suave, his hair pristine, his tie knot faultless. He looks handsome. And he’s early twenties. My eyes shoot to Pearl. Now this would be a healthy attraction. A more well-suited object for her attentions. But she’s not given him a second glance, her attention on the coffee cup she’s slowly spinning on the counter. Fuck. I catch Anya’s eye, and she shrugs, smiling through pressed lips.
Esther pours Nolan a coffee and adds some sugar. “There you are,” she says, moving on to another task, baking if the ingredients she’s pulling down are a clue.
Nolan’s attention falls onto me. “Brad mentioned you might be coming to work at the club.”
I blink, surprised, double checking who Nolan’s talking to. “Me?”
“Yeah, something about bookkeeping?”
“Me?” I repeat, my finger pointing at my chest. Working at Hiatus? A small smile starts to form. I’d have my own job? Get paid? Have my own money?
“Brad has a club?” Pearl asks, interested.
“It’s strip joint,” I clarify. And a place for laundering money.
“Figures,” she says over a small laugh, and I recoil, surprised, making Pearl wave a hand dismissively, getting up and refilling her coffee.
“Does Danny know?” I ask Nolan.
“Know what?”
I turn and find my husband at the door again, his legs wide, his hands in his trouser pockets, relaxed. “Will you stop doing that?” I say, swiveling on my stool and facing him. “You never mentioned Brad said I could work at the club.”
The dark look Danny throws Nolan’s way is lethal. It tells him he better leave or he’ll die. Not surprisingly, Nolan abandons his coffee and makes a hasty exit. I fold my arms over my chest. I mean business. “Well?”
Danny walks slowly over to me, hands still sunk into his pockets, and stops before me, bending to get his face close to mine. I peek out the corner of my eye and see Pearl back at the island with a fresh coffee. She and Anya are smiling behind their cups. I don’t know why. This isn’t going to be funny. Infuriating, perhaps, but not funny. I give my husband my attention. His hair needs trimming. His stubble too. “I didn’t mention it,” he says, giving me a kiss that I don’t reciprocate. “Because it will never happen.”
I huff, not at all surprised, and turn my face away, getting off the stool and going to the fridge. I pull out a jar and unscrew the lid, pulling out a chili. “Maybe Anya and Pearl could learn the ropes on the bar.” The poor things must be bored out of their minds, and since they’re apparently not going anywhere, we should at least find something for them to do so they can earn some money.
Danny looks across to the girls, who are looking very interested in my suggestion. His eyebrows are high. “It’s Brad’s club, not mine.” He shrugs, and I laugh under my breath. It’s Danny’s club too, for Christ’s sake.
The room falls silent when James walks in, his focus set forward, the atmosphere thick, as well as the tension radiating off him. He goes to the fridge, stands there just looking inside. “I chopped some for you,” Esther says, reaching past him and pulling out a glass of green stuff.
James looks at her, blank. “Thanks.”
“Welcome.” She puts the glass in his grip and leaves him by the fridge studying it. “Kiwi, blueberries, banana, broccoli, and mango.”
He visibly swallows, staring at the glass. “Mango,” he says, looking at me, and my heart breaks, not only because he reveals the side of his face that I slapped and the evidence is there, but because mango is one of Beau’s favorites. I have to look away, unable to see the utter hopelessness on him. It’s shameful of me, cowardly. I hear the glass meet the counter and look up. He’s not touched it.
“James,” I call as he walks out, but he doesn’t stop. I glance at Danny and see the same despair as I feel. I jump up and grab the green juice, going after him. “James, please. Stop.” I catch him at the bottom of the stairs and grab his arm, stopping him. Of course, he could shrug me off if he wanted to, but he doesn’t, and I’m grateful. He doesn’t face me, so I round his big body and take one step up, putting myself in front of him. And because of the height difference, I see his face. The pain etched across it. The deep stress lines making him look older than he is. Seeing him like this makes me unreasonably mad with Beau. I know why she’s doing this. I feel her despair as much as I do James’s. It also has me making a silent vow to never run out on Danny and leave him wondering and worrying if I’m alive.
“I’m sorry I slapped you,” I say quietly, resting the guilty still-stinging palm on his forearm. “I really haven’t heard from her, I swear it.” I don’t want him to believe I would be cruel enough to leave him in this desolation if I could remove him from it. But I haven’t heard from her so I can’t.
He swallows and lifts his head a fraction, and my heart splinters more when I see his eyes are glazed with tears he’s fighting to hold back. “I need to find her, Rose. Before someone else does.” He clears his throat and roughly wipes at his cheeks on a sniff, and I hold out the glass.
“Drink,” I order, hoping the concoction reloads him with some strength that’s been kicked out of him.