Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(16)
She smiles proudly and hands it over with a soft pat on the back of my forearm. Mmm, the dish is still warm. Betrayal has never tasted so sweet.
“Got it.” She winks. “And you’ll have our solidarity as always. See ya tomorrow, hon.”
I close the door and turn around with my spoils in hand. My sisters meet me with a pitiful look (Annie turned the phone so Madison could watch the whole situation unfold). Guilt hunches my shoulders—but I can’t give in to it. Where Jackson is concerned, I get a free pass.
“Emily, that’s going to be all over town by tomorrow, you know? Everyone is going to shun him.” Annie looks distraught. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Absolutely.” I grab a fork and dive headfirst into this damn good casserole, imagining with every delicious bite the look on Jackson’s face when he realizes he’s been bested. Hopefully this was enough to keep him from invading my life any more than he already has.
FROM: Emily Walker <[email protected]> TO: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, May 28 2:00 PM
SUBJECT: E.T. phone home?
Is that giant metal box in your front yard here to take you back to your home planet???
FROM: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> TO: Emily Walker <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, May 28 2:05 PM
SUBJECT: E.T. phone home?
This, Emily Stalker, is the accumulation of all the belongings I have left after my split with Zoe—freshly shipped to me from the good state of Nebraska.
FROM: Emily Walker <[email protected]> TO: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, May 28 2:07 PM
SUBJECT: E.T. phone home?
Jack . . . that’s a very small pod. You didn’t get to keep more than that???
FROM: Jack Bennett <[email protected]> TO: Emily Walker <[email protected]> DATE: Tue, May 28 2:10 PM
SUBJECT: E.T. phone home?
I offered for her to keep most of it—a clean slate sounded pretty nice.
Chapter Five
Jack
I’m not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to live in the house I’m going to renovate while it’s happening. It seemed like a no-brainer: I’m a bachelor. No kids. I can easily rough it in an old house for a few weeks during the summer amid some construction.
Except for one problem: I forgot that I’m high maintenance. As in, I like to be comfortable and surrounded by things that make that outcome possible. I’m not twenty anymore—and it shows. I didn’t feel like putting up a fight with Zoe to get half of our things in the breakup, so I just took the stuff she didn’t want anymore and had it shipped in a pod to the new house, where it will live in the front yard until construction is complete.
So for now, I’m only moving a few basics into my rotten, crusty house and keeping everything to my bedroom while they renovate the living room, bathroom, and kitchen. (The bathroom will still be usable while under construction—it just won’t be pretty.) Once they begin work on my room, I’ll move my stuff into the living room and sleep there for a while. Shouldn’t be difficult since literally all I have right now is a desk and a very temporary twin-sized bed that I ordered offline with next-day shipping. My clothes will remain in a suitcase.
I might as well be camping for how much I’m roughing it.
Darrell—my contractor—is stopping by later today so I can sign the contract, and then construction is set to start next Monday. I’ll have a functioning kitchen and walls that are not rotting around me in no time.
But today, I’m at the local market shopping for groceries that can be prepared without a kitchen. So far I’ve got crunchy peanut butter and bread. I take my grocery haul to the front of the store and silently unload all of my items onto the countertop. When I finally look up, I startle to find two people staring at me. An older woman, maybe in her early seventies, is behind the counter wearing a black dress with her gray hair tied back in a severe bun with skin so translucent I can see her blue veins. She’s watching me with an indistinguishable expression. And the other is a white middle-aged man with cargo shorts, rosy red cheeks, polo shirt, tall socks, and sneakers standing on this side of the checkout counter, leaned back against it, and surveying me openly.
“Hello,” I say hesitantly, because I am incredibly good at reading people’s moods—you can’t have a narcissistic father without becoming an expert in the art—but these people are giving out mixed signals. Almost looking like they want to talk to me but are equally concerned I might be about to rob the place. Have they seen the crunchy peanut butter? How threatening can a person be with a jar of peanut butter?
“Hi there.” The man’s eyes bob all over me, and then a small sad frown puckers between his brows. “I’m Phil—owner of the hardware store across the street. And this here is Harriet. She owns this market.”
“Nice to meet you both.” I’m still not sure what the weird vibes are about, but if there’s anything I’m excellent at, it’s winning someone over.
I smile and extend my hand to Phil because he looks like the kind of guy who would appreciate a nice firm handshake. My suspicions are confirmed when our hands meet and his eyes light up. “I’m Jack. I just moved into town, and I teach at the elementary school.”
“Oh, we know all about you, Jackson Bennett. Thirty-two years old, grew up in Evansville but just purchased Old Pete’s house. You’ve taught in the second grade alongside our Emily for the last three years, you drive a fancy-schmancy Land Rover, and your dad is the mystery writer Fredrick Bennett,” says Phil with startling accuracy.