Big Pickle: A Secret Boss Romantic Comedy - JJ Knight Page 0,64

want to curl up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and try to console yourself.

But we have people to feed, and desserts to package. I move behind the register to get started.

The rain doesn’t let up, so by the time I get home late that afternoon, I’m absolutely ready to curl up in a sweatshirt with a hot drink.

Leah sits at the kitchen table, math homework spread out in front of her. “There should be a law against replacing numbers with letters in math problems.”

I lean over her shoulder. “They’re teaching algebra in fourth grade?”

“My generation is so much smarter than yours.”

I thump her lightly on the head. “I think we’re the same generation.”

Leah shakes her head. “No. You’re old. And definitely dumber.”

I head to the microwave to heat a cup of water. “What’s with all the hate today?”

She twirls the pencil through her dark hair. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe somebody mooning over some dude like there isn’t a million fish in the sea.”

“I thought you liked Jason.”

Leah rolls her eyes in that particularly charming way known only to elementary school kids. “I did until he broke my sister’s heart.”

Mom walks into the kitchen just in time to hear Leah’s pronouncement. “Did somebody break my baby’s heart?” She pulls a previously opened bottle of wine from the cabinet, but I shake my head no at her. It can wait until Leah is in bed.

“That Jason boy from work,” Leah says coldly.

Mom frowns but sets the bottle back on the shelf. “Who is this boy?”

I don’t want to admit he’s the owner. “A guy from work. He moved back to New York. That’s all.”

Mom gets all interested. I steel myself for one of her random acts of mothering. She presses both her hands to my cheeks. “My baby. How is it I don’t know about this man?”

Probably because she doesn’t pay a lick of attention to anything but her own life. But I simply say, “He was only in town for a little while.”

Mom’s eyes search my face. “So, this is the reason you didn’t come home a lot?”

Leah’s head pops up. “She’s setting a terrible example for her impressionable little sister.”

I reach down and thump her head again. “It’s different when you’re a grown up.”

“Back to your homework, Leah,” Mom says. She takes a step back from me. “A man who can’t stay through thick and thin is no man for the heart of my daughter.”

“He was never meant to—” I cut myself off. Why am I defending him?

“You know I’m right.” She trails her fingers through Leah’s hair. “I have made terrible choices in men, but they gave me two wonderful daughters. So for that, I can’t hate them.”

Both Leah and I snap to attention. Mom never talks about our fathers.

I only know my father’s name because I saw it when we did the paperwork for my driver’s license. I immediately looked him up.

Married for twenty years. And I was sixteen.

When I confronted her with what I’d found, she said, “Some men will promise you the world and leave you only with ashes. A man like that is not worthy of being the father of my children.”

I’ve never contacted him, although I looked at pictures of his other kids for a year or two. Eventually, I graduated and lost interest in the sperm donor I’ll never know.

Leah’s father is an even bigger mystery. Mom made up the name on Leah’s birth certificate, a problem we’ll eventually have to deal with.

But not today.

As usual, considering my mother’s problems makes mine seems small. So what if a temporary love affair ended like it was supposed to?

But the way my eyes prick tells me otherwise.

“My water’s hot,” I say, headed for the microwave.

I dunk a teabag in the cup and head to my room, where I’ll get a blissful bit of alone time while Leah finishes her homework.

Living with my entire family at twenty-two is definitely no picnic. I have zero privacy, but I’m committed to providing stability for Leah until she graduates high school.

Eight more years. Then I’ll be thirty.

Like Jason. Jace.

I force myself to focus on my tea, reveling in the steam rising to my face.

I’m surviving this. It might not be easy. But it’s probably for the best. The one time we tried living in his world, I bailed before we got to the maître d’.

Men like Jace Pickle simply aren’t made for girls like me.

31

Jace

I thought two weeks on the Riviera would be amazing. A