Page 33 of His Custody

“Just to my room. I won’t do anything, promise. I need to... I don’t even know.”

“Okay. Hey, before you go... can you look at me, please?” Could she? The shame and guilt was eating her up from the inside but Jasper wouldn’t judge her. Had taken her in, had taken care of her, had kept her after he realized the truth, had tried to protect her. Had tried to protect her father from her knowing the truth.

She turned around in silence, not trusting her voice.

“I’ll take care of this,” he said, tapping a finger on the discarded newspaper. “It’ll be done as soon as possible. For your money and mine. No matter what the cost. Cross my heart.”

His promise softened something in her jagged insides. “Thanks.”

Chapter Twelve

November

It had been almost six months since Keyne had come to live with him. In some ways it felt like she’d only been there since yesterday, and in some ways it felt like this was how things had always been.

They had similar habits, which made some of the awkwardness of sharing space with another person go away. They both needed significant amounts of silence, which didn’t mean they wanted to be alone—they regularly sat in his office after Keyne got home from school and did work together until Ada called them for dinner, and then finished up afterward. Whoever finished first would grab the book of crosswords and hunker down until it was Keyne’s bedtime.

She was doing well in school and had even been talking about college. While it was a relentless drumbeat in the back of his head—you have to go, you have to go, you have to go—he’d tried his utmost to be casual about it. He wanted it to be her idea, a thing she wanted for herself, because then she’d work harder for it. So he couldn’t cheer out loud when he noticed a list of potential schools on her desk.

And to be honest, he’d miss her. A lot. It was nice to have someone to come home to at the end of the day, to talk to, to share with, and now that she’d managed—with help from her therapist, and maybe Alice—to dig herself some out of the dark hole she’d been in since May, she was funny. He’d never realized how funny she was before. Probably because he’d never spent this much time with her.

She’d even started hanging out with friends from school, something she hadn’t been able to stomach before. He couldn’t blame her. Most of the kids she went to school with seemed like vacuous, shallow morons with too much time and money on their hands and not enough sense to know what to do with either one.

On the one hand, he didn’t approve of the company and it was hard for him to understand why she’d want to spend time with them—she seemed far more mature than her peers did. He liked spending time with her as a person, and not just someone he was responsible for, and he wouldn’t be able to say the same about the other kids in her class. On the other, Keyne wanting to socialize was a good sign. So be it. Until he picked her up on a Sunday morning from a sleepover.

Keyne looked terrible as she slid into the front seat, crossed her arms over her chest. He had to remind her to buckle her seatbelt and she hardly said a word to him while they drove to the gym.

He parked the car and laid a hand over hers as she went to free herself.

“I’m not letting you walk in that gym until you tell me what’s going on.”

She looked out the window and he wondered if they would sit in the parking lot all day. Fine. He’d apologize to Alice if that’s what he had to do. But his consistency had paid off. Keyne sighed, realizing hewouldsit there all day so she may as well come out with it if she had any hope of getting to beat the crap out of anything today.

“Everyone was talking about boys last night. Tara and Dan started dating so she’s all swoony and obnoxious about it.”

He tried not to show his amusement, pressed his tongue into the roof of his mouth to keep from cracking up. Keyne was so funny when she talked about her peers’ romantic lives. She and Gavin had been like an old married couple practically since they’d been born. It was tragic, in a way, that she hadn’t experienced the rush the possibility of love can bring, the excitement of a new partner. She would, some day, he hoped, but by then she’d be more grown up, the startling intensity of the feelings of a first crush would’ve dulled into a more respectable, responsible affinity.I’m very fond of you as well.

“Anyway, they were asking me if there was anyone at school I liked.”

“Is there?” She hadn’t said anything, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d kept a crush from him. He didn’t relish the idea of talking to her about boys, either. At least he knew their parents had already talked to Keyne and Gavin about sex, and her school had a decent sex ed class, so he wasn’t responsible for having “the talk.” But it was more than that. A lick of jealousy he tried to ignore when she would mention a guy from school. Which was a dozen different kinds of stupid. Not to mention ragingly inappropriate.

She scoffed. “No. They’re dumb.”

“So, no need to start planning a wedding. Got it.” Keyne rolled her eyes at his poor excuse at humor, but at least he’d gotten her to talk to him. He wanted her to keep talking. “That’s not what’s wrong.”

“They started talking about Gavin.” Her chin wrinkled and her lower lip plumped out. “Honestly, I’d rather they talk about him than act like he never existed. That hurts the most. When they erase him. But one of the girls, she looked me straight in the face and said it must’ve felt like my dog died.”

As a guy, Jasper had escaped a lot of the adolescent mean girl nonsense, but he hadn’t been clueless about the catty shit that had gone on. But for someone to say that to Keyne... that was a line it was hard to believe anyone with a heart could’ve crossed.

“I said Gavin wasn’t my pet. He was my boyfriend, my best friend, and she couldn’t possibly understand how close we were, how much I miss him every day. She said I led him around like a puppy and he was my responsibility. I let him off his leash and now he’s dead and it’s all my fault.”

He was going to kill that bitch. He wanted to drag a name out of Keyne, but she wouldn’t tell. Being called a tattletale had been like a fate worse than death for her. Even if it meant getting punished herself because she refused to rat someone out, she wouldn’t do it. She’d take the girl’s name to her grave even though the little shit had hurt her so badly.

“The other girls told her to shut up and leave me alone. One of them told me later her boyfriend had said I was pretty and that’s why she was being so mean, but...”

“But what, Keyne?”

“Itwasmy fault.”

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