Page 63 of Rectify

Avoiding his gaze, I try another tactic. “Why don’t we go to your place, if you want a change in scenery.”

“You think I’m going to take you back there?” His voice is low, and angry, demanding my attention. “Where all that shit went down? It’s bad enough I have to be there with Lily.” He cuts himself off, his shoulders moving with every exhale as he tries to calm himself down. “And the point of our nights together is to be alone. Why would I invite you over when Max and Lily are there?”

Hold up.

“Max lives with you?” The whole cafe turns to look at us, my voice carrying a bit more than I intended it to. He gives the neighbouring patrons a tight smile. “Yeah. You didn’t know?”

My head shakes vigorously “You didn’t tell me.“

Standing, he leaves his seat, and sits next to the chair right beside me. Grabbing my hands, he turns me till we’re facing one another, our legs interlocking. “I honestly thought you knew.”

“No. I assumed she came over on Wednesdays or you took Lily there.”

“It’s not a big deal honestly, there was just so much going on.” His face changes, a little more flustered, the words a little more rushed. “I didn’t intentionally hide it from you.”

He thinks I won’t believe him.

“Jay, baby.” I cradle his face in my hands, and stare him square in the eyes. Waiting for the waves to subside. “I trust you. I’m just shocked, that’s all.”

“I came back to Sydney because Leroy got bashed to the point where he was brain dead upon arrival.” He covers my hands with his, keeping us close together. “Max called me, hysterical. He owed people a shit load of money and they were coming for her.”

In shock, my palm covers my open mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

He kisses me, comfort to both of us before continuing. “I tried to sell the house to come up with the money, but it didn’t sell in time to meet the deadline.”

“What did you do? Are people after you and Max?” My mind takes off on a million different tangents, hysteria close to settling in. “What about Lily?”

“Breathe, Pretty Girl.” He leans his forehead on mine. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Lily and Max. I got a loan against the security business to pay it back.”

His sacrifices have no bounds, and the worry about it al feeling too real if we went out in public, has suddenly taken a back seat to how I feel right now, with him. He isn’t the darkness. Not anymore. He’s the sunrise on a new day, bright, beautiful, and warm. Starting fresh, and full of promises. He’s brand new.

“I’d never met Max, and she didn’t even know Leroy had a brother.” The end of the sentence gets stuck, and he clears his throat to cut through the emotion. His stoic, confident demeanour slips. “He didn’t tell her anything about me.”

Still so close, we stay together, as I try and absorb his current state of heartache.

“I got Max out of trouble. I did it for Leroy,” he clarifies. “She lives with me because as far as I know she’s got nowhere else to go.”

Do you even know how special you are?

I hold back the question, and replace it with something that doesn’t sound like I’m so into him right now. “Is she going to stay there?”

“I want to help her, but it’s a lot of money that I could use.”

Nodding in understanding, I dive straight in to the unavoidable. “So you’ll sell it, and then go?”

One. Two. Three.

The silence is long, but it’s the unspoken beats of our hearts that say everything neither of us will. I wish I didn’t have to bleed out in order to get the answer to the question.

“Jay.” My voice a little more firm. “When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will you?

He cups the back of my neck and pulls me to him, stopping short, millimetres shy off my mouth. “I’ll have a better idea if you go out to dinner with me.”

He attempts to redirect the conversation, and I let him, because the alternative is too heavy, and I want to enjoyus.

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