Page 83 of Please, Sir

“Exhausted. One of my smoke alarms went off at two in the morning, and I couldn’t figure out which one so I ended up beating all of them with a broom handle.” She yawns again. “Handyman is here now, repairing them.”

“Oh,” I draw out, coy as ever. “So your boyfriend wasn’t there to help?”

“No sleepovers yet. I’m old. Sleepovers mean forever in my book, you know that,” she says before launching into a speech of advice on how to handle my parents today. I listen, but in the back of my mind, I circle on her words. Sleepovers mean forever.

I’ve been living with Jo Jo and Jake for the last three months. I never spent another night in my home in Bluebell after Michael attacked me at the school that day. In fact, I rented it out to someone else already.

I live here, there’s no doubt. But this guest room isn’t where I should be living. It’s not where my heart is. And now that Jo Jo and I have had our sleepover, it feels like the right time to make the move to Jake’s room. We wanted time for Jo Jo to grow comfortable with the idea.

“Sounds good, Leah,” I tell her, because the advice, despite the fact I was only halfway listening, was good—of what I heard, of course. “I’ll call you after to let you know how it went.”

“Good luck!” she offers before hanging up.

Jo Jo sets her phone down. “It’s so weird that you’re like, friends with the principal.”

“Why? She’s just a person like me and you. She wants friends, she wants to laugh, she likes talking on the phone.” I sip my coffee and moan at the perfection of the roast and the impending relief from the brew. “God this is good.”

“I know she’s a person,” Jo Jo smirks. “It’s just… she’s like, the principal.” She glances down at her phone then back up to me. “Does she like that job?”

I volley my head, considering the question. “She likes it. Any job has its downsides, but overall she likes it. Why?”

Her cheeks flush as she picks lint off the comforter. “I don’t know. I think it seems like it could be a cool job.”

“Yeah?” I ask, surprise in my tone, but excitement too. Jake was worried that Jo Jo wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, and not in the sense that he wanted her to have a plan but moreso, wanted her to find her passion. “You know, if you wanted to, I could probably arrange a little meeting. You could ask Ms. Mitchell all the questions you’d like.”

She lifts a shoulder and drops it. “Yeah, maybe.”

There’s a knock on the door and Jake is in the doorway, making me feel things I ought not feel with Jo Jo next to me. With his hat, flannel and dirty jeans on, boots too, he grips the doorframe, grinning at us. He even tips that hat, exposing his tousled dark hair. My eyes move to the triangle of tanned skin peeking out from his royal and black tartan flannel. I think of two nights ago, when he gave me twenty lashes with his belt—which I crawled to him and begged for, by the way.

“Morning again ladies,” he says. “Hate to break up the fun but if you’re both trying to get showered before we go, there’s not much time.”

They’re dropping me off at therapy and heading to the farmer’s market to work the Turner Saddlery booth together. Jo Jo’s been working the booth with both of us for the last few weeks. It’s been so nice.

And today is extra special because Jake has been working on a custom saddle for Jo Jo since the start of the school year. He gets her a graduation gift after every grade, and when he explained the tradition to me then showed me the saddle, Icried. I cried for the beauty of the saddle and the breathtaking craftsmanship, I cried for what it symbolized between father and daughter, but mostly, I cried because it’s going to be such a special moment for them, it makes my chest explode just thinking about it.

I stick out my bottom lip in a pout. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

He saunters in, smelling too damn good for ten after seven on a Saturday morning. And looking too damn good, too. He kisses Jo Jo’s head, then mine. “We’ll have dinner out back tonight together then we’ll tell you all about the market and you can tell us what you want about therapy.” He tugs the covers back after lifting the near-empty breakfast tray off the bed. “Now get up and get going. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not late.”

“Hi,”I say quietly, leaning over the desk. “I’m Riley Rivers, I’m here for the 8:30 appointment.”

The woman behind the desk smiles. “Lovely. I’ll get you checked in and you can just have a seat in the waiting area. Your other party members haven’t arrived yet.” She sticks her hand out, motioning to the waiting room where a woman sits, her face covered by the magazine she’s reading.

“Thanks,” I say, quietly slipping into a seat.

A woman exiting the restroom turns my way and holy shit.

“Cadence?”

After that day in the gym, Cadence stopped with her dirty looks and shitty comments. I figured she only stopped because it would look bad to pick on the new lady whose ex-boyfriend held her captive in an office for an hour. Truthfully, she stopped and that’s where my thoughts about Cadence ended.

She smiles awkwardly, looking around the empty office once before coming to sit one seat away from me.

“Hi.” She looks me up and down as if hunting for an obvious symptom. “You… see Dr. Tanner, too?”

“Yeah,” I reply, bobbing my head. “I’m a serial killer and I’m really hoping to stop.”

Cadence smiles. “Oh yeah? I’m here to try and stop smoking.”

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