Page 62 of Carry Me Home
A mature adult would not have kissed her manny on the front porch while her daughter was asleep in bed. A mature adult would definitely not have run away—twice!—instead of having a conversation about it.
Don’t kiss the manny. Don’t even think about fucking the manny. That was the bare minimum of being a good mom. I knew that, but I remained on the precipice of getting my badout, one accidental brush of our hands away from falling over the edge.
And Jack knew it. Facing his knowing smirk across the breakfast table was intolerable—and humiliating. He seemed to have no trouble keeping his hands to himself. It was all me.
But at least I wouldn’t have to deal with this birthday party alone. If there was an upside to having a ridiculously hot manny who happened to be your teenage crush, that was it. Birthday parties were at the top of my least favorite parenting responsibilities. Yes, I was thankful Maya had friends who seemed to view her differences as a good thing instead of plain weird. Yes, I was grateful to adults who ensured she wasn’t left out of parties when every other classmate was invited. But ugh. I hated them.
It was such a relief to have Jack in it with me. I had expected him to be nervous about bringing Maya anywhere only a couple days past her meltdown, and children’s birthday parties weren’t known for their calm, low-stress atmosphere, but Jack had only shrugged and said whatever happened, the world wouldn’t stop turning.
I’ll handle it, he’d said.
Sexier words had never been spoken. It was a miracle I hadn’t leaped over the breakfast table and jumped his bones right then and there.
I headed to the party straight from the Painted Cat, but it was already half over by the time I got there. There was a bouncy house set up in the backyard—my heart sank because Maya had a tendency to treat bouncy houses as an existential crisis. She loved them but hated taking off her shoes. It was unlikely to cause a meltdown, but she could get stuck in a loop.
Then I saw Maya across the yard and breathed a sigh of relief. She had her shoes on and her face was free of tears.
My relief was short lived. Something was wrong. Her braid was half undone and…shorter? I squinted. What the hell? But it was Jack’s expression that had me breaking into an anxious sweat. He slowly turned to the nervous-looking kid behind him and the adult—Sam’s dad, Glen—at his side as I crossed the yard at a jog. Shit, shit, shit. I knew that lethal look in his eyes. He had looked at Todd the exact same way before he removed his hand from my body.
“All he wanted was a hug,” Glen said. “It’s his birthday. It wasn’t right, but Maya is fine. Couldn’t have gotten more than an inch. It’s just hair. Boys will be boys, right?”
My vision went redder than the lock of hair clenched in Sam’s fist.
23
JACK
I might have lethim keep walking if he hadn’t said that. At the very least, I would have let him keep his hair.
The switchblade I kept in my pocket was in my hand before the thought had fully formed in my brain. My body acted on instinct. One quick swipe of the blade was all it took. Feeling the sudden lightness, Sam’s dad froze, then turned around with a shock-slackened face.
I held up his two-inch ponytail like a trophy. “It’s just hair. It will grow back. Boys will be boys, right?”
“You’re a psycho.” He jabbed his finger in the direction of my chest while backing up a step because he wasn’t stupid enough to put an appendage within grabbing distance of me.
“Maybe I am.” I shrugged. “Something you might want to consider before you hurt someone I love.”
I looked at Sam, who stared back at me with round eyes. I didn’t feel great about that, but the kid needed to learn to keep his hands to himself. “That’s not yours,” I said, pointing at Maya’s hair in his fist. He’d cut it right above the black hairband that kept her braid from coming undone. “Give it back to her.”
Looking thoroughly chastened, he handed it over to Maya. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Maya looked at it and shrugged. “Okay.”
Okay?I blinked.
“You need to do something about your manny,” Glen said, and I realized Janie was behind me.
“Oh, I plan to,” she said.
And she waslivid.
“I’m not going to apologize.”I faced Janie in the soft glow of the porchlight with my arms crossed defensively over my chest. “You know how kids who slice open animals turn into serial killers? Well, kids who cut little girls’ hair because they won’t hug them turn into date rapists. If his dad isn’t going to teach him how not to be a little piece of shit, then someone else has to. I did the world a favor.”
Maya was asleep, completely untraumatized by her forced haircut, her hair freshly washed and braided. She’d spent the car ride home yapping about the party and how she couldn’t wait for her aunts to pick her up tomorrow. I was closer to a meltdown than she was.
“I’m not asking you to apologize. Trust me.” Her voice turned wry. “I’m the last person who would make anyone apologize to a man who hasn’t learned to keep his hands to himself. Anyway, his hair was stupid. Growing a ponytail in the back doesn’t make balding in front any less obvious.”
I shifted restlessly. Cutting Glen’s hair wasn’t enough. I still had all that adrenaline in my system with nowhere for it to go. I needed to hit something. Or…fuck someone. I tried not to let my gaze linger where the hem of Janie’s skirt met her pale thighs. She had her knees pressed together as she faced me from the swing. I kept waiting for her to relax, for her knees to drift apart enough to give me something to jerk off to tonight, but she kept her thick thighs locked tight.
