My eyes trace over the first orange and black butterfly tattooed at the front of my right hip. I turn and follow in the mirror up the twisting, brightly-colored line of tiny fluttering wings that arches over my right butt cheek, across my low back, and underneath my left shoulder blade, then skims the back of my shoulder on its way to looping over the top and ending at my left collarbone. No single butterfly has a wingspan larger than half an inch, and most are smaller, but there are two hundred and nine of them, one for each day I spent in the group home. They took two years to finish, and the money I spent on them really should have gone to dance lessons, but they remind me of my freedom . . . and never to let myself get trapped again.
I step into the warm water, feeling its fingers tickling over my skin. I’m just rinsing my conditioner a few minutes later when the shower curtain slides open and Brett steps in. He cups my backside in his hands. “Hilary McIntyre, this is one fine ass.”
I turn and glance at his growing erection. “Sorry, baby, but I’m late for my sister’s.”
He lays a hand on himself and strokes, a wicked grin curving his mouth. “I’ve got a few ideas on how to make you even later.”
“I’ve gotta go. It’s Jeff’s birthday dinner.”
He shrugs and lets himself go, but that smile is still there. “Later then.”
I know better than to invite Brett to Mallory’s. He would probably go, but he wouldn’t want to be there. He hates kids. And the truth is, I don’t want him there anyway. I like to keep the three Fs compartmentalized. Family=Mallory, Friend=Jessica, Fuck=Brett. No cross-pollination. It’s just easier that way.
I finish up in the shower and abandon him to the cold water. Wrapping a towel around my hips without bothering to dry off, I pad up the hall to our room, where I pillage the closet and come out with a short, layered skirt and a snug black sweater. This outfit is kick-ass with my new boots. I drop my towel on the bed and go to the mirror over the dresser. I squirt some Frizz-Ease into my palm and tame my kinks into soft curls, then twist them around my fingers so they come out tight corkscrews. I’m leaning against the dresser brushing on my mascara a few minutes later when Brett comes in, a towel slung low on his hips.
His fingers trail up the inside of my thigh. “You sure you’re not up for a quickie?”
No, I’m not sure at all. But if I miss Jeff’s dinner, I’ll never hear the end of it. “I’m already late.” I reach for him and squeeze. “But hold that thought.”
Chapter Two
THERE IS NOTHING quite as effective at throwing all my inadequacies in my face as a trip to my sister’s. She’s the picture of middle-class America: a husband, two point four kids, a white picket fence, and a dog. (Okay, there’s no actual picket fence, or point four of a kid, but there may as well be.) She’s everything I’m not and never could be, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
Don’t get me wrong. I owe everything to Mallory and Jeff. They’re the only family I have. But it’s still hard to be around them sometimes, even though I really don’t want that life. I’m not cut out for marriage, or motherhood, or a mortgage, or any kind of commitment at all, for that matter.
And I’m not jealous.
I’m really not.
But, still . . .
I celebrated my fourteenth birthday by getting shipped off to a group home after our mother decided to pull her little stunt and got herself thrown in jail. The law doesn’t look kindly on driving with a 2.1 blood alcohol level and running down an innocent man in the process. But the truth is, everyone had already abandoned me years earlier. By the time Mallory left for college when I was ten, Mom was too wrapped up in the bottle and her boyfriends (even the ones that hit her) to give much of a shit about anything else, so I was just baggage. We never heard from Mallory. I was alone. I started doing things like ripping out hunks of hair or biting my nails until they bled, because physical pain was something I could grasp. It meant I existed. And it was easier to deal with than the loneliness.
After Mom went to jail, the court wouldn’t let Mallory have custody of me until she was twenty-one and employed, even though she wanted me, so I had seven months in the system. That was all I needed to see why kids who come out of foster care nearly always go bad. Mallory was finishing college in Florida, so she wasn’t around until I went to rehab, then she was trying to find a job so they’d let her have me. It was a long seven months.
When I finally came to live with her I was pretty messed up. It couldn’t have been easy to take me in. And on top of it, she and Jeff had only been dating, like, eight months. Me and all my baggage would have been enough to send most guys running for the hills, but Jeff treated me like a princess—like part of the family. Anything I wanted, he got it for me. He got me caught up so I could go back to school for my sophomore year. He’s always felt like the father I never had.
He and Mallory got married four months after I moved in, eighteen days before Henri was born. From there, it was all late-night feedings and burpings and the inevitable spit-up, doctor’s appointments, and poopy diapers. Tons of poopy diapers. But Jeff didn’t shy away from any of it. He was in poop and puke up to his elbows and never once complained.
And he and Mallory are still totally in love. Like I said: the picture of America.
I take the PATH to Jersey City, but my bus connection is delayed, so I’m even later than I’d thought. When I finally step up to their door and ring the bell, their big golden lab, Rufus, starts barking in the backyard. A second later, the door is flung open and I’m looking down at a four-and-a-half-foot person with a mop of sable hair and big gray eyes. Henri.
“Hey, buddy! How’s it going?” I say, ruffling his shaggy hair.
“Auntie! Come see what I made for Dad!” He takes my hand in his sweaty little one and tows me through the door, then waits while I kick off my shoes.
“Hey, Hil! I’m in the kitchen,” Mallory calls when we reach the family room.
“You need help?” I yell back as Henri drags me across the room toward his little brother, who is sprawled on the carpet, propped on his elbows, poking away at a laptop in front of him.
“See!” Henri exclaims, kneeling next to a Lego pirate ship on the coffee table in front of the worn green couch. There’s a big red bow attached to the mainmast.
“Wow, buddy. That’s really amazing. He’s going to love it.” And I’m not just saying that. Jeff and Henri are both Lego geeks. Before the night is through, they’ll have taken this apart and rebuilt it together. I ruffle his hair again and cross to his little brother. I fold my legs and drop onto the carpet next to him cross-legged. “Hey, Max. What ya doing?”
“Shhh!” Max hisses without looking away from the screen.
“Minecraft,” Henri says, coming up behind me and hugging my shoulders.
Max is madly poking at keys and staring at the screen as if we aren’t even here. He’s always been the serious kid. Though he looks like his dad, he’s just like his mom—totally focused and self-sufficient. Six going on sixty, Mallory likes to joke. That kid was dressing himself at eleven months and he potty trained himself by two. If you try to cuddle him, he’ll struggle out of your arms, and if you don’t let go, he’ll hit you. They say he’s high-spectrum autistic, but I don’t put much stock in labels.
God knows I’ve got a few that are bullshit.
Henri, on the other hand, has always been the cuddlebug. He’s just about the happiest kid I’ve ever seen, and even at seven, he loves to snuggle. Mallory calls him her “big ball of love.” When he was little and I still lived here, he used to crawl into my lap and cuddle against my shoulder, wrapping a strand of my kinky hair around his hand and sucking it with his thumb. The feeling of his little body burrowed into me tugged at my heart in a way nothing else ever could.