Megan Hart - Captivated - Letting Go / Seize the Night

“Dad,” Laila said, exasperated. “Pay attention! Yes, that’s what I mean!”

“But not until next year.”

“Yeah, when I’m in sixth grade.” Laila finished the last of the mousse and dumped the container in the garbage, then rinsed the spoon before putting it in the dishwasher. That was a trick her mother had taught her, that was for sure.

“Let’s worry about it when you’re in the sixth grade, then, okay?” Jesse yawned and finished pouring his coffee.

He added sugar and cream from the fridge, peering inside with an internal sigh. Empty. He needed to get to the store in the worst way, something he could easily do after dropping Laila at school, if he could stay awake long enough.

“Can I watch The Little Mermaid again?”

Jesse put the cream back in the fridge and yawned again until his jaw popped. Plopping his kid in front of cartoons was definitely a no-no according to her mother, who didn’t even have cable television or the internet at home. But it would buy him another hour of sleep and a shower before they had to leave for school.

“Dad?”

“Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.” Too much planning to do on less than three hours of sleep. He could mainline this coffee and it still wouldn’t wake him up enough.

He ended up snoozing on the couch while Laila watched the movie, waking only in time to get her out the door. No shower first, so he pulled a knit cap over the mess of his hair and headed out into the world looking like, as his kid said, a hobo.

The drive to school was both eternal and too short. It took forever because he was tired and wanted to get back home so he could slide back into bed and get a few hours’ sleep before he had to get up again. But it was not long enough, because it was time with his daughter, who filled it with stories about school and her friends and her thoughts on life. Always entertaining, usually surprising.

“And that,” she told him as she opened the car door, “is why me and her aren’t friends anymore.”

“She and I,” Jesse corrected automatically. He hadn’t really followed the story of Laila and her no-longer-best friend Maddy, but understood enough to realize that whatever had gone down had been the fifth-grade equivalent of World War III. “And listen, she’s your friend. Can’t you work it out?”

Laila gave him a heavy sigh and paused, the backpack he couldn’t believe she was strong enough to carry still on her lap. “Dad, you don’t get it. She took my favorite pen! And lied about it!”

It was the lie that had made the crime unforgivable. He could see that. Still... “People make mistakes, kiddo.”

“If she lies about a pen, what else would she lie to me about?”

She was too smart for him, the best of both her parents multiplied by ten. “True. But that doesn’t mean you can’t forgive her.”

“I can forgive her,” Laila said darkly, her brow furrowed. “That doesn’t mean she can still be my friend.”

With that, she got out of the car. Ignoring the impatient moms in minivans behind him who barely stopped to let their kids roll out before they sped off to Pilates or hot yoga or whatever the hell they were in such a rush to get to, Jesse watched her until she got through the school doors. Then he gave each of the scowling minivan moms a cheery salute, using all his fingers when he really wanted to use only one.

He still needed food. An egg sandwich and another tall coffee tried to woo him into the local 7-Eleven, but he reminded himself of his credit card bill, due next week, and the upcoming tuition bill for Laila, due sometime next month. The rattle under his car’s dashboard helped remind him, too, that his baby had just over a hundred thousand miles on her, and she had to last him another year or so before he could think about replacing her.

It was going to get better, he reminded himself. Private school for his kid was important to her future, and sacrificing for her was worth it. At home, a few more hours of sleep and a shower put some lightness into the day. So did the dogs in the shelter where he volunteered. Playing with them never failed to brighten his outlook. His time there finished, Jesse headed back to his car, pausing to look at the gray sky. It looked like snow. Smelled like it, too. He was looking forward to a good winter storm. Which meant he definitely had to get something in his fridge.

He didn’t usually shop at this market, but this place was conveniently close to the Angel. Armed with his reusable bags from the trunk, the list he kept updated on his phone and the small accordion file of coupons he collected from the bar’s Sunday paper every week, Jesse grabbed a cart and hit the aisles.

And there she was.

The woman from the bar. Colleen, last name unknown. Today, as usual, her pale hair was pulled back at the base of her neck in a sleek bun. She wore a tailored black wool coat that came to her knees, a hint of crimson liner at the throat and sleeves, and below it a pair of black-stockinged legs and librarian pumps with a strap across the top of her foot that, no kidding, left his throat a little dry. She carried a paper cup of coffee in one hand and pushed her cart, one of the little ones, with the other.

She wasn’t watching where she was going. It was easy enough for him to let his cart bump hers, gently enough not to even slop her coffee. It was easy, but stupid, Jesse thought at the last second as she turned, frowning. Now he’d pissed her off.

Again.

“Sorry,” she said, though it was clear she knew it was his fault. “Oh. It’s you.”

“It’s me. Jesse,” he added.

“I know your name. You work at The Fallen Angel.” She inched her cart, containing a carton of eggs and a loaf of rye bread, away from his.

“And you’re Colleen.”

“Yes.” She could’ve pulled her cart away and stalked off down the aisle without looking at him again, but instead she cleared her throat. “So...you shop here?”

Jesse looked at his own cart, empty at the moment. “Nah. I just come in, push a cart around for exercise. Beats the gym fees.”

It had been a gamble, just as bumping her cart had been, but this time she laughed. Her face lit up. A man could fall in love with a woman who laughed like that.

“That was a stupid question. Sorry.” Colleen sipped her coffee, her large gray eyes meeting his over the rim of the cup without sliding away.

Those eyes. Shit. He was a goner.

For weeks he’d been getting to know her little by little. At first she was only another customer, but over time he’d begun to notice the things about her that stood out. The quiet way she sat by herself, never engaging anyone in more than the barest of conversations. Sometimes she read a book. Sometimes she toyed with her phone while she ate some pub food, usually onion rings but sometimes fries. Once or twice, she ordered a basket of fish and chips.

The glass of whiskey she ordered every week without fail, but never drank.

But although they’d had their share of casual interactions, had she ever looked at him until right now? Really looked, as if she actually saw him? She had, fleetingly, last night, and it was obvious she hadn’t cared much for what she’d seen. Now she was looking at him again, her gray gaze pinning him, and he found himself struggling a little for words.

“My father used to say there are no stupid questions,” she continued as though there hadn’t been a minute of painfully awkward silence between them. “Just stupid people.”

“I was being a jerk. Trying to be funny. I’m an idiot.”

She laughed again, not as loud, but the sound was as lovely the second time as it had been the first. That laugh dug into him, between his ribs. Into the tender places beneath.

“I need to get going. I’ll be late for work.” She lifted her coffee cup his way in something like a salute. “See you...?”