Don't Go Stealing My Heart (Showmen) by Kelly Siskind

Author:Kelly Siskind [Siskind, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CD Books
Published: 2020-04-21T22:00:00+00:00

17

Jack stared at his ceiling, his sheets bunched around his knees. Hot. His parents kept the house so damn hot. He should have listened to them, slept at home like they’d asked, but Chloe, who often shut him out of her room these days, had looked at him with her big blue eyes and asked him to stay. She’d claimed her window had been opened, that she hadn’t done it and she was scared. A move she’d often pulled as a kid. Back then, it had been more of a sobbing plea, and the culprit had been a boogeyman who’d threatened to eat her. This reeked of a different fear.

She hadn’t admitted she was worried Dad would get violently sick again. She didn’t have to.

Now it was two a.m., and Jack was in nothing but his briefs, sweaty, awake, in his teenage room, wishing Clementine was still on his bed.

He kicked the covers lower, scrubbed his hands over his face. Clementine. There was that folk song about her name: “Oh My Darling, Clementine.” He closed his eyes, tried to remember the lyrics. Something about Clementine drowning, her man unable to swim and save her. One of those depressing old tunes about losing the woman you loved.

It struck a chord in his gut, mimicking how he’d felt with his Clementine in the sound room, when her eyes had shifted—kind to hard—shutting him out. She had kissed him sweetly when leaving, after agreeing to meet the next day for their run, but there had been coolness in her tight-lipped smile. Like she was slipping through his fingers. It could have been the dinner and his mother’s prodding. More likely it had been him. He shouldn’t have cornered her afterward, asked outright if her job had been a lie, after promising he wouldn’t demand answers. His promise had lasted half a day.

Oh My Darling, Clementine.

How little I know you.

He’d been as open with her as he could be. He hadn’t confessed he’d stolen Mr. Hawthorn’s oxygen tank during Jack’s week of being “cool.” The rat hand job was an embarrassment. His brush with crime and moment in jail shamed him to his core. It still baffled him that fitting in had been important enough to him that he’d dropped his morals and had hurt an old man just to feel part of a group. Clementine had marveled that Jack had forgiven and hired Darrin and Dale. How could he judge others when he’d been just as heartless?

No. He didn’t want to tell Clementine about that. But he wanted her, more acutely than he’d ever wanted a woman. A normal, no-strings affair would be tough to fit into his unforgiving schedule. And nothing about Clementine would be no-strings. She affected him, deeply. Every real detail she’d shared about her past had felt like a hard-earned reward. If he had to guess, he’d say she didn’t reveal herself often, if ever.

He closed his eyes and tried to relax into his mattress. A muffled clang sounded, and he tensed.

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