TURNED OUT, SHE WAS both refreshed and relieved when she woke up the next morning. After John had left last night, she’d quickly showered, yanked her shorts and cami on and practically face-planted into the bed. She’d been out like a light. Around 2:00 a.m., a noise on the street below had woken Mary from a dead sleep, but then Ruth was there, stretched out along Mary’s side, her tail flicking curiously, and Mary was soothed enough to fall back asleep.
But now it was 7:00 a.m., she had a full night’s rest under her belt, the fog of yesterday starting to recede, and it was fully setting in just where exactly Mary was.
She was in John’s apartment. John’s bed.
It was such a strange intimacy to be in someone’s bed without them. Almost as if they were there, or some shadowy ghost of them was there. Mary knew that John did not lay behind her on the other pillow, but she caught the faint strains of deodorant and detergent and aftershave, and she felt his presence anyhow. This was the ceiling that John looked at each morning. Those were the bonging, reverent tones of the church down the street that John listened to upon the turn of each hour. Here were John’s worn cotton sheets, so soft after so many years of use.
It was like she was swimming in a sweatshirt of his, or wearing his reading glasses for a moment. It was delicious and disorienting.
What she wanted to do was make a cup of coffee in his decades-old Coffee Mate she’d spotted on the counter. She wanted to bring that coffee and sit for a while in John’s bed. She wanted the sheets to pool around her hips. She wanted to pretend that John was just out grabbing some breakfast for them. That he’d be back in a matter of minutes. That he’d slide under the sheets with her and drink half her cup of coffee.
And because she wanted to do those things, Mary got out of bed instead. She knew that daydreaming any longer was bound to be bad for her health and bad for her relationship with John. So, she roused herself, brewed some coffee and took another quick shower. She changed into the dress she’d brought, and by the time the coffee was ready, her hair was already wispily drying, that was how warm it was today.
Mary sipped her coffee and picked up her towels from the bathroom sink. She wondered if he had a hamper or something she could put them in. Maybe some small part of her acknowledged that she wanted to snoop just a little bit, but most of her just wanted to not impose mess on her host’s hospitality. Mary swung open the one door that he hadn’t introduced her to, and sure enough, it was John’s closet.
Her mouth fell flat open. She set her coffee down and pressed one palm to her racing heart. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her before. She didn’t know how she’d missed this detail, so glaringly obvious now that it stared her in the face.
In John’s neat, organized closet hung three crisply white button-downs. There, on a hanger, was his single midnight blue tie. Folded up on a pants hanger hung two pairs of black slacks. To the right were three small shelves where perhaps ten T-shirts were neatly folded, along with two or three pairs of leisure or workout pants and two pairs of shorts. On the ground was one pair of nice leather sneakers, one pair of running shoes and one pair of sandals that she could not, for the life of her, picture him wearing.
There were two more drawers where she imagined his underwear and socks to be, and she did not investigate to verify. She’d invaded his privacy enough. Mary stuffed her towels into the hamper and closed the door of his closet.
It was so clear to her now. God, she felt so stupid. And she’d internally accused him a million times of being judgmental! John didn’t dress this way because he was elitist and boring. He didn’t wear the same pair of wingtips every day because he was clinging to the wingtip brotherhood that Mary had cruelly imagined him to be a part of. No. He dressed this way because he was a public defender and living in New York City on a public defender’s salary, and didn’t have money to burn on shoes and clothes and frivolity.
Mary looked down at the colorfully printed Diane von Furstenberg dress that she wore. Swishy, loud, flowery print. She’d bought it one day on a whim, because she’d felt like shopping. And then she’d judged John because he wore black and white every day.
Black and white never went out of style. They always made him look professional. He could wear it to work, on a date and, yes, even to a block party if he didn’t mind looking a little overdressed. He wasn’t boring. He was practical. And Mary wanted to kiss him for it.
JOHN KNOCKED ON his own door, still in his pajamas. He had his work shoes in one hand and yesterday’s work clothes folded under his arm. He didn’t particularly want Mary to see him in his faded blue pajama pants and undershirt, but he also hadn’t wanted to change back into yesterday’s clothes either. Maybe she’d be in her pajamas still and he wouldn’t have to feel so bad.
Aaaaaaand, no such luck. Mary swung open the door—damn, she looked good in his apartment—looking freshly pressed and sparkly clean. She was all smiles and a hundred bright colors. John fought to not squint against the glare of her. The woman was freaking potent.
And nervous? John cocked his head to one side, still standing in the hallway, as he watched Mary’s eyes track down his clothing, catch on his messy morning hair and skitter away.
“Morning!” she said, just a bit too brightly, even for Mary.
“Morning,” he said back, his morning voice even scratchier than usual. “Bless you for making coffee.”
“You want me to pour you a cup?”
Yeah, she was definitely nervous. She was standing in the middle of his living room holding one elbow and playing with the fabric of her dress with her free hand. Her eyes were on her pedicured toes.
“Uh, I’m gonna shower and change first, and then I’ll grab some.”
She nodded, turned on her heel and went to join Ruth on the love seat. John quickly showered and brushed his teeth. He was grateful he’d gotten a haircut this week because his hair parted perfectly and lay smooth. He quickly changed into his usual outfit, rolling his sleeves to his elbows and praying he wouldn’t sweat through the shirt by noon. On a normal Saturday, one where he was headed to Estrella’s house or getting work done at his kitchen table, he might have worn his old jeans and a T-shirt, but Mary looked like she was ready to strut down Fifth Avenue, and John didn’t think his ten-year-old jeans, white at the seams, would flourish by comparison.
He left the steamy bathroom and crossed to the kitchen area, pouring himself some coffee and going to sit with Mary on the love seat. It was a little bit too tight of a fit for two people and Ruth. The cat yowled at him when he sat on her tail. Ruth batted at his sleeve and rolled to her back, rubbing her face vigorously against his knee.
They both laughed, and John absently scratched at Ruth’s belly. He was very aware of the fact that both he and Mary were staring at Ruth, almost as if they couldn’t bear to look at one another. Why was this so intense? It felt like a morning after.
If it was just a feelings hangover, he could understand, Mary had had a hell of a day yesterday, but he couldn’t help but feel like there was even more happening under the surface that he couldn’t quite pin down.
He cleared his throat. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” she answered immediately, making him laugh.
“All right, there’s a few breakfast places around here and—” he squinted at the clock over the oven “—if we go soon, we’ll probably beat the brunch rush. Oh, shit. Shitshitshitshitshit!” John stood up and strode across the room to the kitchen table, where he’d set his phone down when he came in.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
John groaned when he double-checked his calendar, even though he already knew what he’d find. “Shit. I’m so sorry, but I totally forgot to cancel on my dad. I had brunch plans with him. And now he’s definitely already on his way to the place. It’s too late to cancel.” He looked up at Mary miserably. All he wanted was to have a casual breakfast with her. To stuff her full of hash browns and eggs and orange juice. He wanted to fortify her against the world. He wanted to watch her sip coffee in that beautifully colorful dress of hers and know that she’d changed into that dress in his apartment that morning. Was that too much to ask of the universe? Apparently.
Mary cocked her head to one side. “What’s the big deal? Do we not have time to get there or something?”
John felt something lift off in his gut. We? “You...want to come along?”
“Oh.” She instantly went bright red. “I didn’t mean to invite myself. I just thought—I’m hungry! I’m not thinking straight.”
He chuckled at her flustered expression, her pink cheeks. “No, that’s okay. It just hadn’t occurred to me that you’d want to join us. But sure, yeah. It’s a good brunch spot in Brooklyn Heights, and then we can head over and get your door fixed after.”
“If you’re sure I won’t be intruding?”
John vehemently shook his head. If she was volunteering her company, he was accepting it. Time spent with his father wasn’t exactly the easiest, and John was extremely eager to see how having a Mary Trace buffer would affect the quality of it. Although...
“I should probably warn you...” He cleared his throat. “I’ve never brought anyone to meet my father before, and he’ll probably think that we’re together. No matter what we say.”
Mary traced a line of gray fur on Ruth’s chest, her eyes cast downward, her cheeks still pink. “I don’t mind that.”
John’s mind instantly and ferociously examined that phrase, turning it over, catching every possible light against every possible surface. She didn’t mind someone thinking they were together? She didn’t mind his father being obtuse and stubborn?
Or—God—she didn’t mind the idea of the two of them actually being together? John’s knees went jelly, and his fingers were cold in the pockets of his trousers. Was this an opening? His moment to tell her what he really wanted? What he’d tried to get himself to stop hoping for since the moment she’d walked out of that restaurant all those weeks ago?
“I mean,” she continued with a shrug of one shoulder, “parents are going to believe whatever they want regardless of what you tell them. I’ve already told you how my parents are. Trust me, one suspicious father is nothing I can’t deal with for the length of a single brunch.”
Oh. The thing in his stomach that had lifted off touched back down to earth. Right. She’d meant that she didn’t mind dealing with his dad. She wasn’t over there fantasizing about being with John. She wasn’t going to pretend, as John might have, that the two of them really were together, leaving his apartment on a hot July morning to do their due diligence with a monthly Saturday brunch with his father. She’d probably already forgotten the fact that she’d slept in his bed last night, or at least, she was glazing over it in her mind. She certainly wasn’t marveling over the stunning newness of it, turning over last night in her heart like a stone, trying to figure out if it should be polished to a high shine or tossed back into the river.
He cleared his throat. “If you’re sure, then we should get going.”
“All right!” she said brightly, popping up and striding over to her bag. Her overnight bag. John nearly groaned aloud when he watched her pack her things up. His father was never going to believe they were just friends, not when she showed up on a Saturday morning at his side, an overnight bag on her hip. He was going to be denying Mary’s place in his life for months with his father.
They walked to the train, and John waved through the window at his barber as they walked past.
“Is that where you get your hair cut?” Mary asked, stopping to look in the window.
“Uh-huh.”
She studied the faded photos of which haircuts they offered up in the window. She pointed to one of the photos. “Is that the one you get?”
He laughed. “I don’t actually choose from these photos. I just sit my ass down, pay the man fifteen bucks and leave when he’s done.”
She turned and studied his hair. John did everything he could not to shift on his feet, not to mess around with his hair. “It’s a nice cut,” she finally decided.
“Probably not the most fashionable way to wear my hair,” he said, although he wasn’t sure why he did.
She gave him a funny look, kind of like the one she’d given him when he’d first seen her that morning. Nervous, a little confused. “You don’t care about that, do you, John?”
“No,” he answered honestly. “It’s important to me that I look presentable. But no, I’m not reading Men’s Vogue in my spare time.”
She laughed. “Men’s Vogue is not a thing. And you always look very nice. Presentable. Your haircut isn’t trendy, but it’s classic. Never goes out of style.”
He cut a look at her colorful dress, looking like it was just seconds from having been unwrapped from a department store bag. “You’d tell me if I start to look out of style or out of date?”
She cut a look back at him. “If you want me to.”
“I want you to. How I look is important in that it’s one of the main things that a jury assesses about me. At least at first. I have to strike a balance.”
“You want to look like you take the whole thing seriously, but you also want to look like you’re on their level. Not above anyone.”
“Exactly.”
They jogged down to the train and rode in companionable quiet. When she started fiddling with the zipper of her overnight bag, John had to fight the urge to take her hand in his. “You all right?”
She sighed. “I’m just sick over my shop. It took me so long to get it all fixed up just the way I liked it.”
“We’ll get it back to the way it was, Mary.” And as soon as he said it, he knew he wasn’t spinning a false hope. If he had to come by the shop after work every day for six months, he’d help her restore things.
“It’s not that, really.” She fiddled with the zipper more. “It’s more that I’m trying to figure out why it happened. It doesn’t even seem like anything was stolen. It’s just this meaningless destruction.”
She was zipping her bag an inch open and then closed over and over, and John just gave in to gravity. He reached over and took her nervous hand, sandwiched it between his two palms.
“I don’t know what happened with your shop, Mary, but as a lawyer, I’ve had the opportunity to get into the minds of a lot of people who’ve done a lot of things.” He sighed. “Have you ever seen a little kid stomp on a tulip? Or kick over someone else’s sandcastle? Or have you ever seen someone smash a glass when they were angry? Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Again, we don’t know anything yet about what happened or who did it, but I know that you might never have an adequate answer for why. Sometimes people just need to destroy something.”
Her hand pivoted between his palms and her fingers laced with his. Suddenly, John wasn’t just riding the train with Mary. He was speeding underground, every one of his fingers touching every one of Mary’s with his other hand cupped over top, protecting this moment from the rest of the world.
“But they were coming up to my apartment, John. They kicked open the door right as the police got there. Were they—” She cut off for a second. “Were they coming for me?”
She was asking him if she was the something beautiful that was next on their list of things to destroy.
“Mary,” he said carefully, turning on his seat so that he held her eyes as well as her hand. “I thank God that I don’t ever have to know the answer to that question. Because the cops came, and you’re safe here now. If they catch the people who did this, if they see their day in court, you might get some of your answers. But I really think it’s important to concentrate on all the things that did happen instead of all the things that could’ve.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you responded correctly. You called the police, the police came and protected you and your shop. And now the cops do their job and you do yours. We move forward, get things back on track. That’s what we can control.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “And if they catch the guys, then some defense attorney will do their job. Maybe even a public defender like you.”
He fought off a wince. The system, all societal systems really, was so broken that oftentimes John felt his clients to be as much victims of circumstance as were the victims of the crimes in question. But there Mary sat, her store a smashed ornament on Court Street. “Mary.”
She shook her sunny head of hair. “And that’s the way it should be, I suppose.” She sighed. “If they weren’t defended, I might always worry they were wrongly convicted. And that’s even more unfair than having your shop destroyed for no reason. I just want the right thing to happen. But nobody knows what the right thing is, do they?”
John blinked at her. She didn’t want vengeance, he realized, the way so many victims of crimes wanted. No. She wanted justice.
She fell quiet and leaned her head back against the metal wall of the train, her eyes closed. She tightened her grip on his hand and John did the same. How could he make this woman feel safe again? How? A new door would help logistically, but he knew that this was so much more complicated than just getting a new security system installed. This was about Mary having faced something very ugly and trying to fit it into how she understood the world.
The train screeched into the station and Mary slid her hand out from John’s. He shoved his hands into his pockets as they filed off, side by side.
“Look, Mary, are you sure you want to do this? Brunch with my father? It’s pretty much guaranteed to be a weird time.”
She nodded resolutely as they came aboveground. “I’m starving,” she insisted with a smile.
John took a deep breath and led her into the restaurant.
JOHN APPARENTLY SPOTTED his father in the far corner almost immediately, and Mary expected John to lead the way through the restaurant. Instead, he pointed the direction and walked slightly behind her, one hand at the small of her back. It surprised Mary that he did this. He’d never struck her as a small-of-your-back guy before.
Then again, a month ago, she wouldn’t have thought he was a sleep-on-the-neighbor’s-couch kind of guy either, yet he’d gladly given up his space to make her comfortable. Which, she supposed, was exactly what he was doing right now as well. He was guiding her through the restaurant as a gesture of kindness, solidarity, maybe even protection? John might not be the most tactful guy in the history of the world, but Mary had never been more certain that he deeply cared about her well-being.
John Whitford Sr. rose up from his seat, tucking his phone into his pocket when they approached. His newscaster smile, which Mary was familiar with from all the campaign posters, was firmly in place. Not a millimeter changed in his expression, yet Mary was certain that she was seeing surprise on his face. His eyes darted from Mary to John, to John’s hand at her back, to the bag on her hip. And then those eyes went back to Mary and just stayed there for a long second.
“Well, hello,” he said, stepping around the table and holding out a hand. Mary was insanely relieved when all he did was shake it; she’d been dreading a back-of-the-hand kiss. “This is a surprise.”
“This is Mary Trace. Mary, this is my father.”
“Please, call me Jack,” he said smoothly, adjusting his blue suit coat before he sat back down at the table.
“Nickname?” she asked, setting her bag down and sitting at the four-top.
“Only to those who know me best.” Jack winked.
Mary smiled a little woodenly. He was just so smarmy. Nothing like John in the least.
She looked up at John and saw he was still standing, staring down at the table in consternation. “There isn’t a third place setting. I’ll get the server.”
And leave her there with Jack? Without thinking, Mary reached up and tugged at John’s hand, her fingers automatically finding the warm part of his palm. “The server will be back in a moment,” she reassured him.
When they’d been at the bar and she’d been trying to shake off his friend Hogan, John had read her eye contact exquisitely. He did the same thing now, his eyes searching her face. He nodded curtly and plunked down in the chair next to her, across from his father.
Jack cleared his throat. “I would have made the reservation for three if I’d have known...”
John waved his hand through the air. “It was unexpected for us as well.”
Us. His hand on her back through the restaurant. John wasn’t doing a very good job of explaining to his father that they weren’t, in fact, together. The thought was giving Mary underboob sweat.
The restaurant was semi-fancy. It had golden lights and big-leafed ceiling fans spinning lazily. There was a river view out the back windows, and Mary’s eyes followed a barge as it plodded its way downstream, the city fanning out beyond it. She wasn’t sure if it was the heat, or the hell of a thirty-six hours she’d had, or the memory of her hand laced with John’s, but Mary felt slightly dizzy.
She needed a second.
“I’m going to run to the restroom real quick.”
She smiled at both men, pushed her chair back and moved quickly, and she hoped, gracefully to the restroom. She grabbed a paper towel, wet it and stepped into an open stall. Mary slapped it over the back of her neck and took a deep breath.
What a strange world. On a normal Saturday morning, she’d just be opening up her shop right now. Instead, she’d slept at John’s house and was having brunch with his father. She looked for a second at her hands. Almost indulgently, she laced her own fingers together, the way she had with John on the train. He’d more than held her hand. He’d gripped her with one hand and sheltered her from the world with his other hand.
And touching was such a slippery slope, wasn’t it? Because only moments later, he’d put one of those warm, calm palms at the small of her back. And moments after that, she’d slid her hand back into his, guided him down to his chair.
This was getting out of hand.
It was confusing to sleep in a man’s bed and hold his hand and meet his father. And Mary wasn’t even letting herself think about the two hugs they’d shared in her kitchen. She hadn’t, even in the deepest parts of last night, allowed herself to mull over how it had felt to look up from her conversation with the detective to see John unexpectedly standing there, looking as curmudgeonly as always.
Talk about slippery slopes. Mary could practically feel herself clicking into skis, adjusting her goggles, pushing off down a black diamond.
“He said we’re in different stages of life,” she firmly reminded herself. “He doesn’t look you up and down. He’s not attracted to you.”
Deciding that she’d feel better after she ate, Mary washed her hands, glared some sense into herself in the mirror and headed back out to the dining room. As she approached, she saw John and Jack in some sort of heated discussion. John leaned forward across the table while Jack leaned lazily back, a smug expression on his face. They cut off the moment they saw her and Mary was one hundred percent positive that conversation had been about her. No doubt John defending the innocence of their friendship. She could only imagine what he’d said.
As she slid into her seat, she couldn’t help but smile down at the black coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice that had been delivered to her place. John had the same at his. “Thanks,” she told him.
“You’re welcome.”
They ordered breakfast, and when Jack handed over his menu, Mary felt his focus shift to her.
“So, Ms. Trace. Tell me about yourself.” He turned those dark eyes on Mary, so unlike John’s, and Mary couldn’t help but feel as if she were on the witness stand. There was something in Jack’s gaze that was complicated. He was reserving his judgment of her based on her answers to his questions, and he wanted her to know it.
“Jack—” John started.
Mary cut in. She wasn’t scared of Jack Whitford. She’d been raised by Naomi Trace, for shit’s sake. She knew how to deal with judgment when it sat down at the breakfast table.
“Well, I own a shop in Cobble Hill that does very well for itself. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for six years. I was born and raised in Connecticut, although I did my undergrad at Rutgers.”
“And you’re friends with my son.” He stressed the word friends in a subtle yet accusatory way.
“Actually, I was originally friends with Estrella. She’s the one who introduced us.”
Just as she’d expected it might, the mention of his ex-wife altered whatever line of questioning he’d been headed down. He blinked at her for a moment. “Right.”
“Whitford,” a voice said over Mary’s shoulder, and Mary craned her neck to see a very attractive man behind her. She blinked in confusion when the man’s face was pointed toward John and not Jack.
It had never occurred to her that someone would refer to John as just “Whitford.” It didn’t suit him at all.
“Willis,” John said in a voice as dry as it was gravelly. He wasn’t happy to see this man. He cleared his throat. “Jack, Mary, this is my colleague Crash Willis. Crash, this is my friend Mary Trace and my father, John Whitford.”
Mary noted that this time Jack didn’t offer his nickname. He merely shook hands with this Crash person and eyed him appraisingly. “Colleague? You’re also a public defender, then?”
Crash shook his head, coming to stand around the side of the table where Mary wouldn’t have to crane her head to see him. “No. An ADA.” He clapped a hand on John’s shoulder. “John’s worst nightmare.”
John slid his eyes over to Mary and gave her a look so droll, so dismissive of Crash, so confident, that she almost aspirated her orange juice. She’d known that John was attractive, but didn’t he know that a look like that was panty incinerating? No, she was certain that he did not know what effect this casual confidence had on Mary as he leaned back and said something snide to Crash.
The three men began talking and Mary found herself in a brief, potent daydream. She’d once imagined John scowling his way around a courtroom, dramatically pointing at the opposing counsel, passionately advocating for the wrongfully accused. But now she realized how ridiculous that assessment had been. John wasn’t the type to strut and dramatize. No. He was too good for that, too confident in his own skills. John’s main weapon, she was sure of it, would be ultimate, careful competence. He would lead the jury by the hand, calmly, confidently, without spoon-feeding them. He’d expect them to make the right decision, to side with him, because where else would anyone in their right mind side?
She imagined his midnight tie against his white shirt, his wide shoulders and wingtips, and his presence. John wasn’t graceful, exactly. He took up too much stocky space for that. But he was incredibly self-contained, aware of his space and energy. And wasn’t that almost the same thing?
Mary desperately wanted to observe him in court. To hear the rise and fall of that two-toned voice of his. She also knew just how dangerous that could end up being. This crush of hers would eat her alive if she ever got to see him work a room like that. Even now, him leaning irreverently back on two legs of his chair, some sly remark on his lips, Mary’s feelings for him threatened to come tumbling forward. She desperately wanted to hold his hand again.
After a few minutes, Crash excused himself, his eyes lingering on Mary for a moment in a curious way, and then he was gone.
“Interesting guy,” Jack said to John. Though he’d said only two words, Mary was certain that he’d actually said a mouthful to his son, à la Naomi Trace.
“Sure,” John replied, craning his head as he looked around the restaurant. “Food’s taking a long time.”
“Seems to have his head on straight.”
John didn’t seem to be able to restrain his sigh this time. “Yup.” He popped the P.
“Has a next step in mind for his career.”
Ah. That was where this was heading. Compliments to this other guy’s career were apparently digs on John’s career. John didn’t even bother responding.
Mary cleared her throat, finally drawing the men’s attention away from one another and back to her. “Did it surprise you when John went to law school?”
Jack’s eyes slid back to John. “No. But it surprised me when he decided to become a defense attorney.”
John’s loose confidence from moments before was dissolving into stiff-backed reserve. Mary intimately recognized the pose. It was what children did to block the judgment of their parents.
“And here we are again,” John sighed in a near-sour tone.
“Why would it surprise you that he wanted to be a public defender?” Mary asked. To her, it made perfect sense that he’d land in that arena of the law.
“It wouldn’t surprise me now that he wanted to do that,” Jack told her, swirling his coffee in his cup. “But back then, I’d thought he might want to follow a little more closely in my footsteps. There were quite a lot of open doors he turned his back on.”
“Jack,” John muttered exasperatedly.
“John doesn’t like open doors,” Jack informed Mary cattily. “He gets pleasure from slamming them closed.”
Mary looked back and forth between them, cataloging everything about Jack that she’d known prior to this brunch and everything she was learning at an alarmingly fast pace. She tilted her head to one side and took a sip of coffee, measuring Jack. What he was really saying hit her like a bolt of electricity.
“Hold on, you think John became a public defender just to spite you?” Mary asked incredulously, her amazement winning out over her propriety. Perhaps she’d only known John for half a summer, but she already knew just how ridiculously off base that assessment was.
Jack’s eyebrows flipped upward at her tone. His mouth twitched with a slight smile that Mary wasn’t sure was altogether good-natured. He said nothing.
“There’s no way that’s true,” she insisted. She felt John shift beside her and she glanced at him but couldn’t interpret his expression. She’d expected his eyes to be on his father, but instead they were fairly well glued to her. Mary studied him for a second, attempting to gauge if she was making things better or worse. She couldn’t tell. John looked just as mixed-up as she felt.
“Why do you think he became a public defender?” Jack asked with all the trap-laying of a seasoned lawyer. She couldn’t begin to guess what he thought of her, but Mary knew that in the last few minutes, she’d sealed the coffin on her first impression with Jack. There was nothing she could say now that would change his opinion of her. She also knew that with just the asking of that question he was implying to her that she didn’t actually know the answer. That he knew better than she.
She straightened her back and set her coffee down, her eyes on John’s for a long beat before she turned back to Jack and answered his question.
“Well, I don’t know John well enough to really answer that question in full. Decisions like that are generally layered. But come on, what the heck else was he supposed to do with that huge, bleeding heart of his?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Mary understood the full truth of what she’d said. Jack’s eyes widened just a touch, and she felt her heart mirror his surprise. Because she was realizing—almost in real time—that John, who’d once seemed so cruel and hard-hearted to her, actually had the biggest heart of anyone she knew.
She thought of the cuddles he gave Ruth, the patient game he’d played with Jewel. The man was a reluctant vegan because animal cruelty trumped bacon in his playbook. He worked endless hours defending the lives of people who couldn’t afford fancy lawyers. He truly believed in the system. He believed in the innocence of his clients. He saw the good in people. He’d dashed across town to hug her in her kitchen; he’d slept on his neighbor’s couch for her. He’d held her hand on the train and called his friend to fix her door. She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t seen it before. But frowny, scowly, grumpy, foot-in-mouth John was actually dangerously sweet.
She turned to look at him and wasn’t surprised to see his eyebrows in a downward V as he looked back at her, the tips of his ears a rosy pink. He opened his mouth and closed it.
Jack started laughing and drew Mary’s attention back to him. “I do believe you’ve struck John dumb. Not sure I’ve ever seen that happen before.”
Mary cleared her throat, a little unsure of what to say next, off-kilter from her own realizations.
Jack smiled that smarmy smile as their waitress finally brought their food. He waited until she’d left to toss out his next topic of conversation.
“My son insists that the two of you are not involved,” Jack said quasi-casually. “So, tell me, Mary. Why are you single?”
John groaned, but Mary just laughed. “Too young to be tied down,” she answered playfully, although a splinter of regret wiggled its way between each word. Actually, she was single because the opposite was true. Too old for anyone to want to tie her down. For one anyone in particular. She smiled at Jack, hoping he couldn’t see the rawness her own words had caused her. “Just a lone wolf, I guess.”
John took the opportunity to jump in and change the subject. The rest of the breakfast, though by no means comfortable, flowed a bit easier, mostly thanks to John’s constant corralling of his father into legal subjects and away from personal ones.
Still, by the time the two of them finally exited the restaurant, Mary couldn’t help but dramatically sag against the side of the building.
“I warned you,” John said with a shake of his head, a little twinkle in his eye. He reached out and plucked the duffel from her shoulder.