Until We Touch (10 page)

* * *

P
ERCY
STRUTTED
INTO
Jack’s office. Jack took one look at him and groaned. Once Larissa saw what had happened, there would be hell to pay.

“Quit being so happy,” he grumbled.

Percy grinned. “We won.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to matter when Larissa kills us both.”

“She’s only going to kill you. And maybe Consuelo.”

Jack didn’t think Larissa could take on Consuelo and win, but if Percy’s words were true, he wouldn’t be around to see it, anyway.

He studied the teen, taking in the swollen right eye and the growing bruise.

Their morning basketball sessions could be intense. Percy had been telling the truth—he had game. But he was also young and easily distracted. He’d made the mistake of watching Consuelo’s ass instead of the rest of her and had ended up with an elbow in the face. Of course, each of them had suffered the same fate at one time or another in the past six or eight months, but that was little consolation when the pain exploded in your face. Still, Percy had reacted well and play had continued.

He stood and walked toward the door. “Come on,” he told the kid.

“Where are we going?” Percy asked, following him.

“You’ll see.”

Jack led him to the side of the building where the actual campaign work was done. The graphics area had several offices, along with a big open layout room with massive printers that could handle poster-size paper. Behind that were a series of smaller offices.

Jack went to the end of the hall and pushed open a door. Inside was a small desk, a bookcase and not much else. There weren’t any windows and the walls were bare. He was pretty sure this room was usually used by interns. He’d checked with Taryn before claiming it for Percy.

On the desk was a laptop. A small printer stand held an all-in-one, with plenty of paper and printer cartridges below. There was a desk chair and a second less-comfortable chair for visitors. Jack sat in that one and motioned for Percy to sit behind the desk.

The teen did so and looked at him.

“So here’s the thing,” Jack began. “You need to learn to read to succeed in life. So that’s where we start.” He pointed to the laptop. “You know how to work one of those?”

“Sure. We used them in school.”

“Good. We’re going to go online and you’ll do a reading assessment. Then we’ll download the appropriate software to get you to the next level. Once your reading skills are at a tenth-grade level, we’ll move on to other topics. Kenny, Sam and I are going to divide up the subjects. You’ll meet with us an hour or so a day for tutoring, then you’ll be responsible for handling the study part on your own.”

He held Percy’s gaze. “I’m not going to kid you. This will be a lot of work. You’ll get frustrated. You’ll want to quit. None of us can make you do this. You have to want it. You have to be willing to do the work.”

Percy’s eyes filled with tears, but the teen didn’t look away. “I don’t understand. Why you doing this? You’re some famous rich guy. I’m a kid from South Central L.A. You owe me nothing.”

Jack leaned back in his chair. “Why aren’t you in a gang?”

“I told you before. My mom would have killed me. She worked hard so that would never happen.”

“Did you go to class?”

“Sure. But it was tough, you know. When I was little, I just couldn’t get the letters and stuff. But they kept sending me to the next grade. When I was nine, I had this great teacher. She had me stay after and I was starting to get it. She said there was nothing wrong with my brain, that it had just taken longer for me to figure out what was what. Only she moved on and the next teacher didn’t care as much.”

Pushed through the system, Jack thought. He was sure it happened more than it should. Especially in inner-city schools where resources were limited.

“At some of the foster homes they cared about school and stuff. So I would learn a little. I got my reading back a few times, but then it was hard to keep up.”

“How’d you find out about the summer camp?”

“There was a flier in my neighborhood. I went to see the guy who put it together and he got me enrolled.”

Jack was sure there were thousands of kids who had lived a variation of Percy’s story. While he and Larissa couldn’t save them all, they could do something with this one.

“You up for this?” he asked.

“Getting my GED?” Percy nodded vigorously. “I’ll do whatever it takes. You’ll see. I can get my work done here, then do my schoolwork before we go home.”

“Oh, you’ll be working at home, too,” Jack told him. Then he understood what the teen was missing. “Percy, this is your laptop to take back and forth with you.”

Percy swallowed hard. He put his hands on the computer. “I’ll take real good care of it. You’ll see.”

“I know you will.” Jack tapped the laptop. “Start the assessment. We’ll see where you are and move forward from there. It takes about an hour. Come get me when you’re done.”

His cell buzzed. He glanced at the screen and sighed. “Okay. I have to go help Taryn with something. If I’m not back by the time you’re done, go see Kenny or Sam. They’ll get the right software loaded.”

“Sure thing.” Percy was already booting up the laptop.

Jack got up and started out of the office. He paused, then glanced back. “Remember to eat lunch.”

Percy grinned. “Promise.”

* * *

J
ACK
STARED
AT
the sign on the door. Closed for a Private Event. He thought about taking that as proof he should hightail it out of there but knew that running wasn’t an option. Instead, he knocked.

A couple of seconds later Larissa opened the door of Paper Moon and grinned at him.

“I wondered if you’d come,” she said by way of greeting. “I should have known better.” She handed him a glass of champagne. “This is way more fun than I thought it would be.”

She swayed just a little as she spoke. Her blue eyes were wide and a bit unfocused.

“Are you drunk?”

She smiled. “Maybe. Wow. I’ve never been drunk in the morning before.”

“You’ve probably never had anything to drink before noon before.”

“That’s true.”

He stepped into the store and put his free arm around her waist. To steady her, he told himself. The touching was purely medicinal. She rested her hand on top of his and leaned against him.

“Taryn is so beautiful,” she said as they walked into the store. “She’s going to make a lovely bride.”

“I’m sure she is.”

He led her to a small sofa facing a platform with several mirrors and got her seated. This was the viewing area, he would guess. Not that he’d ever been in a store like this before. He took in the fussy decorations, the feminine colors, the dresses and veils and other girlie stuff and told himself that, with luck, he would never have to be in one again.

Taryn stepped out of a dressing room. She wore a robe and had her hair up.

“You’re here. Good. I need advice. I’ve narrowed my choices down to two.” Taryn crossed to him, grabbed the glass from his hand and drained it. “I’m not cut out for this kind of crap.” Her blue-violet eyes darkened with what he would guess was a lot of doubt, accompanied by a hint of fear. “Jack, is this insane?”

He took back the empty glass and kissed her cheek. “You’re going to be a beautiful bride, Taryn. Angel won’t know what hit him.”

“You haven’t seen me in either of the dresses.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

She sighed. “Thank you.” She put her free hand on his shoulder and pushed him onto the sofa. “Stay here. I’ll be out in a second.”

He sat next to Larissa, who poured him more champagne. He had a feeling this wasn’t the first bottle of the morning.

“You ladies have made this into a party,” he said.

Larissa giggled. “I know. At first it was kind of boring, but after a while, I got into it. Maybe I should have gone shopping with my sisters when they were buying their dresses.”

“I doubt there was champagne involved,” he pointed out. “That would have been a Taryn touch.”

“You’re right.”

She set her glass on the small side table, leaned against him and sighed. “You’re a good friend to help her. She’s really freaked about finding the right dress.”

“Being drunk will ease her pain.”

Larissa looked up at him. “I think I might have had the most champagne.”

Her blue eyes seemed to draw him closer. Despite the public setting and Kenny’s recent warning, Jack felt himself start to lower his head. Because kissing Larissa would put everything else in perspective.

Her chin rose slightly, as if she were easing into position. Yeah, he thought, his mouth a whisper from hers. This was what they both—

“Percy has a black eye.”

He knew he’d been the one to speak the words, but for the life of him he couldn’t say why. Unexpected self-preservation?

Larissa scrambled to the other side of the small sofa and stared at him. “What?”

“It happened during the basketball game this morning.”

“I’m going to kill Consuelo.”

He raised his eyebrows.

She shrugged. “Okay, maybe not kill. But I’m going to talk to her. It’s one thing when it’s you guys, but Percy is a kid. She should be more careful around him.”

He reached past her for her champagne and handed it to her. “Drink up. You’ll feel better.”

“How’s Percy?”

“Proud as hell.”

Isabel stepped out of the dressing room and walked to the platform. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention, please... Taryn’s first choice is a couture gown. It’s a one-of-a-kind...”

Isabel kept talking, but Jack wasn’t listening. Taryn had stepped out of the dressing room.

He didn’t know much about wedding gowns. They were white and long and fussy. This one was all that, but somehow Taryn pulled it off. The top part was fitted and left her shoulders and arms bare. The skirt was full, falling in layers of some kind of frothy fabric. When she moved, the skirt swayed like a bell.

He remembered the first time he’d met her, nearly a decade before. She’d been packing up sandwiches left over from a meeting. Her determination, not to mention the collection of wrinkled plastic bags, had told him this was going to be her main meal of the day.

When they’d seen each other, he was sure he’d looked surprised. He knew she’d looked guilty, although she’d tried to pretend she wasn’t hungry. At that time, he’d dated enough models and actresses to recognize good quality clothes when he saw them. Taryn had been dressed in a suit a couple sizes too big. Her shoes had been worn and she was using a tattered backpack for a handbag.

But she’d been pretty and she’d faced him defiantly. He’d admired her spirit and had asked her out to dinner.

One thing had led to another and they’d ended up at his place. He’d quickly discovered she was living out of her car while saving enough for a down payment on her own apartment. By the end of the week, she’d moved in with him.

It hadn’t been love, he thought as she moved to the platform and stepped up in front of the mirrors. He’d liked her, had enjoyed being with her. Helping her out had made him feel as if he was doing something useful with his day. Lack of purpose was a chronic problem in the off-season.

A couple of months later, she’d turned up pregnant. He remembered Taryn’s tears when she’d told him. Not tears of happiness or even regret. Instead, she’d been frustrated—mostly with herself for, as she’d put it, being so damned stupid.

“What do you think?” she now asked, her voice anxious.

He motioned for her to turn in a circle.

She did as he requested. The skirt moved with her, swaying like a bell. “You’re beautiful,” he told her honestly. “And the dress is good, too.”

Taryn grinned. “Okay. Let me get into the other one and we’ll decide.”

Isabel helped her down from the platform and together they went into the dressing room.

Jack thought back to Taryn’s first wedding, to him. They’d flown to Las Vegas the Friday after she’d discovered she was pregnant and had been married in the east chapel at the Bellagio hotel. They’d spent the weekend in a suite before flying home early Monday morning.

It hadn’t been love for either of them. He’d been fine with that. Love wasn’t in the cards for him. When you loved someone, they left and Jack had been left enough for three lifetimes. Maybe not in numbers but in how it had all played out. He wasn’t risking that again.

With Taryn, he’d felt safe. They got along. They were friends who had sex. That had been plenty. The thought of a kid had terrified him at first. What if his child was like Lucas? But over the next few weeks, he’d told himself he would get through it, whatever happened.

Then Taryn had lost the baby. She’d started divorce proceedings the next day. Jack had wanted to tell her she didn’t have to. He didn’t mind being married to her, but she was determined. They’d stayed friends and had started Score together.

Looking back, he knew he had the best of all worlds. People he could care about, who cared about him. There weren’t the highs, but there also weren’t any risks.

“I’m feeling guilty,” Larissa said, pulling him back to the present.

“Why?”

“Do you know how expensive these dresses are? Do you know how many people could be helped with that money?”

He took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers. “Taryn will not be moved by that argument.”

“I know. But still.”

He kissed her knuckles. “Pick a cause and we’ll save something.”

She looked at him. “But it’s always with your money. What do I give back?”

“Your heart and that’s enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Because she was the most giving person he’d ever known and he liked how she dragged him along. Without wanting to, he remembered the last time he’d offered all he had. He’d been nine.

It had been late. The hospital was as quiet as it could get. Both his parents were asleep and he’d been wandering the pediatric wing alone. He’d caught sight of his brother’s cardiologist and had hurried over to speak to him. Because he’d finally figured out how to fix his brother.