Page 14 of Echoes of Danger
Chapter Four
Delphi Mae
I’ve been working for Jacob for over a month now and have yet to leave this house. I have personal days on Mondays and Tuesday evenings but even then I haven’t so much as taken a walk.
“I think we’re going to walk you to school today, Elijah,” I tell my pancake-gobbling teenager.
“No way, Ma.”
“What? Are you embarrassed for people to see me?”
I’m only teasing, but he doesn’t seem to know that.
“Fuck no, Ma. You’re the best mother a dude like me could ask for. I’d scream for the entire school to look at you if I knew it wouldn’t embarrass you.” He finishes his unnaturally large stack of pancakes and then proceeds to grab one off of my plate. “I don’t want you two walking home by yourselves, is all.”
“I’ll walk with you guys,” Jacob says from his spot at the table. He, too, stuffing his face with a large stack of flapjacks. “We can stop by Taylor and Knox’s on the way back. I need to grab my bike from their garage, and Knoxy has been hounding me about bringing your Ma over to meet him.”
Elijah and Jacob share some sort of macho, no-speaking, eye-contact conversation before Elijah nods his head.
“Sounds like a plan,” Jacob says, stealing a pancake from my plate. “I’ll get the baby ready while you get dressed. It’s chilly, so wear a light jacket.”
I look down at my plate with my three bites of food and sigh.
“Well, I’m glad I have both of your permissions.”
They both eye my plate hungrily, so I grab the last three bites with my fingers and shove them in my mouth, much to Jacob’s amusement and Elijah’s disappointment.
“They’re going to starve me, Jessica,” I say as I take my plate to the dishwasher.
“You know good and well that you were finished five minutes ago,” Jacob laughs.
“Skin and bones,” I say as I pass them by. “You’re going to turn my big butt to skin and bones.”
“Now, that would be a shame,” Jacob says.
“Dude, really? My mother? Your employee? My freaking mother? Right in front of me?”
Jacob and Elijah have found common ground lately and have grown closer. I worry that this will hurt Elijah when it comes time for us to move on.
“What? Technically speaking, she’s Jessica’s employee. We all work for that girl.”
“He’s not wrong about that, huh, Butterfly? You’re the boss of this whole house.”
I’m standing near the stairs, just watching these two men interact in the kitchen, when Jacob looks back at me with a softness that causes my heart to race.
For a moment, just a single second, I pretend Jacob isn’t my boss. I pretend that a father is joking around with his son while the mother watches from a distance with love and contentment in her heart.
I pretend this is my family. Not just Eli, but Jacob and Jessica as well.
I give myself this moment, and then I let it go. Because that can never happen. Jacob flirts jokingly with me all the time, but that’s all it is.
This isn’t my family. Jacob and Jessica aren’t mine.
“You alright, sweetheart?” Jacob asks.
“Yeah,” I say, turning to hide the tears threatening to fall. “I’ll be ready in just a few. You two make sure no syrup is on the table. We don’t want ants.”
Ants. Yep, that’s an excellent emotional block.