Free Bang by Ruby McNally Page B

he promises her. “Not a single thing.”
    Mari sets the wafers back on the floor and runs both hands through her hair. “Okay. Okay.” She looks tired, Jack thinks. She looks beaten down. “I got my period today,” she adds out of the blue. “I was trying to figure out if I should text you or not.”
    â€œI—” Jack swallows. “Okay.” Now’s not the time to parse how he feels about that too closely, he doesn’t think, if he’s relieved or a little disappointed, or maybe a mixture of both. The summer she was pregnant with Sonya he caught himself staring at her constantly, to the point where he was almost glad when she had to switch over to desk duty five months in. “Okay,” he repeats.
    â€œI’m glad you invited me,” Mari tells him in the voice she uses for lies. Outside the window the leaves are turning for real now, explosive reds and oranges and yellows all along the side of 90. “It’s, you know. It’s been awhile since I saw them.”
    â€œYeah,” Jack agrees. He just barely resists adding a sour No kidding , which is dumb because it was his own fault. “I swear, Mari, I wouldn’t have invited you if—” He breaks off, frustrated. She’s ashamed clearly, but Jackson can’t tell if it’s because of these past four months or because she’s worried what his family will think of their screwing around. “No one knows anything about anything.” Terry was the only one who called him out on it, how Jackson constantly had an excuse for Mari not being at the hospital. Jack told him to go screw.
    â€œRocko still loves me, at least,” Mari says, picking the cookies back up off the floor and setting them resolutely in her lap. “Rocko forgives and forgets.” And that’s how Jackson knows she’s ashamed for not visiting him in the hospital, not for the sex.
    Jack swallows. He feels warmer toward Mari, but thinking about the hospital makes him think about what came before it, and now he can practically feel the weight of the Glock, the jerk of the kickback once he started firing. “Well, Rocko loves bird shit, so.”
    â€œMe and Rocko both,” Mari announces. Jack tells himself to watch the road.
    The rest of the drive does pass in silence, more or less, but it’s companionable. At around an hour in Mari opens up her Tupperware and hands him a chocolate wafer before taking one for herself.
    â€œThanks,” Jack tells her quietly. Mari reaches across the gearshift, wipes a crumb off his chin.
    Jack grew up in a house straight out of a cheery romantic comedy, a big white farm number with red shutters and a porch with a rickety swing. There’s a basketball hoop in the driveway that Mari always likes to imagine him practicing at. She used to love coming over here before she got married, Sunday dinners or barbecues in summer, all of them drinking sweaty bottles of Harpoon and playing Cornhole. His dad and mom are both principals, middle and high school respectively.
    Which could, Mari guesses, explain why she feels overwhelmingly like she just got called to the office.
    â€œQuit stalling,” Jack says mildly, nudging her ahead of him on the flagstone path to the back door. It’s not quite late afternoon but the autumn sun is already fading, this pretty golden cast to the light. Jack’s skin looks healthy again, Mari notices. He finally got most of his color back.
    Barb spies them through the kitchen window, her round face breaking into a smile. “Kids are here!” she yells. Before Mari can even slide the door open all the way, Rocko comes careening down the front hallway, leaping up on his hind paws. The weight knocks Mari back into Jackson.
    â€œDown, boy,” she instructs, holding the cookies out of reach and kneeing Rocko gently in the chest. She’s better with dogs now. The Fords’ last lab, an elderly lady dog named