I’m Keeping You. Jane Lark

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       CHAPTER THREE

      Jason

      I walked out of JFK airport, pulling our suitcase on its wheels and gripping Rach’s hand like I was hanging on to her as luggage too. But I felt protective. This trip was scary. Saint’s life was hanging on a line, and the other end of it was wrapped around Mr. Rees’s finger, and he kept jerking it, messing us around.

      I’d worked for him for a year, and thought him an asshole, but then I’d met the side of him Rach knew, when he’d tried to drag her into his car with three other guys, like it was okay to snatch a woman when she didn’t want to go. No way did I want him to take Saint. Saint was my son and he might have Mr. Rees’s DNA, but that was the only tie he should ever have to that asshole.

      We were booked on the SuperShuttle to get out to the hotel. There was a van waiting. I handed over our tickets and stashed our luggage in the back while Rachel waited on the sidewalk. Then we got in. I made sure she was by the window so she didn’t have to cope with any strangers too close.

      We sat in silence as the van filled up, and stayed silent as it drove through the city. New York. The Big Apple. Rachel looked at the streets as the van dropped people off at the Manhattan hotels. She had more history with New York than I did. I’d never really settled here, my roots and soul had always been back in Oregon. But Rachel had tamed this place and played it for the years she’d lived here. She’d taken a massive bite out of the apple. I’d left it to go rotten. It had never tasted good to me.

      Our hotel was in Brooklyn, near the area where I used to live, DUMBO, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. The hotel was a narrow, sky-scraping building. It stood out, tall amongst the lower-story buildings surrounding it. We unloaded our stuff and walked into the place.

      I guess its whole theme was tall and narrow; the welcome desk area was the same.

      I checked us in as Rach stood near me, her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest and her hands clasping either elbow.

      The last time I’d checked us into a hotel it had been in Las Vegas, when we’d gotten married.

      We were up on the fifteenth floor. Rach pressed the button for the elevator, then stood staring at the numbers above the elevator doors. The doors opened. I lifted a hand encouraging her to go in first. I followed, with the suitcase.

      She leaned her shoulders against the wall, so I stood next to her, slid a hand around her and gave her ass a pat to make her smile. She did smile—slightly.

      Everything was ruined. She never gave me bright smiles anymore, and it was all Mr. Rees’s fault. She’d been fine until he’d started messing us around over Saint. First off, before all of this, he wouldn’t do the DNA test and I’d needed him to do it so I could start the adoption process. That was about the time she’d walked into the river with Saint. So then I’d come to New York, alone, and forced him into doing the fucking DNA test. Only since then he’d stopped not wanting Saint and started sharpening fucking knives to chuck at us.

      Our room was alright, nothing special. It had a desk in front of a mirror outside the en suite, a chest of drawers, a king-sized bed with a nightstand either side and a long window which looked out across the city. Rach walked over to the window as I lifted the suitcase up on to a stool.

      “This reminds me of your apartment.” She turned back and looked at me.

      “Yeah.” It did a little. I’d had a floor-length window like that; it had looked out over DUMBO.

      She looked back out.

      I walked up behind her, slid my hands over her belly and kissed her neck. “What do you want to do, go out?”

      Her head fell back on to my shoulder. “I don’t know.”

      I missed my Rachel, the vibrant, half-crazy girl I’d met. She was smothered by her meds. But she’d been vulnerable then too, and lonely, and easily hurt behind all her bravado. She had crashed down into sad moods as fast as she’d gotten happy and dragged me into doing something I’d have avoided like hell if it hadn’t been for her.

      I’d been reading up on bipolar on the internet, though, and she might need to be on her strong meds right now, but people didn’t have to stay on heavy doses forever, they reduced them. She’d get back to herself one day. Soon, I hoped. “Then let’s walk down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park?”

      She turned around and pressed her face into my neck. Her lips touched my skin when she said, “I’d like that.”

      “I thought you might.” It was one of our old haunts. We had memories there.

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