“Ten to be on the safe side.”
Curious and because he thought he should ask, he said, “What do you need the money for?”
Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t have the flu.”
“What do you have?”
“I have cramps and I don’t have anything.” Her gaze lowered to her stocking-covered feet. “I don’t know any girls at school to ask, and by the time I got to the nurse, it was too late. That’s why I had to come home from school.”
“Too late for what? What are you talking about?”
“I have cramps and I don’t have any…” Her face turned red and she blurted, “Tampons. I looked in your bathroom ‘cause I thought maybe one of your girlfriends might have left some. But you don’t have any.”
The microwave dinged at the same moment Luc finally understood Marie’s problem. He opened the door and burned his thumbs as he set the soup on the counter. “Oh.” He pulled two spoons from a drawer, and because he didn’t know what to say, he asked, “Do you want crackers?”
“Yes.”
Somehow, she didn’t seem old enough. Did girls start their periods at sixteen? He guessed so, but he’d never thought about it. He’d been raised an only child, and his thoughts had always revolved around playing hockey.
“Do you want some aspirin?” One of his old girlfriends had taken his painkillers when she’d had cramps. When he thought back on it, his money and their addiction had been the only thing they’d had in common.
“No.”
“After lunch we’ll go to the store,” he said. “I could use some deodorant.”
She finally glanced up, but she didn’t move.
“Do you need to go now?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her standing there, embarrassed and as uncomfortable as he was. The guilt he’d experienced a moment ago eased. Sending her to live with girls her own age was definitely the right move. A girls’ boarding school would know about cramps and other female things.
“I’ll get my keys,” he said. Now he just had to find a way to break it to her that wouldn’t make it sound a
s if he were trying to get rid of her.
Chapter 2
Exchanging Pleasantries: A Fight
“Say that again?” Caroline Mason’s fork paused halfway to her mouth, a piece of lettuce and chicken suspended in midair.
“I’m covering the Chinooks games and traveling with them on the road,” Jane repeated for the benefit of her childhood friend.
“The hockey team?” Caroline worked at Nordstrom’s selling her favorite addiction-shoes. In appearance, she and Jane were on opposite ends of the spectrum. She was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, a walking advertisement of beauty and good taste. And their temperaments weren’t much closer. Jane was introverted, while Caroline didn’t have a thought or emotion that wasn’t expressed. Jane shopped from catalogues. Caroline considered catalogues a Tool of Satan.
“Yep, that’s what I’m doing on this side of town. I just came from a meeting with the owner and the team.” The two friends were fire and ice, night and day, but they shared a common background and history that bonded them like Super Glue.
Caroline’s mother had run off with a trucker and had drifted in and out of her life. Jane had grown up without a mother at all. They’d lived next to each other in Tacoma, on the same desolate block. Poor. The have-nots. They both knew what it was like to go to school wearing canvas sneakers when most everyone else wore leather.
Grown up now, they each dealt with the past in their own ways. Jane socked away money as if each paycheck were her last, while Caroline blew outrageous sums on designer shoes like she was Imelda Marcos.
Caroline set her fork on the side of her plate and placed a hand on her chest. “You get to travel with the Chinooks and interview them while they’re naked?”
Jane nodded and dug into the lunch special, macaroni and cheese with smoked ham chunks and crushed croutons baked on top. With the weather outside, it was definitely a mac-and-cheese day. “Hopefully, they’ll keep their pants up until I leave the locker room.”
“You’re kidding, right? What reason, other than seeing buff men, is there for walking into a smelly locker room?”