“All right,” Maddy said, a little surprised, “I’ll bring you the application.” Maddy turned to go in the back, oblivi-ous to the officers approaching just outside the window.
“Miss?” Jacks called. Maddy turned. “Isn’t there someplace we could go in the back? So you could interview me? I’d like to get that part out of the way.” His eyes flickered to the door, where the police were just entering, their hands were on their holsters. He looked back at Maddy.
“Please.”
There was something different about him, Maddy thought. Something beyond the obvious good looks. It was in the way his eyes caught the light. The way he looked at her. They way he held her gaze. The funniest thing was, it made her want to trust him.
She was surprised to find herself speaking.
“Okay, follow me.”
Jacks jumped to his feet and followed Maddy around the counter and into the back. He couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize him, but at this point he didn’t care. He wasn’t concerned with anything except getting out of the dining room.
Maddy’s uncle was cleaning the griddle as they passed. Before Kevin could look up, Maddy had taken Jacks into their tiny office and closed the door.
The room was dingy and cramped. A battered metal desk was covered in piles of receipts and bills, an old picture of Maddy and Uncle Kevin in a frame poking up out of the mess. Maddy’s backpack, exploding with textbooks and college brochures, sat on the floor. She smoothed her uniform and found an application among a stack of forms. Jacks took a seat in the creaky chair opposite the desk and pulled his hood back.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Sure.”
Closed in the small room with him, the fact struck Maddy that this boy’s beauty was nearly overwhelming.
Who was this guy? It didn’t even seem real. His pale blue eyes were piercing under strong, dark eyebrows, and his model good looks sat on a sturdy face, giving him a slightly rugged quality.
“Okay,” she said, assembling her thoughts and grabbing a pen out of a nearby coffee mug. “I didn’t get your name.”
“It’s Ja. . Jason.” Jacks looked over to a newspaper sitting on the desk and read the headline: STOCKS SLIDE
AGAIN. “Jason Stockton.”
“Okay, Mr. Stockton,” Maddy said, “do you have any prior experience in serving?”
“No,” Jacks said. Maddy looked up at him.
“Any experience in the restaurant industry at all?”
“No.”
Maddy sat back in her chair. “You know, Jason, to get a restaurant job in Angel City it’s pretty much required to have some experience serving.”
Jacks’s lips pulled up into a half-grin. “Well, how are you supposed to get experience if you can’t land a job to begin with?”
Maddy folded her arms and leaned over the table. She was trying not to flirt, but she almost couldn’t help herself.
“Okay, then, why should I hire you?”
Jacks looked for something, anything, that would keep him safely in the back room. His eyes drifted down to Maddy’s backpack and a college brochure sticking out between two textbooks.
“To save money for college,” he said, improvising.
Maddy paused, her expression softening. Jacks looked at the image of the leafy campus on the brochure’s cover.
“Somewhere back east, actually. Away from Angel City.”
“Really?” Maddy said, her interest piqued.
“Yeah. .” Jacks said unsteadily. He took a deep breath and lied. “It’s always been my dream. Problem is my family, well, we don’t have a ton of money right now.”
Maddy shook her head in empathy. “I know how that is. Did your dad lose his job or something?”
“Actually, he. .” Jacks trailed off, searching Maddy’s eyes. He was surprised she had unwittingly brought him back to the truth. “He died.”
Maddy flushed. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
Jacks shrugged. “It’s okay, I was young. I never really knew him at all.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” Maddy said, her defenses collapsing with startling quickness. “I mean, I know just how it is. Both my parents died when I was just a baby. I never knew them either.”
“Wow, I’m sorry. I thought
“It’s okay,” Maddy said, looking away. Jacks watched her. He felt a sudden urge to share something with her that he’d never told anyone.
“You know what? This might sound crazy, but I have no memories of him, right?” Jacks said. “So one day I just started making them up. Making up things we did together, places we went.” He laughed in embarrassment, shaking his head. “Pretty stupid, right?”
Maddy was quiet for a long moment, but her eyes had returned to Jacks and studied him.
“At the park,” she said finally.
“What?”
“My mother, father, and me at the park. Perfect day, you know, a carousel, swans floating on the pond, like one of those old postcards. That’s my favorite. My favorite pretend memory.”
Jacks smiled softly. “That’s a nice pretend memory.
The park. I hadn’t thought of that one.”
“All this time I thought I was the only one,” she said.
“I mean, you know the memories aren’t real, you tell yourself that, but somehow, in some crazy way—”
“They help.”
They said it together. Jacks and Maddy stared at each other as the seconds drew out, and she only now was aware that she had leaned closer to him. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he had come closer too. Now they were only inches apart. She leaned in, willing the moment to sweep them into a kiss, the most delicious kiss of her life. .
Jacks spoke.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Maddy,” she said, holding out her hand. Jacks reached for it and, ever so gently, took it. His hand was hot to the touch, and Maddy thought she could feel a crackle of electricity, as if a current of energy was passing through Jacks and into her. From the look on Jacks’s face, he had felt something too.
A loud knock boomed at the door.
“Maddy? What are you doing in there?” It was Kevin.
“That’s my uncle,” Maddy whispered to Jacks. “He owns the place.” Jacks’s eyes focused, brought back to the present.
“Listen, Maddy, I need to get out of here. Is there a back door?”
“Yes, in the kitchen. What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Jacks said in a low whisper. “But I need your help. Will you help me?”
“Okay,” she said, a little cautiously. “Stay here.” She went to the door and opened it just a crack.
“Hey Kevin, I was just interviewing someone for the part-time position.”
Kevin eyed her. “I do the interviews.”
“I know, I just thought I would help out.”
“Okay, well, I need you both to come out. There are two police officers here asking to see everyone.”
“Okay, be right out,” Maddy said a little too brightly.
Kevin walked back to the dining room and said something to one of the officers.
“This way,” Maddy whispered as she led Jacks out of the office and toward the back door. They were halfway across the kitchen when a voice shouted from the dining room.
