pie in the sky // JENLISA

Chapter 6

Lisa's lips are addictive.

Whether she's talking, smiling, or kissing Jennie, Jennie can't get enough. She thought Lisa only had a few kiss ingredients, but in the last few weeks she's discovered a whole pantry on her lips.

Chocolate cherry kisses. Lemon chiffon kisses. Tart apricot kisses. Melted ice cream kisses. Red velvet kisses.

Jennie finds inspiration for a whole month's worth of new pies in a single morning or afternoon with Lisa. She bakes more effortlessly than ever, combining unusual ingredients to create surprisingly delicious pies the customers rave about.

And every night she dreams about Lisa and all the sweetness her lips provide.

One night Jennie is woken from such a dream by Josh's incoherent mumbling. He does this from time to time. Recently it's been waking Jennie up. She hopes he'll just ramble for a moment and then go back to sleep, but tonight she can actually understand him.

She hears the words dad and pipe and watch out and the name of Josh's best friend, Dale. Josh starts jerking his arms and legs, distressed, tossing, and Jennie wonders if he'll wake himself up this time.

For his sake she hopes he will. For hers she hopes he doesn't.

He's been less of a pain in the ass lately. He's softer with her, even asks how she's feeling once in awhile. Jennie has to remind herself he'll go back to being a jerk in a few months. His interest in her is only superficial and to serve his own ego.

He jerks himself awake and Jennie hears the panic seize him as he finds himself in his bed in the dark, disoriented as though he was truly plucked from his nightmare and dropped beside her. He shudders for a moment, running his hand down his face, and then he does something truly horrifying: he starts to cry.

Jennie squeezes her eyes shut, resenting him for his humanity. It would easier to hate him if he never showed any tenderness or emotion besides anger. But when he wakes from a nightmare and starts crying, she can't stop herself from rolling over and trying to soothe him.

"It's okay," she whispers. "It's just a dream, Josh."

Josh blubbers for a moment, hands running down his face to stifle the noise of his crying. "Wasn't a dream back then..." he coughs out.

Jennie sighs, reaching out to run her hand down his arm. It's all the comfort she allows herself to give him, though a part of her wants to draw him into her arms until he stops crying.

She hates that a part of her still cares, that part of her wants to ease his suffering when he is responsible for so much of hers. The two things can't be paired, like ingredients never meant to be baked together; no matter how she tries, some things will never taste good.

She remembers who he was when she married him. Handsome, strapping, playful. She remembers how determined he was to care for her, to protect her from harm and hurt after her mother died, how hard he worked to provide for her. His heart was so good and unadulterated then.

When his father died from a heart attack, Jennie thought it would push them even deeper in love, that their shared grief would knit them closer together. But he'd barely gotten over the shock when the unthinkable had happened; his best friend since kindergarten, the only person Jennie ever thought Josh might be more loyal to than her, was crushed by a two-ton cement pipe in a construction accident. Josh had seen every second of it, heard his friend's yells and the gutting silence that followed.

The unraveling started then, and Josh became hardened and mean. She hates that she understands, hates that the world turned a good man so bad, hates that she has to pay the price.