Jess Mariano's Daughter

Truncheon Books

Jess's POV

Life was going good. Lory and I are now living in Philadelphia. We moved here and I joined a publishing house called Truncheon Books which was started by a couple friends of mine, Chris, and Matt.

Part of us live in the apartment above Truncheon. Having a few guys, and a baby all living in a small space like that gets kind of crazy, but it's all going good.

Lory is growing too fast. We have a few desks filling the main part of Truncheon where we all do our work. Lory as her own little desk next to mine, where she colors and plays.

At least a couple times a day she gets down from her chair and crawls up into my lap. 

If I leave her upstairs alone for too long she'll come scooting down the stairs and come over to me, or even one of the guys, and just look up at us and smile.

She looks just like me. Her hair is dark brown that goes to just past her chin and light brown eyes.

I've written a book, and got a few hundred printed, and now I'm going around to different book stores, trying to get them to sell it.

Luckily for me this brought me to Hartford, and thanks to Luke, after a little pestering, I learned that Rory was currently staying there with her grandparents.

I wanted to see her again. I wanted to talk. Last time we talked it didn't really go as I hoped. I was kind of stupid. I left Lory with Matt and Chris, which didn't go well. 

She's definitely a daddy's girl for sure. It was hard leaving her and seeing tears coming from those big brown eyes, but it would be hard to get work done when I had an 18 month old clinging to me.

I pull up to the house and see a car go through the gate. I get out and walk up. I see Rory climb out of the car. I slowly open the gate and she turns to look at me.

"Jess."

"Hey."

"Hey. I- Sorry. That wasn't a sentence," she says, clearly shocked to see me.

"I got the gist," I say, walking up to her.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

"I got a job. Professional driveway skolker," I joke.

"Pays good?"

"Yeah, but the hours suck."

"Jess.."

"I'm in town in a little business. All nice and aboveboard."

"How'd you know where to find me?"

"Luke. I shook it out of him. He wasn't sure if it was okay."

"It's okay. You look good. The years don't seem to have hardened you."

"Yeah, I think I have Lor to thank for that, and you look good too. I know this is kind of weird, but there's actually something I wanted to tell you, show you actually."

There's a pause

"I can come back another time," I tell her.

"No, it's just, uh, we're kind of exposed here. My- her window is like, right there."

"Whose?" I ask.

"Uh, my grandma's. You want to come in?" she asks.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. come on. Just be careful. She's a very light sleeper."

She leads me into the house and up stairs to a room I assume is her's.