First, Last, and in Between Read online

  “Isobel with an O, Starr with two Rs,”

  I said to her pleasantly.

  “It’s been a while.”

  Isobel’s lips moved as she mouthed words.

  Damned if she wasn’t praying.

  Eight years. That’s how long it’s been since Rory Morin went away, but now he’s back in Detroit to clean up his life. Eight years before, Isobel Starr made an appearance in it, and now he’s come looking for her—and she knows that she owes him.

  Isobel never left the city. She’s been getting by and doing better than when she first met Rory. Back then, she was a little kid hiding in the dark from him, a giant of a guy who scared people so much with his size and scowl that they crossed the street to avoid him.

  She doesn’t think that she’s same person anymore, but is he? Has Rory really changed after spending eight years of his life in prison? Can she trust him, and can she trust her own feelings for him?

  And when Rory’s past comes roaring back and threatens them both, will they be able to survive it?

  FIRST, LAST,

  AND IN BETWEEN

  Jamie Bennett

  Copyright © 2021 by Jamie Bennett

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Book cover by Angela Haddon Book Cover Design.

  Prologue

  Isobel

  “Wha—”

  The startled exclamation woke me, as did the boot in my ribs.

  “Oof!” I gasped. A weight landed on my back, crushing me, smashing my face into a rough surface that choked me with its disgusting smell. Even in my total confusion, my instincts kicked in and I fought to get away from the weight above me and the stench below. But that elephant, or car, or whatever was on top of me didn’t let me up.

  Until suddenly it moved and was gone. I jerked in a breath but was so stunned that I didn’t do anything more.

  “Jesus Fuck!” someone muttered, and I raised my head from the carpet as a cell phone light flashed into my eyes. I blinked and held up my hand, still disoriented, maybe even still a little asleep, and the light went away. I sat up and checked myself over.

  “I didn’t see you down there,” the deep voice told me from high above. “The lights are out again.”

  The lights in our hallway were always out, because some of the people in this building liked to conduct their business in the dark, and because the landlord was too much of a cheap-ass to hire someone to replace the broken bulbs. Also, he was too afraid to come inside his own building to do it himself.

  “You all right?”

  I ran a short inventory of my various parts. Besides my side where his boot had landed, I was fine. Dirty, cold, hungry, and fine. “Yeah,” I answered, and scooted backwards into the limited shelter of my apartment’s doorframe. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep; my plan had been to sit there, hiding in the dark, until the morning came. I must have sprawled out on the filthy, smelly carpet, soaked with years of…I rubbed my sleeve over my face to wipe it all away, but my clothes probably weren’t much cleaner. “I’m good,” I told him.

  “I fell right on you.”

  My eyes had adjusted to the dimness and I saw a giant grey shadow standing over me. It moved suddenly, swooping down, and I flinched and threw up my arms. The light from the phone came back on and he was only inches away, squatting next to me and studying me.

  “Where did I kick you?” the man asked, and I lowered my arms without thinking, to curve over my ribs.

  “I’m ok,” I said, and then cleared my dry throat to try to say it louder. “I’m ok.”

  “I recognize you. I’ve seen you in the lobby. You’re my neighbor.”

  I almost laughed in surprise, because this really wasn’t a neighborly kind of building. We lived next to other, above and below other people, but pounding on shared walls for quiet and smelling each other’s smoke was as much of a relationship as most of us had.

  “I guess so. Neighbors,” I answered, because he seemed to be waiting. I hadn’t gotten a clear look at his face in the dark with the phone’s flashlight shining away from it, but I already knew who he was, too. No one else in the building—no one else on the block, maybe no one else in the city of Detroit—no one was as big as this guy. I had watched him through our window walking up the street, watched our other “neighbors” eye him suspiciously and then give him a wide berth because his size scared the bejesus out of them. Sometimes kids pointed, even, because that was how large he was. Really, really tall, and so wide that his shoulders went beyond the doorframe where I huddled. I wasn’t very big myself, so it was even more intimidating, but I tried not to show it.

  “What are you doing on the floor of this hallway? Forgot your key?”

  “Yeah,” I said, which was an easy lie. He was still very close to me, but there was no place to get away with my back to the door. I sniffed, catching something other than the odors from the carpet and my own dirty body. The man’s clothes had smoke on them—cigarettes, which I knew well, but some other smoky residue, too, which I didn’t. And he had liquor on his breath, which was another smell I easily recognized.

  He stood, the shadow looming above me again. And when he reached down, his huge hand flashing toward me in the beam from his phone, I couldn’t help flinching away. He took my arm and put me on my feet, lifting me easily. “You shouldn’t sit there. I saw rats in this hallway last week.”

  Yeah, they had been in my apartment, too. Now I stood shakily, warily, still with only the doorframe to protect me. Screams suddenly echoed through the stairwell behind him, close enough that it made me jump, and then we heard the sound of something heavy thudding hard.

  The shadowy giant turned toward the sound. “Come into my place,” he said, and walked off down the hall, the light bobbing ahead of his footsteps.

  I stared after him but turned back toward my own apartment. I knocked softly again, like I had done for at least an hour before settling down on the floor, but there was still no answer. My mom was either with someone or was passed out, or she just didn’t want to deal. It wasn’t the first time that I’d had to wait outside.

  Another scream came from the stairwell, and it seemed closer. A door slammed somewhere in the building and a voice yelled to shut the hell up. I heard a sharp crack, like something broke, and there was a faint glimmer of light from the direction of the stairs. I took one hesitant step after the giant, and then another, and as I heard the door to the stairwell on our floor open with its familiar groan, I ran a little. He was standing in his doorway and I slipped past him inside. I figured maybe he was better than whoever was coming behind me from the stairs in the dark.

  I thought that the power in his apartment had been turned off, like ours, until he shut the door, clicked a few locks, then flipped the switch. Yellow light poured down on me and I blinked again.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Isobel, with an O. Most people call me Izzie,” I conceded. They did, even if I hated it.

  “I’m Rory. Come on in.”

  I flattened myself against the wall as he passed me. The layout of this apartment was the same as mine, the same as all the others in this building. A narrow hallway led to a small living room with a window, some of which looked out into the street, and
some of which peered into the dirty courtyard between the buildings. That was full of trash and sometimes small fires when people threw down matches or lit cigarette butts.

  Walk another step or two, and you were in the kitchen, which was where Rory had headed now. He was opening a can when I slowly trailed in after him. He took a bite, made a face, and dumped the contents in a bowl, shoving it into the microwave to heat.

  “Have a seat.”

  I sat and both of us watched the numbers on the little screen tick down. His place was furnished about the same as mine, with an old table and chairs. But he didn’t have the stacks of stuff, like the creased magazines that my mom had brought home from her former job at the salon, the tangled masses of hair extensions that she liked to clip onto her head, the piles of hair-matted brushes and toothless combs and broken makeup.

  He did have something important, something that we currently didn’t have in our apartment: food. My mouth watered a little as I looked at a box of crackers on the counter, the kind we sometimes had at school. I imagined how they tasted and my mouth watered more. Rory punched the button on the microwave and I jumped, and did again as he pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. His bowl of canned pasta steamed and the aroma wafted toward me, smelling so delicious that I bit my lip so my tongue wouldn’t come out to lick it.

  “You hungry?”

  “No,” I said, but at the same time, my stomach growled, even though I had hunched over to keep it quiet. “I’m not hungry,” I said, louder than my protesting tummy. But he just looked at me for another moment and then pushed his bowl across the table.

  “Eat it.”

  I didn’t hesitate. It was as delicious as it smelled, and I almost moaned in pleasure as I put it into my mouth in heaping forkfuls as fast as I could move my hand.

  “Not hungry,” Rory repeated, as I licked the utensil clean and did the same to the bowl. He got up and put down a plate and a knife, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter. And when I was halfway through my first sandwich, he gave me a glass of OJ, too. He had everything in this kitchen.

  “How old are you?”

  My head jerked up. Questions weren’t good in my life. They usually came from someone who was trying to make me do something that I wasn’t interested in, like go to school, go with that guy, go talk to that counselor, go live somewhere else. “Why?”

  His eyebrows raised. “Just conversation, Isobel.”

  I chewed and swallowed, finishing my second sandwich. “Thirteen,” I told him. “I’m thirteen.” I was, but I was small for my age, short and slight, so that hardly anyone believed me when I said I was a teenager. Rory looked old himself, older than I was, but nowhere near my mom. She was twenty-eight and ancient. Thinking of her, I hoped she was ok tonight. I hoped even more that she would be ok in the morning, and let me back in.

  “You on your own?”

  He sure had a lot of questions. “No, I live with my mom.” I poured the rest of the juice into my glass and shook the bottle to get the last few drops.

  “Where is she tonight?” he asked. “Why isn’t she taking care of you?”

  That one I wasn’t going to answer, no way. We looked at each other for a while, and then he nodded slightly. He got up and stepped to the refrigerator, and when he turned back around, he had a carton of ice cream and two spoons.

  I almost bolted because it felt very familiar. Ice cream, candy, toys—this was an old trick. But he just started eating with one of the spoons and after a moment, I did too. Even if it was a trick, what else was I going to do tonight? Stay in the hallway and deal with whoever else might walk up on me? Things could have been worse than spaghetti, sandwiches, and ice cream. I would be able to handle whatever came next with Rory, just like I always did with everything in my life.

  His phone made a little jump on the tabletop and he looked at it and typed with his long index finger, then held it to his ear. “Yeah. Ok, yeah,” he told someone before he put it back down again. “You done?” he asked me, looking into the nearly-empty carton.

  I would have eaten more while I had the chance, but I was so full, I didn’t know if I could even move. Plus, my sweatshirt pocket had two more sandwiches that I’d stuffed in there for later, and I’d also slipped in the jar of peanut butter when he wasn’t looking. “I’m done,” I answered, and wondered what he would do now.

  “Come on.”

  Ok, here it went. I followed him, not seeing the point in running since I had nowhere to go, and anyway, he was at least nice to me. But he just went into his living room, lit a cigarette, and turned on the TV. It was a big one with a huge, flat screen and he had tons of channels and a remote that worked. I stared, fascinated, because after one of my mom’s boyfriends put his fist through our TV a few years before, we hadn’t replaced it, and I missed that calming light and noise.

  Rory turned on a show he had recorded about college football, about some team in Idaho. He settled himself on the couch and sighed deeply, resting his head back on the cushion. This was also different for me. Our furniture, what we had, was covered in my mom’s clothes and shoes, more magazines, mail, nail polish, dishes, bottles, and so much other stuff that there wasn’t room to sit. In comparison, Rory’s living room looked naked.

  “Uh, can I use your bathroom?” I asked.

  He nodded a little and I knew the way, because it was in the same place as ours. But again, his bathroom was different in very important respects. I turned on the faucet and yeah, I knew it. He had water. I let it run, splashing my hands and making soap bubbles as I glanced through his medicine cabinet. Ours was practically exploding with hair clips, makeup brushes, temporary dyes, and more extensions, but Rory didn’t have anything good. There was only one comb, a few old razors, and a rusty can of shaving cream that looked like no one had touched it in a while. The guy probably didn’t shave much, because he had a big, bushy beard which made him look even larger. But he did have a toothbrush and toothpaste, and I used both, relishing the minty taste in my mouth.

  I put my ear to the door for a moment but all I could hear was the show about football, so I decided that I could keep going. I turned on the shower, got in, and used his soap and shampoo. I stood under the warm, running water until I heard him knock.

  “What are you doing?”

  I turned it off. “Nothing. I’m coming,” I said, and jumped out of the tub, using his towel to dry myself off. I only had my old clothes to put back on, but I felt much better, anyway. It was awesome to get the dirt off, the actual filth on my body and the smells that went along with it. I opened the door and Rory was still standing there. I could have slammed it again, but the lock never would have held against a guy that size. He looked just like one of the football players on his TV, that big and strong. Maybe even larger.

  “I wanted to clean up,” I explained, and he nodded slightly.

  “Here.” He handed me something, a shirt, I saw when I unfolded it. “You can have this to put on if you want. It’s clean. Do you have a coat to wear? You didn’t have one on in the hall and it’s cold out there.”

  “No,” I admitted. “I don’t.” I’d had one, a warm one, but nothing good lasted long in our apartment if you left it lying around by mistake. And I’d been feeling pretty chilly lately, since it was November in Detroit. I’d seen pictures of beaches in places like Florida and California and that was where I was going to go when I turned eighteen. I’d live somewhere warm all the time where I’d never even need a jacket, but I did miss one now.

  He walked into the bedroom next door and came back with something that looked like a blanket off the bed, but when he held it out to me, I saw that it was a giant jacket, dark green with red writing that said “Idaho A&M.” “My brother goes to college there,” he said. “He gets free stuff sometimes.”

  “Ok. Thanks,” I added, and went back into the bathroom, locking the door again. I changed into his shirt and transferred my belongings, sandwiches included, to the coat pockets before putting it on. I
t went down to my knees but it was so warm, and clean, and soft—I loved it. I used the comb from his medicine cabinet to fight out the tangles in my blonde hair, which had been more of a greasy brown before the shower. I’d used so much shampoo that the comb squeaked as I ran it through, and my hair hung all the way down to my waist in a straight sheet.

  Much, much improved. I smiled at the clean and full Isobel in the mirror, and her blue eyes smiled back at me. This night had turned out way better than I’d thought it would. Maybe Rory would let me stay and sleep on his couch. Maybe he’d give me a pillow, or I could use this coat since the apartment was already pretty warm. His power worked, after all. And in the morning, there’d be breakfast out of the cupboards that he had filled with food. I frowned. In the morning, I’d have to deal with my mom.

  When I came out of the bathroom again, the football show was off and so were the lights. I froze, wondering what was going to happen next. I could see by the glow of the streetlight outside that Rory was next to the window, peering out around the side of the bent metal blinds. He held his phone to his ear and spoke quietly into it, and then he swore much louder. He turned and glanced briefly at me, and then looked out of the window again and shook his head.

  “It’s too late,” I heard him say into the phone, and he shoved it in his pocket. His head swiveled back to me.

  “What’s your last name?” Rory asked abruptly.

  “Starr. Two Rs.” It wasn’t really, I didn’t think. That was the name my mom used, and so that was the name she had given me, too.

  “Isobel Starr. Ok, Isobel. I’m going to give you something, and you have to hide it for me. I’ll come back to get it from you. Do you understand? It’s mine,” he said, his voice like a growl. “I want it back. We’ll have a big problem if I don’t get it.”

  I started to edge away. “Why are you giving it to me?”