Since Alice had died, Jinx had treated a lot of the people around him poorly. But the one he felt most guilty about was Marie, Marie who'd done nothing wrong but be a kid around him when he couldn't deal with a kid. He'd ignored her most of the time, shoved her off onto other people, even shouted at her a few times when it was too much, and all of it had effected his relationship with the young girl. Marie had taken to avoiding him, no longer trying to get his attention but just staying out of his way.
He couldn't blame Marie for that, because he'd been cruel and she was too young to even understand why.
But he was trying hard to rebuild the relationship between them now. She wasn't Alice. And it wasn't her fault that Alice was dead. Marie was just Marie, Stephie's sweet Marie and Jinx wanted to protect her even more than he used to these days.
Tonight he'd been playing board games with her and reading with her and now, as he sat in the chair in his room, he watched her sleeping in his bed. He hadn't had the heart to move her, because it felt good to have her near. So he'd just played Skyrim on mute and let her sleep.
When his phone started ringing in his pocket, Jinx pulled it out quickly to answer it and even smiled a little when he saw Josie's name. He stood up and creeped out of the room, into the hallway so he wouldn't wake Marie. "Hey, darlin," he said. "What's up?"