Chapter 5
It was dark, and she was already past curfew, and getting back to the rooming house before dawn didn't seem like it was going to happen. But she, and one of the other newsgirls, Lia, had been out hitting a few of the local pubs and they'd had so much fun that they'd lost track of time. Lia had wandered off with a somewhat scruffy dock worker, however, leaving her alone sitting at the bar.
She was not expecting a very drunk Jack Kelly to sit next to her with an audible sigh. Her eyebrow arched, turning to give him a strange look as she finished her glass of whiskey, paid for by Lia's dock worker before they left.
"Don't think I've ever seen you here before, Kelly." She was mildly drunk, but apparently not as bad as the boy next to her who nearly fell off his chair when she spoke to him.
"Goldilocks...should've figured I'd find you here. Lia around? Tabby, maybe? Whole bunch of you all out tonight?" He was slurred, but the bitterness of his tone was perfectly clear, as he leaned heavily on the bar, counting a few coins out as though attempting to figure out if he could afford another drink.
She blinked, and then snorted, shaking her head, shrugging his words off as though the implication didn't sting. "Yeah, Lia's here, too." She cleared her throat before adding, "I think Sarah might have something to say about you being drunk here, Cowboy."
"Sarah...she's pretty." Was all Jack bothered to reply as he waved at the bartender.
"He's all set." She gave the bartender a stern look when he finally wandered over, and the older man gave Jack one good look, and nodded agreement, wandering away again. "You're going to end up dead in a gutter. Lets get you home, alright?"
Standing, she tried to haul Jack to his feet, but not only was he a fair bit bigger, but he was all deadweight at the moment, and she struggled, tugging him, perfectly aware of the irony of the situation. "C'mon, Jack, we're going back to the loding house. And maybe Kloppy'll even let you in."
He finally began at least stumbling in the right direction, leaning against her, and mumbling. "Sarah's pretty, you know? Beautiful. Perfect. Smart. Too good for me."
"What're you talkin about, Jack? Everyone know the two of you are fairy tale perfect." She snorted, and tried to steer him towards the lodging house where he could sleep off whatever had convinced him getting this trashed was a good idea.
"No we ain't." Came the mumbled reply. And it was true, not everything was as perfect as it seemed, Sarah was angry with him that he hadn't taken the success of the strike and moved it into a larger field. She thought he was resting on his laurels when he could be making more of a difference, disgusted that he wasn't spending all of his free time helping set up other children's worker's unions and the like. She didn't understand that it had never been his intention to take it further than he had to, that he cared about the rights of working children as far as it extended to him. He wasn't about to spend the rest of his life slaving for everyone else, he had himself to look out for, and he had been doing precious little of that lately.
He was drunk because they'd had yet another fight about his not wanting to go to some rally or other she'd heard about and wanted to go to. Mayer was going, as well, and David, she had argued, why not him? But he just wanted to catch a show at Irving Hall, and go back to the lodging house to go to bed.
Instead, of course, he'd gotten rip-roaring drunk, and was being hauled home by the same little fool he'd tried to save from exactly the same fate not several months earlier.
"Of course you are. Don't be an idiot, Jack, you're just drunk. And if you don't stop talking like an idiot, I'll just leave you here, how about that? You like the sound of that?" She didn't know what else to say, although it was starting to be clear he and Sarah had gotten into a fight about something. But then, she wasn't exactly one of his friends, and he wasn't likely to tell her anything, so she didn't even bother to ask.
"You wouldn't leave me here." Jack shook his head, and glanced sideways at her, shaking his head a bit. It was difficult to miss the longing glances most of the local newsgirls tossed his way, and he knew she was no exception. Even drunk, he knew he wasn't really being fair, but he was sick of fair. He was sick of playing by the rules. He wasn't ever really Jack Kelly, strike leader, or Francis Sullivan, poor street boy. He was always whoever he needed to be to get the job done. His whole life was one big scam, and here he was, a idiot, to use her words, for trying to buy into it. Strike leader...that wasn't who he was. He was his father's son, through and through, and he knew exactly what his father would do in a situation like this, with a girl like her.
"Of course I would, Kelly, you always think you're so clever, but you don't know me-" She was cut short by his lips crushing hers. It was so unexpected that she didn't have time to react, and she'd spent so long thinking about it, that once she'd figured out which way was up, she kissed him back, knowing he'd wake up in the morning and regret having done it, regret that it had been her, and it would never be spoken about again.
It didn't really matter to her that he tasted of cheap whiskey, that he had a sweetheart, that she had Race. This wasn't really happening, none of it. This wasn't real, his hands on her arms, sliding down to her wrists, pressing her back against the closest cold brick wall. Even when his lips finally broke away from hers and moved in grazing kisses along her cheek to her neck, nuzzling down the side, it still wasn't real. It wasn't.
But the first proper lungful of cold air brought her to her senses, pushing him off a bit, frowning, and flushed. "Kelly, what the hell...?"
He moved closer again, his teeth grazing the skin near the hollow of her throat. "How much do you charge, Goldilocks? How much do you make a night like this? I can pay like the rest of them..."
She winced, pushing him off again, shaking her head. It was the most horrible thing he could have said to her, and she suspected he knew that. She tried to mask the bitterness in her voice, but it seeped through the edges, more than she would have liked. "I make enough to pay for my room, and my damn newspapers and food. And you were the one who tried to tell me it was a bad idea. I'm figurin out that it is."
He pulled away, meeting her eyes, and for the first time, she saw the kind of man he could be. Selfish and cold, not the friendly newsboys leader she'd known. Somehow, this side of him made more sense than the other. "Who watches your back when you're out here all alone, Goldilocks? If you start screaming, who comes running? No one, you're all alone. That ain't safe." His fingers hooked under her chin, and he smile a dangerously charming smile before pulling his hand back. "Think about that tonight, huh?"
When he turned to walk away, he was far more steady on his feet than he had been mere moments earlier, and she was left staring after him in confusion, breathing a bit too fast, still pink around the ears, utterly confused. What the hell had that been about?