Gray Witch (Black Hat Bureau 5)

“I can’t imagine what he must have felt, seeing her again. Or you, meeting her in that state.”

“This isn’t the first time he’s chosen her over me.” I hadn’t realized that Dad’s reappearance had sliced me that deeply, or that the wound had been festering since the night I first saw him. “He made a vow that would end his life after he avenged my mother. He decided there and then to make me an orphan. He didn’t care that he was leaving a child behind. He only cared his wife was dead.”

“Rue…”

“I wanted him to be my dad.” I swallowed past a tight throat. “I wanted him to stay.” I shook my head. “He doesn’t care about me, Asa. He doesn’t love me. Maybe one love is all a black witch can manage.”

There was an argument to be made that Dad was half crazed from his time beneath the compound. That he wasn’t of sound mind or body. But I reverted to the small child I had been when I last saw him, and I wanted him to pick me.

Me.

Twice now, he had chosen Mom instead, and that cut deep.

Enough to draw tears that threatened to blur my view of what lay ahead.

“Is there a point where we have so much sex that fascination stops making me a weepy mess?” I checked with Asa, who choked on air beside me. “Is there a magic number? Should we have been keeping count?”

“That’s not how fascination works,” he said, his voice strained. “I wish I could make this better for you.”

“You’ve been making everything better for me since the day I met you.”

“I thought you wanted to kill me then?”

“I wanted to punch your face in. Lucky for you, your good looks distracted me.” I allowed myself a moment of levity. “Almost as much as your butt in those slacks is distracting me right now.”

“It’s the spandex,” he confided. “It really sculps and lifts.”

A snort blasted out of me, startling a nearby bird from its perch. “I can’t believe you went there.”

“Clay said that once, after the drycleaners mixed up our pants. He was able to pull mine on, but it was a stretch.” Asa’s lips hooked up to one side. “He went as far as to order a pair in his size, but he wore them to a food truck show one weekend and caught the reflection of his food baby and vowed to never wear them again.”

“As many food babies as he’s carried, I’m amazed he’s not the father of hundreds of thousands.”

We reached the meeting point but lingered outside rather than venturing into the restaurant.

“You’re not your father,” Asa said after a while of me staring down the road.

The impact of those words coming from Asa, who feared that most of all, forced me to face him.

“I love you enough to become something more terrible than I have ever been if I lose you.”

“And you love Colby enough not to put her in the middle of what’s between us.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” I pressed my face into his chest and looped my arms around his waist. “I love her, so much, but you…” I tipped my head back. “I can understand why Dad did what he did in the moment. He didn’t want to live in a world without Mom. There was no world without her.”

“You won’t make that choice.” He breathed me in. “You would never take that decision from Colby.”

“I want to believe you’re right.” I turned when gravel crunched behind us. “But it gets harder every time I see your slacks lift and sculp your butt to ever imagine my life without that view.”

Laughter crinkled the corners of his eyes, and he captured my mouth in a kiss that tapped his newest piercing against my teeth. “I never should have told you that.”

“Ugh.” Clay pretended to talk into his phone to enable him to speak freely with Colby. “If we leave them alone too long, they’re like ice cream left out in the sun. They turn into gooey puddles of pure sugar.”

“I like gooey puddles of pure sugar,” Colby said from within his pocket. “But yeah. They’re gross.”

“Totally.” Clay wrinkled his nose as he walked up and stole a hug from me. “So gross.”

Again those stupid tears threatened to prick my eyes, and I found myself holding on to Clay for too long.