Convict (Sin City Salvation 2)

Guilt settled into my gut as I considered her words. She was hungry, and I hadn’t fed her. It was one of those basic human needs I told myself I’d be able to meet, and I hadn’t. I’d failed.

“Have a seat.” I pried the pan from her fingers and nodded toward the kitchen table. “I’ll take care of dinner.”

She hesitated like she was about to argue, but for once, she chose not to. I started cleaning up the mess she made while she watched on. I couldn’t quite figure out what she was trying to cook, and I doubted she knew either.

“Didn’t your sister ever teach you how to cook?” I asked as I set a pot full of water on the stove.

“She didn’t know how to cook either,” Birdie huffed. “Until Lucian taught her.”

A note of sadness in her voice led me to believe that even though she was happy for her sister, she missed the way things were before.

“Come here.” I gestured for her.

“What for?” She cocked her head to the side, revealing her uncertainty.

“We’re making pasta.” I pointed at the box I’d pulled from the cupboard. “You can’t fuck up pasta.”

Birdie joined me in the small space between the stove and the counter, and I didn’t really know what the fuck I was doing. Having her within reach wasn’t doing my self-control any favors. I wanted to taste her lips again. I wanted to grab her by the hips and hoist her up onto the counter and make her forget every awful thing that had ever happened to her as I fucked her the way she should be fucked.

“What do I do?” She looked up at me with those big doll-faced eyes.

“Wait until it boils and then we’ll pour it in.”

With nothing else to do, we stood there and stared at each other. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I wanted to.

“Why did you break up with Kylie?” she asked.

I shifted, leaning up against the counter. This wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have, but I knew her curiosity wouldn’t be sated until we did. “It was just time. She deserved more than what I could offer her.”

Birdie swallowed, and it drew my attention to the fading bruises around her neck. I wanted her to tell me about them. And then I wanted to kill the motherfucker who thought he could do that to her.

“Do you think it hurt her feelings?” she pressed.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But she always knew it wasn’t going anywhere.”

“What does that mean?” Birdie braced herself against the counter as if she anticipated my answer.

I couldn’t look at her when I said it, so I nodded to the box of pasta, and while she poured it in, I gave her the only explanation I could offer. One that also served as a warning. “I’m not capable of caring about someone that way. The house and the white picket fence? That shit’s not in the cards for me.”

Birdie eyes hardened. “Who is it in the cards for? That fairy tale is a delusion living on borrowed time.”

Coming from her, it didn’t sound right. She was too young to be so jaded. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her otherwise. I didn’t want to think about someone proving her wrong someday because, in my mind, nobody would ever be good enough for her.

“Watch the clock.” I opened the cupboard and retrieved the colander. “We’ll check it at eight minutes.”

The rest of the lesson was uneventfully quiet, and though I wondered what was on Birdie’s mind, I didn’t ask. We ate dinner together in silence, and I sensed her anxiety growing as we wound down for the evening. She still hadn’t spoken about what happened last night. She hadn’t told me what she needed, but I anticipated that tonight would go a lot smoother.

At least, that was my intention.

AS THE EVENING PROGRESSED, I felt myself falling inward, caving into a mixture of old fears and new, along with the odd thought that didn’t really make sense to me. I had a long list of things that needed to be done. For starters, following up on Joe, scouting information, and figuring out how the hell I was going to get that video. But at present, I was trapped with a bear of a man who seemed more complicated by the second, and I wasn’t entirely sure that this wasn’t the best place for me right now.

I valued my freedom, but letting someone else take the wheel for a spell held some appeal. My life had been careening wildly out of control for as long as I could remember, and I was just fucking exhausted. Even though Ace was a cranky bastard, he managed to calm me whenever he was near. He took care of me in a way that nobody ever had, and in the grand scheme of things, that meant something. I just hadn’t quite figured out what that something was.