Three weeks later
“OKAY. I’VE GOT YOU DOWN for next Thursday at noon. See you then,” Lo says before hanging up the phone. I walk up behind her, gathering her hair into my fist before scooping it out of the neck of the hoodie she commandeered from me. She tilts her head back, flashing me one of her real smiles, and I kiss her forehead. Funny how I went from not being comfortable with affection to constantly needing to touch her in just a few weeks.
“How could you ever think you’re a monster?” she muses, looking up into my eyes. I give her hair a tug before letting go. I still haven’t come clean about everything. I know I should, but things have been good for once, and I didn’t want to do anything to throw a wrench in it.
Crystal reluctantly went back to Oakland. Jesse’s doing well in school. We haven’t heard anything from Eric. They’ve even talked to Henry a few times. Lo won’t admit it, but she was more hurt than she led on. I know she wants Henry to stay in their lives in some capacity, even if he isn’t their biological father. I think we all know that blood doesn’t mean shit.
It’s been three weeks of fucking and laughing and eating and drinking and falling in love with Lo. Watching my friends fall in love with her and Jess. So, why dig up the past? That would be self-sabotaging behavior.
“Ready to go?” I ask Lo a couple of hours later after everyone has gone home for the night.
“Yep,” she says, bending over to pick up her bag from underneath the front desk. I lock up, then we trudge through the snow to my truck.
Once we’re home, we head straight upstairs. Lo talked me into buying a TV for my room, so we’ve gotten in the habit of falling asleep to a movie almost every night.
She drops her bag onto my bed—our bed, I should say, because even though I said she could have her own room, we both knew that shit wasn’t happening—and fishes out a Redbox DVD with a goofy smile on her face.
“What is it? If you make me watch Grandma’s Boy one more time…” I say, wary of her selection. She has the same taste in movies as a college frat boy.
“First of all, that movie is a national treasure,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Second of all, no. It’s even better.” She tosses me the red plastic container, and I open it up to find The Nightmare Before Christmas.
“Good one,” I say, a smirk tugging at my lips.
“’Tis the season. I just need a shower first,” she says, stripping out of her clothes as she walks toward the bathroom.
“Weird, so do I.” I follow her, staring at her perky, round ass as I pull my shirt over my head and kick off my jeans and boots. One of the best parts about living with Lo is getting to shower with her.
She opens the glass door and steps inside. I’m right behind her. She pulls the faucet up, and we stand back, waiting for the water to get warm. I take the opportunity to kiss her, long and hard, and I feel her nipples pebbling against my torso.
The shower fills with steam and I wash her body, loving the feel of her slippery, soapy skin underneath my hand. Lo moans when I rub between her legs.
“Don’t stop,” she insists, grabbing my wrist. I don’t listen, pulling back my hand, earning a glare and a growl from Lo. But that doesn’t last long, because I back her up against the wall and lift her thigh as I push inside her. She gasps, her head hitting the wall.
I fuck her slowly, getting as deep as I possibly can, applying pressure to her clit with my pelvis with each thrust. She comes quietly, her body shaking as she clenches around me, pulling my release from me.
Still inside her, I lean my forehead against the wall behind her, panting, and Lo absently toys with my nipple ring as she peppers kisses against my shoulder.
What happens when fire meets ice? Fire wins. Every time.
“Meet you at the shop?” I ask Lo as she heads for the door to drop Jess off at school.
“Yep. My shift at Blackbear doesn’t start until three, so I’ll get a few hours in first.”
I decide to stop at Sissy’s and Belle’s for some coffee and Lo’s favorite cherry danishes. Sissy hooks me up with a bag of extra pastries, per usual.
I turn for the door, bag of pastries between my teeth, hands full of food and coffee, when I see her walking through the door. Sarah. She looks exactly the same. Long, wavy blond hair. Bright, blue eyes. But there’s a sadness behind those eyes that wasn’t always there. And I’m the one who’s responsible for that.
Sarah gasps, and we both stop short, not knowing what to do. She hates me. Her parents hate me. I hate me. I haven’t seen her in almost ten years. Haven’t spoken to her since they took me away in handcuffs. Her family moved away a long time ago. She’s the last person I expected to see here.
Sarah’s wide eyes fill with tears and she glances behind her, as if she’s looking for someone. A second later, Mark appears. Sarah’s father. My old foster dad. These are the people who I thought might actually become my permanent family. But all of that changed in an instant, reminding me that I didn’t have a real family, and nothing could ever change that.
Mark’s eyes burn with a mixture of rage and pain when he recognizes me, and the same emotions consume me, as if it just happened yesterday. I feel my throat closing up. I feel the break in my arm and the stabbing cold of ice puncturing my skin as I jump in. I feel my oxygen running out, and I see the blood spilled along the ice above me.
The bag of pastries falls from my mouth, tumbling out of the bag on the way to the floor. The cherry danish splatters across the white floor. Dread slams into my gut
like a thousand-pound weight as all three of us stand before each other, reliving the worst day of our lives in the span of three seconds.
“You’re still here,” Mark spits, voice full of disdain. If he could kill me where I stand and get away with it, I have no doubt in my mind that he would. He wanted me in prison. And he almost got his wish. But I can’t fault him.