I inhaled again, tipping my head back to allow as much deliciousness into my soul as possible. For an unoccupied house, the aroma smelled suspiciously like home baking and heavenly shampoo.
Elder froze.
I bumped into his back, moving forward in a dream.
He sniffed, his body switching from placid to on guard. “Someone’s been here.”
His alertness made me nervous.
I glanced around with new eyes. Shadows that’d been comforting and inviting to doze in were now sinister with men about to hurt us. My feet wanted to dash outside where it was sunny, but Elder reached out and grabbed my wrist. His fingers warm and strong, anchored me to him, granting me protection.
Ignoring the soft flutter in my chest, I allowed him to pull me forward from foyer to open-plan lounge, kitchen, and dining.
For a house that’d looked quaint from the outside, it expanded outward in a U-shape with a central courtyard where the sun warmed a wrought-iron patio set and a bubbling water fountain in the shape of a yin and yang.
Despite Elder’s bristling hostility as he searched for trespassers in his domain, I saw no sign of inhabitants. No empty dishes marring the pristine wooden counter-top or spotless butter-mellow cupboards. No magazines strewn on the rugged coffee table that’d once been a cart-wheel but now had been repurposed.
It didn’t stop Elder from pulling me through the living room, over thick woven carpets with bright, happy colours, and down a wide corridor leading to an office with an empty desk and lonely chair, a bedroom with a single bed and baby blue linen, past a bathroom with a Jacuzzi bath just waiting for someone to soak, past two more guest bedrooms with incredible views onto the courtyard, and finally to the master where evidence of unwanted guests finally confirmed Elder was right to suspect.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, taking in the suitcase tucked in the corner and the wardrobe door open with folded clothes.
Women’s clothes.
My heart sank to think of an ex tracking him down. Of him giving me up in favour of rekindling a romance far less complicated than whatever we shared.
But before I could excuse myself and rub my heartache, an adjoining bathroom door swung open, revealing the owner of the clothes. She wore a pretty lavender towel and had a shower cap on her head, keeping her black hair dry from the countless droplets lingering to the plastic.
She didn’t see us for the longest second.
She moved into the room, pulling off the shower cap and tossing her hair until it cascaded down to her shoulders.
Elder swore again; only this time, he sounded as if someone had taken a baseball bat to his insides. He stumbled backward, letting go of my wrist to grasp the wall. “Okaasan?” His voice crumbled with disbelief. “Is it really you?”
The woman screamed; hugging her chest, she clutched at her towel. Her feet left the carpet as she startled, her gaze catching Elder’s then mine.
In that split second, I noticed she was older than I had originally thought. Lines feathered out from her eyes and around her mouth. Streaks of silver played hide and seek in her black hair, and the skin on her chest wasn’t that of a youthful woman but of someone who’d spent more than she should in the sunshine.
In the next second, I saw disbelief, shock, and such heartfelt longing it physically hurt to look at her.
In the final second, her face filled with disgust, ridicule, and rage. “You!”
Elder braced himself, pushing off from the wall as if fortified by her hate. As if he’d hoped for a different outcome but hadn’t received it and now knew exactly how to proceed.
“What are you doing here?” His question was innocent, but his tone was not.
“What are you doing here?” she screeched, grabbing at her towel, totally unprepared for an audience.
I lingered in the background, fading against the wall. I didn’t want the animosity in the room to find and leach me dry.
I’d seen Elder mad.
I’d witnessed him break a man’s neck, hold another for me to shoot, and sinister satisfaction at bloodshed.
I’d seen him stoned to escape whatever issues he lived with, and I’d seen him torn apart by guilt for forcing himself on me when he shouldn’t.
But I’d never seen him like this before.
This twisted up.
This tangled.
His body hunched as if he wanted to strike the woman in front of him while his face resembled that of a kid who still believed everything bad could be made good again.
His sharp cheekbones matched those of the woman in front of us. His black hair and breeding were similar…
Wait…
“What am I doing here?” Elder scrubbed his face, bone weary and looking far older than before. “This is my house, mother.”
My eyes popped wide.
His mother?
Admittedly, Elder and I hadn’t discussed families, and I still had so much to learn. But he acted as if he hadn’t seen her in decades—let alone expected her to be holidaying here without permission.