Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
“So, what about now?”
“I’ve got money,” I reply. “Enough to last the rest of my life. I could use it to seed a business.”
Or a charity.
“There are plenty of options.”
She smiles, as if that’s what she wanted to hear, as if she needed to know there was a path forward that didn’t include killing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Violet
“What were you like as a kid?” I ask.
We’re sitting across the table from each other, the sun bathing the scene, so that it’s easier to forget about the threat hovering over us every single moment.
“In what way?” he replies, cutting into his steak.
The cutlery looks tiny in his hands. He sits upright, wearing a T-shirt that seems formed to the shape of his chest, his pectorals bulging. His forearms are tense. I wonder if it has anything to do with the discussion last night. I’ve noticed his cut knuckles, too. They weren’t like that last night.
“Were you funny? Quiet? Cheeky?” I ask.
“I didn’t have much of a childhood,” he grunts.
I think about blurting the “Dad” stuff, the connection Dad basically admitted. However, this situation feels oddly fragile, this date… the first I’ve ever had. I wonder what Dad would make it of it if he wandered downstairs and found us like this.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Luke stares bleakly, hinting at so much pain. I want to reach inside of him and soothe it all, make it so he never has to live with whatever’s gnawing him to pieces. I know there’s something there, something he’s holding back.
“You were a kid once,” I go on.
“Yeah,” he replies, nodding.
“What sort of things did you like?”
I see a twitch in his lips, a near smile, not the ironic smirk he often aims at me. “I used to love baseball cards. I’d run to the store every weekend when I got my allowance and buy as many as I could. Me and my friends would spend hours comparing, arranging them. But then…”
“But then?”
I’m hungry for far more than the steak. For any morsel he’ll throw in my direction, any hint of the man beneath the gruffness, beneath the shield.
“My mom died when I was young,” he tells me. “Like yours. I don’t remember much about her. After that, it was just me and my dad. He had different ideas about parenting.”
He speaks each word heavily, as if they’re trying to drag him down into an abyss, trying to twist him up.
“We can talk about it, if you want.”
“What good will it do?” he snarls. “It’s all ancient history.”
“I know it’s hard,” I say, reading his rage as emotional pain. I know I’ll always do anything I can to help him ease it if I can’t cure it.
“It’s fine,” he says, then lays his fork down. “I’m sorry, Violet. I never want to snap at you.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
We share a moment, staring across the table. It’s like our first kiss in the forest, like we’re communicating so much. Or is just the feeling buried within me, telling me lies I want to believe?
He needs me as fiercely as I need him. He envisions the same future. He sees it all laid out as I do, shaded with hope.
“Do you still collect baseball cards?” I ask.
He chuckles, shaking his head. “No.”
“Maybe when you have kids, you can collect them together.”
I focus stubbornly on my steak after throwing this shred of craziness out there. I didn’t plan on bringing this up, but maybe he’s against the idea. Maybe he’s tried before and discovered he can’t. That would end the picture-perfect life that won’t quit in my mind. That would end all thoughts of the future. Not really, because we could adopt. We could make it work. There are options, but what if he’s against the idea completely?
“Maybe,” he says after a pause. I look up and find him staring down, as if he’s having trouble with eye contact.
“You want kids, then?”
“I’m not sure what sort of father I’d make.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’ve only ever had one role model for that job,” he says.
“Are you saying you’d be like your dad?”
“No,” he snaps, fury immediately entering his voice, his fist clenched around his steak knife like he’s ready to stab the very idea. “My kids will have every chance to be who they want to be. I’ll never hit them. I’ll discipline them and make sure they have the tools they need to succeed in the world—the discipline and the drive—but I’ll never hurt them.”
His chest heaves as he goes on. He’s talking about us. I just know it. Hope it. Want it.
“They’ll never know what it’s like to be afraid of their parents. They won’t want for anything, but they’ll learn the value of hard work.”
“It sounds to me like you’d be an incredible dad,” I say, struggling to keep the emotion out of my voice. “The best dad.”