Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
He got off the bike and offered me his hand, but I acted like I didn’t see it as I got off with my head bowed and my eyes downcast.
He grabbed my dinner, my overnight bag, and together we walked toward his front door.
When he opened his door with a few electronic beeps of his keypad, I stopped on the threshold and blinked.
I was expecting a house that looked lived in.
What I got was a showroom on a farm with zero sign that a child lived there, let alone Aodhan.
CHAPTER 11
I never know what to say when someone tells me they’re pregnant. Inevitably, “I like having sex, too” always comes out.
-Text from Aodhan to Morrigan
AODHAN
“Wow,” she said quietly. “You don’t even look like you live here.”
That’s because I practically don’t.
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “I don’t spend much time here. All the furniture and paint and stuff is the original owner’s. She got married to her husband, and he died like a week after they moved in after renovating this place completely.”
“That’s awful,” she rasped.
I walked to the kitchen, dropping her bag on the landing next to the stairs, and placed her food on the large counter in the middle of the kitchen.
She followed behind hesitantly, as if she didn’t belong here, and that made me really freakin’ mad.
What she didn’t know was that if anyone belonged here, it was her. This place was practically built for her. I may not have been the first person to own the house, but the moment I saw it, I knew that she’d love it.
And still, her hesitancy caused a bolt of fire to shoot up my spine. Damn, I was angry.
As in, irrationally so.
“She moved out because she couldn’t work this place on her own,” I explained. “I bought it the week it went on the market.”
Because I knew that you’d love the hell out of it.
And maybe if, one day, you returned, I’d have your dream house ready to go for you.
“Oh,” she said quietly, her eyes suddenly sad.
“Danyetta never lived here,” I continued. “Then again, neither has Bowie.”
She looked at me startled at that. “What? Why?”
I gestured toward her Frosty and the bottle of water next to the seat at the bar, and she took it.
She lifted the lid off the chocolate Frosty, then carefully pulled the wrapper off of the spoon.
Seconds later, she took the smallest of bites, a heavy sigh leaving her.
“Bowie doesn’t live here because I’ve never really gotten to know him,” I said. “Everything that went down happened in the weeks after his birth. I finally went to prison for good when he was around five.”
“That doesn’t mean he can’t live with you,” she pointed out. “You’ve been out for over a year.”
I had.
“I don’t want to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do,” I admitted. “From the very beginning, I wasn’t able to form that ‘bond’ with him since I knew that I’d be going away. I mean, it just felt easier to leave him if I didn’t get too attached. He almost feels like he’s Danyetta’s son, and not mine. But ever since I’ve been out, I haven’t been able to bridge that gap that I created myself. And it’s frustrating.”
“You protected the both of you.” She took another bite of her Frosty, and her face smoothed of even more tension lines. “I think that, given enough time, you can have a relationship with him. But sadly, he’s at an impressionable age. And from what I’ve seen and heard about him from people coming into the shop…he’s insanely smart. He is in the same magnet school now as Folsom’s daughter for gifted children.”
He was.
When Wake’s shit had been going on, they’d taken both Bowie and Lolo out of the local school, and though Lolo had gone back, we’d taken the opportunity to install Bowie into a different school.
I didn’t bother to ask how she found out, either. If I’d known that she was in town—and I was still quite flabbergasted that I hadn’t known—I would’ve tried to know everything about her, too.
Someone that is that much a part of your life…you don’t just turn that off inside your soul. It’s a feeling that’s always there in the back of your mind.
It’s like one of those motion sensor floodlights. You go about your day, and live your life. You don’t really remember that it’s there until the memory turns on, and you get blinded with it. Then it stays on, and since you’re still there, thinking about it, causing the memory to turn into another, and another, the stupid light never turns off. Then you’re there, blinded, and unable to function.
“Ouch,” I heard her say, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I looked at her trying to choke down a fry, and my rage at what happened to her tonight doubled.