“Me too, gorgeous,” he says, his voice low in the dark hallway. “It’s all I can think about.”
Shit. I’d been hoping it was some adrenaline-fueled fantasy, that he’d change his mind once we were back at the club. “I don’t think—”
“You’re not going to cancel on me, are you?”
The warning in his tone doesn’t give me much choice. Still I have to try. “It’s not a good idea to get involved with someone at work.”
He laughs. “We’re already involved.”
“Right, well.” I’m almost stammering—how does he do this to me? “This would be more involved. And Ivan wouldn’t like it.”
“Ivan doesn’t have to know.” He steps close, pressing me against the wall with his body, and I gasp. The concrete behind me is cool. His body is a furnace. “Besides, Ivan isn’t exactly focused on playing by the rules.”
“Maybe I like following rules.”
“That’s not the way I remember you.” He nuzzles my temple, almost the way an animal would scent another one. “I remember the wild girl I couldn’t get enough of.”
“That was me then. I was…troubled.”
“You’re working as a stripper. Most people would call that troubled.”
Hurt lashes me. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I know where you came from. I know what made you this way. I know why you like a man who’ll push you around a little.”
Shock and pain are like a cold fist around my heart. “How dare you bring my father into this.”
I hate that I ever told him. Honesty makes you vulnerable. Most foster kids would know never to share that kind of information. They’d know not to make themselves weak. But I’d lost myself when it came to Blue. I told him about my father, a member of a local MC gang and all around lowlife. He’d got himself locked up after an armed robbery. Things didn’t go much better for him after getting locked up. He got into fight after fight, ending up hospitalized more than not.
And my mother—she hadn’t been able to handle life without him.
Blue leans close. “Am I wrong?”
It makes too much sense to be wrong. It’s sick if I’ve been seeking out men like my father—common criminals and assholes alike. Sometimes I feel sick.
And sometimes I feel like pushing back. “Are you proud to be like him?” I ask. “A fucking criminal? He rotted in that jail cell until someone stuck a shiv in him. Is that what you are?”
He pulls back enough to let me breathe. I can tell I’ve shocked him.
No shock comes through his voice. He speaks in a lazy drawl. “No, sweetheart. As hard as you tried to get me locked up, it didn’t work.”
I never wanted him locked up. “You enlisted.”
I hadn’t known where he’d gone then, but I recognized the military bearing when he showed up again.
“They didn’t know what to do with me, so they shoved a gun in my hand and shipped me overseas. That’s kind of like what you did to me, isn’t it? I guess you were both hoping I’d get myself killed. That I wouldn’t come back.”
I love and hate that he came back. “Blue, I’m—”
“Saturday. No backing out.” He stalks off before I can answer.
It’s probably for the best that he interrupted. For the best that he left. I was about to say I’m sorry.
Chapter Eight
“Sugar?”
Honor shakes her head. “None for me.”
Mrs. Owens smiles vaguely. I think she’s already forgotten the question she asked.
I pour from the china teapot with the chipped lid. It’s a beautiful piece. Maybe it would even be worth some money—money that we desperately need. I couldn’t do that to Mrs. Owens, though. She’s so proud of them. They’re her one indulgence, the one thing she remembers every day.
Sometimes she doesn’t even remember who I am.
“Were these passed down to you?” Honor asks.
Mrs. Owens stares into space.
I answer for her, hoping the words will bring her back to the present. “These came from an estate sale thirty years ago. That’s where she got most of her sets. She used to check the obituaries to see if someone rich had died so she could get the best stuff.”
“How mercenary,” Honor says. “I approve. And the china is beautiful.”
Mrs. Owens doesn’t even blink.
I’m losing her. I feel her drifting farther away every day. That’s bad enough, but I worry about her safety when I’m gone. I unplug the stove, taking away her only comfort—her ability to make tea. But I worry that she’ll figure out how to squeeze back there to plug it back in. I worry that she’ll find some other way to light a fire in the cooktop.
I worry that she’ll wander down the street and never come back.
“How are you two doing?” Honor asks softly, breaking me from my reverie.
“I don’t know. Some days it’s just like before, when I was a kid. They were the best six months of my childhood.” Except for my time with Blue.
“And other days?”