She pulled her face out of my reach and her eyes slipped closed, blocking out the sight of me. Her voice was strained and deathly quiet, but I felt the impact of every word. “The last thing I need are lies from you. Please…just go. Don’t make me cry in front of my daughter.”
Swallowing around the rock scraping up my throat, I nodded. I took a furtive glance at her friend and her daughter, knowing I was nothing but a bastard.
I backed up slowly, then slipped out the door.
Rays of light slanted through the lush leaves on the full trees that surrounded her lot, birds rustled as they chirped and danced through the branches, and the lawn glistened with dew. My boots dented into the earth as I stormed around to the front of the house.
“Shit…shit…shit,” I cursed below my breath, gripping two handfuls of hair. I had the intense urge to yank it out because all that discomfort had shifted to anxiety. The thought of never seeing Shea again was completely rejected by every cell in my body.
My car sat on the street where I’d left it. I strode toward it with all the purpose I had left, with every amount of sense I’d shored up and locked away in my twenty-six years.
With all the things I’d learned to survive.
Control.
Control.
Control.
I rounded the front of my car and with each step felt slivers of that control being stripped away.
I pulled my keys from my pocket and clicked the lock. I looked to the sky for some kind of strength. My entire being stalled in front of the car door, my jumbled mind twisted up and focused on the girl.
Or maybe it was my heart.
Just for a while, make me forget.
“Fuck it.”
All rational thought escaped me, and I turned and jogged back around the side of her house. I bounded up the three steps. Without a knock, I flung the door open.
Shea gasped out a surprised sound and jumped back from the counter. With her hand pressed to her chest, she stood facing my direction, caramel eyes dulled with sadness.
Hated that I’d put it there.
I didn’t hesitate, just strode toward her and buried my hands in her hair and kissed her in a way I was sure was not appropriate for witnesses over breakfast.
She yielded to it. A soft sigh parted her mouth and she opened to me, and I felt myself slipping a little deeper. I pulled back a fraction, our mouths a breath away. Squeezing the sides of her face, I dropped my forehead to hers. “Yes, I want coffee,” I whispered. “God yes, I want coffee.”
God yes, I want you.
A peal of giggles sounded to my left. Foreheads still pressed together, Shea and I looked over at the source to the tiny blonde-haired girl with a wild mane of tightly wound curls. Little hands were pressed to her mouth as she tried to mask her reaction as if she knew she was witnessing something private, but the way she had her chin popped up, she was doing nothing to cover the full-mouthed smile that showcased a row of bright white baby teeth.
Fucking cute.
“You kissed Momma.” She said it like it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen, her tiny shoulders lifted to her ears as if she were being tickled.
Shea pulled away. Embarrassment had her gnawing at that bottom lip, and she glanced up at me from beneath the thick veil of her lashes, before she cast an adoring smile at her daughter who beamed right back.
“He did, didn’t he?”
Kallie just giggled more.
Composing herself, Shea took a step back and ran her fingertips down my arm like she was issuing me some kind of thanks. She threaded her fingers through mine.
It felt natural, too, this girl touching me in such a simple way.
Didn’t mean things weren’t just as awkward as earlier when Shea looked over her shoulder, our hands still twined, to her friend standing there. The girl leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, outright disgust smeared across her face.