Sinful Longing

“Alex, don’t do that,” she said, as she changed lanes.

“I just don’t feel like going. First you won’t let me take the bus, and you always let me take it last year. You’re treating me like a baby. Now I have to go to a game you’re not even skating in. Can’t I just chill? What if Rex and Tyler come over?”

But before she could say no one more time, her phone buzzed in the console.

“Want me to see if that’s Colin?” Alex asked, grabbing the phone.

“I’ll look at it later,” she said hastily, as the truck in front of her slowed. She didn’t want Alex seeing any messages from Colin, though they hadn’t exchanged many dirty ones lately. Still, her phone was private. It was hers.

“Mom.”

She hadn’t heard that tone in years.

His voice was laced with fear.

She snapped her gaze to him, and her son was staring at the screen, jaw agape.

Pure, primal terror burst through her, like a dam breaking. “What is it?”

But she knew.

It could only be one thing.

“Who sent you this?” he asked, his voice thin as a thread, cold as winter.

She yanked the wheel right and pulled into the lot at a Burger King. Slamming the car into park, she grabbed the phone from him.

The hairs on her neck rose.

Pretty ladies should be smarter about who they get INVOLVED with.

The phone slid from her hand, clattering to the console.

“What is this?” Alex asked again.

She inhaled deeply then did her best to channel a calmness she didn’t even come close to feeling. “I’ve been getting some strange messages.”

He shook his head adamantly then stabbed his finger against the screen. “This isn’t strange, Mom. It’s fucking creepy. It’s stalkerish. Who is sending you these?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her hold on a cool, collected tone faltering.

“Someone who doesn’t want you to be with Colin.” His voice rose with every word.

She bit her lip and managed a small nod. “It seems that way.”

His eyes widened as big as the moon. “Mom! I like Colin. He’s a cool guy. But seriously, this is freaking me out.”

It was freaking her out, too. More than she could ever have imagined. But she couldn’t let on. She had to stay strong for Alex. She had to be titanium.

“Colin is working on it,” she said, taking her time with each word. “He’s working on figuring it out, and we’ll make it stop.”

“‘We’?” he asked, arching an angry eyebrow. “Who’s ‘we’? You and Colin? Or you and me? Or you and—”

“I’ve got this. I’ve got this under control. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Just like when you had things under control with Dad?”

She held up her index finger. “That is not fair. And this is not the same.”

“You’re right,” he said, spitting out the words. “It’s not the same. Because he’s not Dad. He’s just a guy.”

“Alex,” she said, but she let her voice trail off because he was right. Colin was just a guy. Alex was her flesh and blood.

He stopped talking, crossed his arms, and slumped down in the seat.

“Let me get you home and make you dinner,” she said, as calmly as she possibly could.

She stuffed her phone into her purse in the backseat, as if that would erase the message. But the text was still there, staring at her, breathing hot fumes on her like it had a pulse, a heartbeat. Like a shadow that lurked by her side. Colin had thought a Royal Sinner was sending these to her, and she was sure now that he was right. Sure, too, that someone in the Royal Sinners didn’t want Colin in her life.

Seemed her son felt the same way.

*

He didn’t talk to her at dinner. All he said was “thanks.” He got up from the table, finished his homework, showered, and went to bed.

“Night.”

Barely a word.

Just like that year.

The year he didn’t talk.

The year he was nearly destroyed by his father’s death.

She sank down on her couch and ran her hand over the back of her neck. Her sparrows. Her guide to finding her way home. This was her home, here in this apartment, with her son, who she loved madly, fiercely, to the ends of the earth and back again. He was her home, and she’d helped him find his way back to her after he’d lost his father. She’d do it again, and again, and again. She reached for a framed picture of him on the coffee table—his fourth grade school photo, where he wore a goofy, toothy grin. A small smile surfaced as she ran her finger over it. A tear threatened her eyes, but she refused to allow it to appear. She would not wallow. She would not weaken.

She had one goal in life and it was to take care of her son, no matter what.

Colin had told her he had some leads and was tracking them down, and she was grateful for that. Damn grateful. But as she set down the photo, she knew.