by S. Layne
Focusing on the real reason I’m here, I ignore the way I can feel Donovan’s stare burning a hole into the back of my head as he watches me walk away and slide into a chair next to Jeremiah.
Tugging on my feet, I curl them under me and rest an elbow on the armrest.
“Controller?” I ask, after Jeremiah’s shot and stabbed a small horde of six zombies.
Without saying a word, he reaches over, lifts something on his armrest, snaps it closed, and hands me the Xbox controller.
He pauses the game and gives me just enough time to join in.
After we kill another group of the moaning, slow-walking beasts, and do this while we both somehow step on a trap and end up hanging upside down from ropes tied around our ankles, Jeremiah raises his right fist and puts it close to me.
I take the silent signal and return the fist-bump. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the outer edges of his eyes crinkle, his lips pressed together as he fights back a smile.
And suddenly, I can see an uncanny resemblance to Donovan. How I didn’t recognize it earlier, I have no idea. Perhaps because I never would have thought that for the last couple of years, the wealthy young boy that showed up at my center was in any way connected to someone from my past.
Looking in the other direction over my shoulder, I catch Donovan still standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, a visible line between his brow.
I raise my controller. “Wanna play with us?”
His nose twitches. Next to me, Jeremiah scoffs.
“I’ll go prepare dinner. It will be ready in thirty minutes.” Donovan’s chin dips and his gaze pierces me with an intensity I don’t understand. “Don’t be late,” he clips, and turns on his heel, leaving the room and disappearing from sight.
“Well, he got grumpy,” I mutter when I’m facing the large screen again.
“Uncle D is always grumpy. And he thinks video games are a waste of perfectly usable brain cells.”
Hm. As I listen to Jeremiah’s voice, I catch the sad tone. But there’s more to it than that. He sounds lonely and frustrated.
I can’t push him tonight, but the small hints into what he’s struggling with help me mentally create a plan of attack for the next thirty days. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not only lose your family, but to be with them when it happened.
I also can’t imagine what it’s like to suddenly wake up and have to live with Donovan. But if he’s correct and Cassandra never changed or grew up, I can imagine how wretchedly horrible she was to Jeremiah.
She was always a selfish bitch, wanting all attention on her at all times.
If Jeremiah came along and disrupted that, then there would have been hell to pay.
Forcing myself back into the game, Jeremiah and I spend the next twenty minutes killing zombies and trying to save the world from a complete zombie apocalypse.
I might not be able to do that in real life, but while we don’t talk at all while we play, I do have a better idea of how to save Jeremiah.
I have never sat through a more uncomfortable dinner. There was tenseness through the entire meal that I have never experienced in my life.
Between Jeremiah’s obvious scowls and displeasured snorts when asked a direct question by Donovan, and Donovan’s tight jaw and white-knuckled grip on his silverware in response, even I was on edge by the time the meal was done and Jeremiah was excused to his bedroom for his homework.
I did learn, however, that he’s on thin ice with his private school for getting in too many fights—although the cause of those fights wasn’t discussed.
It seems as if Donovan is trying to build a relationship with his nephew, and Jeremiah is fighting it. It saddens me to think that this has been their life for the last three years, and my compassion for both of them grows with each passing cold and tense minute.
It’s after Jeremiah is done with his homework—which I check for him and almost give myself a migraine with his algebra homework—that I leave him alone when he tells me he’s going to read before he has to go to bed.
At first I thought he was lying, or that reading was code for video games, but my smile grew when he held up The Scorch Trials, the second book in a popular teenage dystopian series.
Now I’m in the living room, my feet curled under me on the large and comfortable couch, sipping a glass of red wine and watching the flames flicker in the fireplace. It’s not a cold night, but with the large room and the vaulted ceiling that opens above to a walkway separating the bedrooms upstairs, the room is a bit chilly. I was thankful when Donovan started a fire before excusing himself to get some work done.
I’ve been trying to read my own book, a paranormal romance involving a vampire hunter, but failing to focus for the last thirty minutes.
My heart hurts for Jeremiah. I don’t make it a secret to any child who comes into my center that I’ve suffered my own loss.
My mom was a neonatal nurse and worked three twelve-hour overnight shifts a week so she could be home with me during the day and after school. I remember how she would drag herself in through the front door as I was eating my breakfast in the morning with dark circles under her eyes and her hair disheveled.
She would kiss my father goodbye as he left for work, and then turn her smile toward me.
She always smiled, even when exhausted from long shifts. I will never be able to forget how much she loved me as well as the world around her.
She used to say that helping other people bring babies into the world was her honor—to have been given the gift of seeing miracles happen every single day.
I blink away the tears that fill my eyes, and open them only to jerk back in surprise when I see Donovan at the bottom of the stairs. His hand is on the railing and his eyes are on me.
He has changed from his suit into a simple, light blue T-shirt and a pair of navy athletic pants that have two lime green stripes down the sides.
Seeing the bright colors on him almost makes me smile.
The intense and serious expression in his eyes and his tightened lips make the smile disappear before it can form.
“Hey,” I say lamely and sniff, hoping the tears dry before he notices. “Done with work?”
His penetrating gaze seems to see right through me. If he notices that I’ve become sad, he doesn’t say anything as he pushes off the railing and walks toward me. Taking a seat on the other end of the couch, he leans back and drops his head.
“The kid is a mess,” he says, but it’s more like a groan.
That familiar pinch in my heart returns. “He’s struggling with his mother’s death, another woman who—I’m assuming here, but I’m guessing Cassandra made it clear she didn’t want him, and an uncle who’s been forced to take him in. I’m not sure how happy and well-adjusted you expect him to be.”
By the fire shooting from Donovan’s eyes, I assume I’ve gone too far, been too blunt. I look away, back to the flickering flames, and take a sip of wine before I apologize.
I haven’t said anything that isn’t true.
“I wasn’t forced to take him in. Even if Emily and Sean hadn’t named me as guardian in their will, I would have done so.”
I shrug, avoiding eye contact. His green eyes are dangerous to my sensibilities. “Regardless, it took me years to get over losing my mom, and I had my dad with me.”
And I wasn’t there to see her die, either. I cringe at the thought.
“Has he had counseling?” I ask, turning to Donovan but looking at his shoulder and not his eyes.
“That’s what you’re here for.” He scowls.
I don’t bother to mention that three years afterward is three years too late. Besides Emily’s car accident being hidden by the press, I have a feeling there are a lot of secrets the Lore family keeps protected. It only begs the question of what Donovan is hiding.
More silence fills the room as Donovan pushes himself off the couch and walks out. I unwrap my legs from under me, intent on going to bed when he doesn’t immed
iately return.
It’s been a long, mind-bending day, and the half glass of wine I’ve had is making me sleepy.
As if on cue, and my body is telling me I really do need to get to sleep, I yawn loudly, my hand covering my mouth when Donovan walks back into his living room.
In one hand, he’s holding a tumbler filled with amber liquid and ice.
I shake off the yawn and smile sheepishly. “I’m exhausted,” I say, and point toward the stairs. “So I’m just going to go up to bed.”
Donovan walks closer, reaching me in three quick strides. “Thank you.”
His simply spoken gratitude makes me blink.
The Lores are not generally thankful people. They take and expect people to give them what they want.
The very fact that I’m here, not giving up much of a fight, is proof of it.
“Right.” I nod, another yawn stretching my lips wide.
He grins down on me, his green eyes twinkly with amusement. “Tomorrow,” he says, and even in my tired state his voice affects me, “we’ll discuss the rest of why you’re here.”
Reaching out, he runs the backs of his knuckles down my jaw.
My breath stalls in my chest and my lips part.
I’m shocked by the fact that he’s touching me. My body responding immediately is becoming less of a shock. I’m beginning to crave that brief contact of his skin against mine.
I nod, unable to speak, when he leans down and his lips brush against my ear. “Sleep well, T. You’re going to need it.”
I pull back quickly, puzzled at the warmth flooding my stomach and the instant buzzing in my veins.
Finding my breath and my voice, I whisper, “Okay,” and turn away as my cheeks heat.
Then I turn toward the stairs and hurry my little fanny to the room he prepared for me.
Yet I can feel Donovan’s eyes on me as I walk away from him.
And I know that just like he’s already promised me, it won’t be long before I give in to my body’s attraction to him.
I just have to figure out a way to bubble wrap my heart, encase it in stone, lock it in a safe, and throw away the key before I do so.
Because even being around Donovan again for only a few hours, and even though he’s more serious and more distant than the boy I remember falling in love with—he’s still there, somewhere. I can see him dying to break through.
Fighting to be free.
From what he’s trying to escape, I haven’t figured out yet.
As I crawl into the largest bed I’ve ever seen in my life and cover myself in the most comfortable and satiny sheets I’ve ever felt, I know that the young girl who fell in love with him wants to not only help Jeremiah, but Donovan, too.
And that’s dangerous.
He can have my mind and my body, but there’s simply no way I can afford to give him my heart.
“How’s your dad doing?” Marisa asks, her eyes lined with concern.
“The same.”
Taking off my jacket, I quickly hang it in the coat closet and walk around her desk.
Propping my denim-clad hip on the side, I swing my gray riding boot back and forth. I hate it. I hate seeing his unfocused eyes. I hate that he can’t squeeze my hand with any noticeable pressure.
And I mostly hate the way the horrible administrator, Ms. Zelder, eyed me with suspicion when I paid cash for his stay. The fact that I paid for three months in cash probably has her thinking I robbed a bank over the weekend.
Marisa rests her hand on my thigh and squeezes. “He’ll get better, sweetie. You just have to keep the faith.”
I wrinkle my nose and look toward my office. I’m not sure how much faith I have anymore.
Too many people lose their loved ones, and while I’m not ready to say goodbye to my dad, he doesn’t seem to be improving at all.
I take small comfort in the fact that he’s not getting worse.
“How’s the afternoon been here?” I ask, shaking off my visit with my dad. Nothing good comes from dwelling on things I can’t change.
“Slow.” She looks down at her paperwork before nodding toward the television room. “Kaleb is back, Joseph just got out on bail from selling pot to a classmate, and Ben has been spotted outside the food shelf.”
“And that’s slow?” I tease.
Marisa shrugs and smiles. “Cops haven’t shown up yet today.”
I laugh softly. They’re not altogether uncommon visitors at our place.
“Okay then.” I push off the desk and straighten my striped cotton hoodie.
I make my way into the television room to see Kaleb. He’s fourteen and has been in foster care since he was four. He doesn’t make it easy for his foster parents to care for him, though, and he’s been in several different homes. However, I know that his two current foster parents truly want to love him. They have been foster parents for almost twenty years, since the wife found out she’d never be able to have kids of their own. I know the Samuels well, seeing as how several of my older kids have been placed in their home over the years.
“Hey, Kaleb,” I say, and take a seat next to him.
He glances at me and returns to a Lord of The Rings marathon that’s been playing all day long. He offers me no expression as I relax next to him.
“What happened?”
“Stupid Mr. Samuel tried fucking grounding me.”
“Manners,” I say, scolding him.
He grunts.
“What for?”
He shrugs before he finally says, “Stayed out too late over the weekend.”
I almost want to smile. Some of these kids who have come from tough backgrounds don’t realize how good they have it when an adult actually wants to discipline them and teach them. Kaleb comes from a family where both parents were drug dealers. After his mom was picked up prostituting herself on a corner, DHS looked into his housing situation and discovered that the small child knew how to efficiently tie a tourniquet around his father’s upper arm before the man injected himself with heroin. Needles, pipes, lighters, and all forms of drugs were found in his house before he was removed.
“It’s only because they care, Kaleb. You probably worried them.”
He grunts again, disbelieving.
“Stay here this afternoon, but then you have to go home,” I tell him, standing up when the door opens.
Jeremiah walks in, his eyes wide and his cheeks flushed.
Looking down at Kaleb, I point my finger at him. “They care, kiddo, and if you want me to help smooth things over, I’ll tell them you’re here. But you have to help me out here. The Samuels are great people.”
He rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
I take that as my cue to leave, and follow the angry trail Jeremiah left in his wake as he rushed to my office.
I raise my brow toward Marisa, who returns my look and shrugs as I walk by.
“What’s going on?” I ask as soon as I enter my office.
Yesterday Jeremiah showed up after school, sat quietly in my office, refusing to hang out with the other kids in the television room or game room, and worked on his history paper.
He was quiet and morose, but the emotions rolling off him today are completely different.
“Adults are a bunch of a—” He looks up, cutting himself off, and shrugs. “Sorry.”
I give him a small smile. “No worries, you caught yourself.”
I take a seat in the chair next to him. Holding onto the chair’s arms, I lift myself up until my boots are under me and I’m sitting crisscross in the chair. I rest my elbows on my knees and tilt my head to the side. “What’s going on?”
He doesn’t say anything as his eyes scan my wall of quotes. I’m about to ask him another question when he turns to me and asks, “How do you know my uncle?”
I’m surprised Donovan hasn’t already told him, or that he hasn’t asked before now.
“We knew each other in college.”
“So you know Cassandra?”
“I do.” I d
on’t know what look I give him, but it’s clearly one he agrees with because I get a hint of a smile before it quickly disappears. “Is that why you’re mad? Did you see her today?”
He shakes his head. “No way. Like she’d have anything to do with me.”
I sigh, fighting the urge to reach out and hold him. I hate that he thinks someone doesn’t want anything to do with him. Other than carrying around way too much anger, Jeremiah’s a great kid.
I keep my mouth shut, letting him wait to give me the real reason why he’s mad. I don’t want him to feel pitied.
“My grandma showed up at school today, though, and was a bitch.”
I flash him a well-known look of disgust. I don’t even bother correcting the name-calling…if the shoe fits and all that.
“You’ve met her?” he asks, his eyebrows arching.
“Once or twice.”
Immediately the memory of that morning in bed with Donovan flashes through my mind. The way Claire Lore showed up, angry but dressed in a pale blue suit as if she were going to church or an office instead of simply making her way to her son’s apartment, her gorgeous and most likely incredibly expensive blond hairstyle swaying and swishing as she barged into his room.
The look she gave me said I would do better serving her by cleaning her toilets or taking out her trash than sleeping in a bed with her son.
“She wants me to be just like him.”
I frown, not understanding. “Your grandpa?”
“No,” he scoffs. “My uncle. And I hate him.”
“Donovan?” I ask, although I should already know this. But from what I’ve at least seen between the two of them, Donovan is trying.
Jeremiah shoots me a look, lips pressed firmly together, and looks away.
I don’t fully understand, but when he reaches down and pulls out a notebook and begins scribbling in it, I sense the conversation is over.
I press forward, though. This is the most he’s ever given me. “Did Donovan tell you about my mom dying?”