“How’d that happen?”
“My mom fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand and it dropped on me.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.” She takes her head off my shoulder and raises her eyebrows. “I think I had an entirely different childhood than you.”
I’m not quite sure what to say. I know Scarlet isn’t one to want pity. She said what she did factually, and only because I asked. She’s not trying to make me feel bad for her.
“Oh!” She jerks up and points to the sky. “I think I saw a shooting star!”
“Make a wish.” I look up, breath catching just a bit when I see how sparkly the night sky is above us. Then I look at Scarlet, and my breath does more than catch. It stops.
Her eyes are closed, lips curved into a slight smile, and her head is tipped up to the sky.
“You should make one too,” she whispers.
I look back at the stars and wish for self-control. Because Lord knows I need it tonight. Scarlet gathers up the blanket and lays back, eyes fluttering shut.
“What do you do if you’re hungry in the middle of the night?”
“What do you mean?” I lick my lips, watching her breasts rise and fall beneath her shirt as she fixes the blanket around herself.
“Does the diner deliver?”
“No. I’d just go get something from the kitchen.” I raise an eyebrow. “You can’t possibly be hungry.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m preparing for future nights. Sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep, so I get up and eat my feelings.”
I’m usually good at reading people, but I’m struggling with Scarlet. Because she spits out her truths like they’re lies, saying serious things so casually it’s like a joke.
“Make sure to keep the fridge stocked,” I tease and lay back with her, scooting closer, but only so I can see the stars. Not so I can feel her against me. “What’d you wish for?”
“Wes Dawson,” she scolds. “I can’t tell you.”
“Right. It won’t come true if you do.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of it like that. I was going to be cliché and say if I tell you I have to kill you, but you’re so big and tall. It’ll be such a pain to chop you up and bury your body.”
I laugh and her hand brushes against mine. “You’re different than I expected.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, it’s perfect.”
She turns to me, face inches from mine. Suddenly, the humor in her eyes goes away, and I see darkness reflected back at me. I get a glimpse of her, and if I hadn’t felt the same thing when I came back after my first tour overseas, I wouldn’t have noticed.
She’s struggling, fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat in choppy waters.
And then she blinks, and the moment is gone. Slowly, she reaches out and runs her finger over the scar on my hand again.
“Remember you said that,” she whispers. Her eyes fall shut and she turns her head away, sitting up and pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders. “Want to finish that ghost show?”
I do, but now that I’ve seen inside, and it was like looking into a mirror, I can’t. “Maybe tomorrow.” I get up and extend a hand. “I’m pretty beat, and I have work tomorrow night.”
“Right.” She gives me a tight smile and takes my hand, letting me pull her to her feet. “Then you should get to bed.”
16
Scarlet
I sit on the couch, twisting Ray’s yarn mane through my fingers. It’s worn and frayed by now, but the sensation still gives me comfort. I cheat and lie for a living but still take solace in a stuffed animal I’ve had since I was a child.
Psychologists would have a field day with me.
After going out for breakfast at the cutest little mom-and-pop diner this morning, Wes showed me around town, and we ended the tour at the library. Jackson likes to play there, and we left with an armload of picture books, as well as a few paranormal romances for me.
One of the books is on the coffee table next to me, and I intended on reading it. Jackson fell asleep pretty quickly tonight, and once he was down, I took a quick shower, changed into my PJs and came downstairs to have a cup of tea and read.
It’s so domestic it’s weird.
It’s not me at all and yet I’m finding myself liking this more and more. It’s putting me in the middle of an existential crisis that I certainly don’t have time for. My whole life, I’ve identified as Scarlet from the hood, the girl who had to grow up too fast, who had to raise her siblings as well as take care of her inebriated mother, cleaning up vomit and dragging her inside when she passed out in the yard. Some days she’d be covered in frost by the time I found her, and I’d spend my morning carefully soaking her fingers in bowls of warm water to try and prevent frostbite.
I wasn’t always successful.
The simple fact that I like this—putting Jackson to bed, straightening up the house, and sitting down with a cup of fucking tea and a book—is rocking my whole sense of identity right now. I never understood why some people criticized women who chose to stay at home and look after their household. If that’s what they want and aren’t being repressed into anything against their will, then it’s no different than a woman going out and getting a job. She’s doing what she wants. What makes her happy.
I didn’t realize this could make me happy.
“It’s only been a few days,” I tell myself and stand, needing to reheat my tea by now. Before I make it into the kitchen, the alarm beeps and Wes steps into the house. I get to the keypad first and punch in the code to disarm the system.
“Hey,” he says, closing the door behind him. I open my mouth to say hi back, but the words die in my throat. I was not prepared to see what I’m seeing.
Weston is wearing a fitted suit, and dear God, it’s worse than if he were standing naked before me. I want to throw myself at him, wrapping my fingers around his sleek black tie and using it to pull him up to the bedroom with me. His hair is neatly pulled back away from his face, and a slight five o’clock shadow covers his strong jawline.
And I thought he looked good in his uniform.
“Look at you,” I say, raising my eyebrows. “Looking all GQ.”
He smiles and looks down at himself, almost as if he forgot what he’s wearing. Fuck, it’s adorable.
“I had a debate tonight.”
“For the race?”
He nods and takes his suit jacket off. “Yeah, and then I had a meet-and-greet.” His face tightens, and he shakes his head. “I don’t like this part of it. I just want to do my job as the Sheriff and not convince Mr. and Mrs. Johnson why they should donate to my campaign over anyone else’s.”
I smile at him, body still tingling. He hangs his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair. Then he starts to roll up the sleeves on his button-up dress shirt.
And now I’m dead, lying motionless on the kitchen floor.
“That’s why you’ll be good at the job,” I say, words coming out thinner than I’d like. I tear my eyes away, trying to convince myself that Weston looks like the homeless man who used to sleep in our crawlspace instead of Chris Hemsworth at the Met Gala.
It doesn’t work.
“You want to do the job for the job. Not many people in politics are that way.”
He chuckles. “It doesn’t feel that political, to be honest. I’ll be the Sheriff of our county, not governor of Indiana.”
“You’d be good at that too.” I put my mug in the microwave.
“How’d Jackson do at bedtime?”
“He was good. I ended up reading like four extra stories. Maybe I’ll get used to saying no when he asks for another with time, right?”
Wes smiles. “I have a hard time saying no to books too. Someday he’s not going to want me to sit in bed with him and read.”
“Right. They don’t stay little for long.”
He holds my gaze for a moment too long, and blood rushes to my cheeks. He goes upstairs to change, and I take my tea back to
the living room. I read a few pages and already I’m imagining the alpha werewolf in my book to look like Weston.
Dammit.
“I have something for you,” he says, coming back down the stairs. He’s wearing black athletic pants and a Chicago Bears hoodie. I’m not a big sports fan, but I do support my city.
“You do?”
“Well, kind of.” He crosses the room. “Grab your coat.”
Setting my book down, I get up and hurry after him. “If it’s a cat, you should have waited until Jackson wakes up.”
He gives me a playful glare. “It’s not a cat.”
“Darn.”
We put our shoes on and I grab my coat, following him to the back porch. There’s a telescope standing on the sidewalk, pointed up at the night sky. I pause, suddenly forgetting how to move my feet.
“So you can see the stars.” Wes is standing by the telescope, a smile on his face. He takes a cover off the lens and wipes away dust. “It was mine when I was a kid. It’s been at my parents’ and I grabbed it on my way home. I have no idea if it still works, but it’s not like these things go bad, right?”
I fumble with the zipper on my coat, and for some reason, I’m still unable to move. I stare down the telescope feeling the weirdest sensation prick at the corners of my eyes. And an even weirder one inside my chest.
Wes holds my gaze, waiting for me to come down the stairs. To say something. Anything. But I’m still standing there like a statue.
“Anyway,” Wes goes on, bringing his hand up to his hair. He pulls the band out and lets his long locks fall around his face. I can feel his eyes on me, and I know he’s waiting. The longer I go without reacting, the more he’s going to think I don’t appreciate the gesture or that I think it’s stupid.
Which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
He went to his parents’ house, which I know isn’t on the way home from anything. They live on the edge of Eastwood, away from the police station and the town hall where the council meetings are held.
No one has ever done anything like this for me before.
“Jackson might think it’s cool at least,” he says, and I shake myself.
“It is cool.” I inhale, finally get my zipper to go up, and dash down the stairs. I stand close to him, feeling the heat radiating from his large body. I look into eyes, seeing the stars reflected before me, and want to tell him just what this means to me. Attraction aside, this was the most thoughtful thing he could have done.
“How does it work?”
“I have to put a different lens on,” he starts and opens a bag. “We might have to watch YouTube tutorials on this.”
I laugh and use the sleeve of my coat to carefully wipe the dust off the metal. It takes us a while, but we finally get the thing ready. Wes goes inside to quickly check on Jackson and to turn off the back porch light.
“You know,” I say when he comes back. “We could totally spy on your neighbors.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Why do you think I wanted to get one of these in the first place?”
“Seriously?” I laugh.
“No. I went through a phase where I wanted to be an astronaut. Like all kids, I suppose.”
“Not me.” I bend over and put my eye to the focuser. “I wanted to be a professional mermaid.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Yeah. You swim around at aquariums or shows.”
“Shows?”
“Yeah.” I carefully move the telescope until I see the fuzzy bright light of what I think is a star. “Like carnivals.”
“You’d be a mermaid carnie,” he snickers.
“It sounds not as fun when you say it like that. But yeah…and come on. It sounds like a sweet deal. I’d get to swim all day, wear pretty seashell bras and have lots of glittery makeup on my face.”
He laughs and helps me adjust the telescope. “When you put it that way, maybe I’ll be a professional merman.”
“We could make a career out of it, traveling the country together.”
“Clearly I chose the wrong profession.” His hand drops from the telescope and he inches closer. I swallow hard.
“Oh, I see the moon!” I spend a minute adjusting everything and it comes into focus. “Holy shit, this is amazing.” My heart hammers away in my chest and a chill goes through me, but it’s not from the cold. I stare at the moon, and that weird feeling comes back. It’s so overwhelming I break away, telling Wes he should take a look as well. His large frame leans over and he looks at the moon.
“Now I want to be an astronaut again,” he says after looking up at the moon for a moment. “It’s incredible.
I’m looking at him when I agree. “It is.”
He straightens up and reaches back into the bag. “There’s a map of the stars. I never was able to make much sense of it.”
Another chill goes through me, and I’m unable to hide the shiver.
“Cold?” Wes asks.
I shake my head, not wanting to go in just yet. “I’ll survive. Let’s try to read this map.”
He unfolds the paper and gets out his phone to use as a flashlight. His lock screen is a recent picture of Jackson and I just about die all over again.
“I can see the Big Dipper,” I say, pointing to the sky. “And that’s it.”
Wes smiles, still looking at the sky. “Same here.” We stand there in silence for another moment, looking up at the stars. Something streaks across the sky.
“Did you see that?” I gasp.
“I did.” He tips his head down to mine, and there will never be a more perfect moment for him to kiss me. It’s like we’re floating amongst the stars and nothing matters. Not the past. Not the mistakes I’ve made.
Just this moment.
But he doesn’t kiss me.
Instead, he folds the map and puts it back in the bag. “It’s cold out here, and I have an early morning tomorrow. And Jackson has school.”
“Right.” Back to earth I go, free falling from outer space. “He picked out his outfit for tomorrow,” I go on. “With approval, of course. He has really cute clothes.”
“I enjoy shopping for him,” Wes admits. “So does my mom.”
“I can tell.”
Wes picks up the heavy telescope with ease, putting it on the back porch for the night. I don’t think theft is a worry around here. We step back into the house and the warm air feels hot against my cheeks.
“You’re all set for the morning?” he asks, taking off his shoes. He’s nervous about me driving Jackson, and usually something like this would annoy me. I’m capable. Trustworthy, well, that’s questionable, but this time there’s nothing to worry about.
“Yes. His bag is ready to go, and you showed me the drop-off and pick-up procedure twice today.”
He laughs. “Sorry. He’s only been in school a few weeks and I don’t know if he’s used to his new routine or not yet.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’d rather see you be a little overprotective than too carefree with him. I know you love him, and you’re a good dad.”
“Thanks,” he says, almost as if my statement caught him off guard. “It’s not always easy, ya know, doing things alone.” He goes to the fridge and grabs the plate of leftovers. Jackson helped me make chicken enchiladas tonight and while I don’t mean to toot my own horn, we both went back for seconds.
“This looks good,” Wes says as he sticks his plate in the microwave.
“I enjoyed it. Jackson did too.” There’s still nearly a minute left on his food, and suddenly the silence feels awkward. I go into the living room, fold the blanket I was using, and grab my tea to reheat again.
I add another spoonful of sugar to it, stirring it, and stick it in the microwave once Wes’s food is done heating. We both sit at the table.
“Do you have campaign stuff tomorrow too?”
He shakes his head. “No, just the gym and then work. I’ll go grocery shopping on the way home. If there’s anything you want, I can grab it for you.”
“I do like chocolate an awful lot.”
He smiles. “Noted. Any kind or something special?”
“I guess any kind. But not dark chocolate. That shit is nasty.”
Wes laughs, cutting into another piece of his food. “Agreed. And you know you don’t have to make dinner every night. I’ll do it the nights I’m home.”
“I don’t mind,” I say honestly. And really, I want to stay busy. Being busy keeps me from thinking.
“Oh, and I’m off all day Wednesday, so if there was something you want to do, feel free.”
“I might go visit my dad and my sister,” I tell him. And I really should, especially since Dad fell again yesterday. As soon as I get paid, I’m going to burn through half my money just buying medication for him. Since my food and lodging are figured into my pay, I’m more or less living here for free. I could send all my money over to Dad and Heather. Yeah, I want stuff for myself. But I don’t need stuff.
Wes nods. “I’m sure they’d like that.”
“Yeah. I think so.” Heather will at least. Dad might not remember who I am. I finish my tea, put the mug in the dishwasher and wipe down the already-clean counter just so I have something to do. Wes is done now, and we both look at each other in an awkward stand-off.
He has to be thinking the same thing I am. We kissed, and it was a damn good kiss. I felt his hard cock against me. My breasts pressed against his firm chest, and we both wanted more. If Jackson hadn’t come down the steps, we would have had more.
And then what?
Would we be in an even more awkward situation than we are right now? I’ve never had someone resist me like this, and it sucks. Only because I want him something terrible…and not just physically, as much as I don’t want to admit that to myself.
I should hate him, but I can’t. Because, without a doubt, Weston is making me feel.
17
Scarlet
“I thought maybe you forgot about me now that you’re a working girl and all,” Heather says, sitting back in the plastic chair. Her hair is even worse than before, and she has a bruise on her cheek.
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