“Jay,” she murmured.
“Yeah, baby.”
“I love you.”
My chest pulled tight. Not painful. Just big. My little grinch wasn’t the only one who had a heart that could swell.
“I love you too, Ky.”
I felt her smile against my skin. She was out two minutes later.
I eased out from under her carefully. She mumbled something, rolled onto her side, and hugged one of the couch pillows like it was me. I pulled a throw blanket over her, brushed my fingers over her cheek, and just looked at her for a second.
My woman. On our hill. In our office. Our daughter safe with family down in the city.
A life I hadn’t even let myself picture ten months ago.
I could’ve stayed. Should’ve, probably. But there was one shadow I hadn’t dealt with yet. One loose thread tugging at the edges of this peace.
I kissed Kyleigh’s forehead, turned off the lamp, and slipped out of the office. A quick shower and change of clothes later, I was ready. The house was quiet. I grabbed my jacket. Outside, Halloween was winding down. A couple of jack-o’-lanterns glowed lazily on porches below the hill. The air smelled like leftover smoke from somebody’s bonfire.
I walked down, slipped out the gate and into a nondescript little car. I drove with the windows cracked. Let the wind cool me down, clear my head. The place wasn’t far. Little beat-up rental trailer out in the country. I’d clocked it months ago. Not because I was obsessed. Because I saw the way he still looked at my hill. At my girl. At my life.
The property was quiet when I pulled up. The party had ended. A few cars still lined the curb. Plastic cups decorated the yard and a plastic skeleton leaned sideways off the porch railing like it had been through something. I stepped out, shut my doorsoft, and walked up the gravel driveway. The porch light was off. One window glowed faintly on the side.
I made short work of the lock. Some people trusted Halloween more than they should. Inside smelled like cheap liquor, weed, and the kind of incense nobody liked. I moved quietly down the short hallway, following the sound of heavy snoring.
Deon was face-up on the bed in his boxers and a T-shirt, one arm flung out, mouth open. A half-empty bottle sat on the nightstand next to a knocked-over plastic cup. I stood there a second, just looking at him. All that loud. All that fake energy. Right now, he was nothing but a drunk man in a messy room he barely deserved. I reached out and flicked on the lamp. Then I sat in the chair in the corner and waited. Didn’t take long.
He groaned, blinked against the light, blinked again when he saw me. He tried to move. I saw the panic in his eyes when he couldn’t.
I leaned back, ankle on my knee, like this was a casual visit. “Happy Halloween.”
He stared. He took in my black clothes, the calm, the fact that I was sitting in his room like I paid rent there. Fear started to push through the fog in his eyes.
“What you doing in my house, man? What you do to me?” he asked, his breathing fast, anxious.
“Checking on you. Figured you forgot we had unfinished business.”
He swallowed. “I ain’t said nothing about your girl. I been chill.”
“You been quiet where I can hear you,” I corrected. “That’s different.”
“You can’t just… break in here and threaten me,” he tried.
“I haven’t threatened you yet.”
“I can’t fucking move!”
His eyes flashed. “You think you God or something? You think you can just run around deciding who get to talk and who don’t?”
That made me smile. Not the one Kyleigh like. The ugly one reserved for men like Deon.
“Nah. That’s the problem, Deon. You thoughtyouwere God. Playing with people’s lives. Playing with stories. Trying to write your own ending for me and Kyleigh.”
He whimpered, just a little. Enough for me to see the guilt.
“It wasn’t enough that you spun that shit to Shayla’s evil ass. You helped her parents, back then. Didn’t you.”
