fawn
I playwith the stem of a single Juliet Rose as I walk towards Clay’s office, drifting hesitantly.
Bronson paid the deposit for the twenty-thousand roses—as I have no money of my own—and a bouquet now sits as our foyer centrepiece, their honeyed-pink shades will act as inspiration for the rest of the wedding. My colours are now: peach, ivory, and gold.
It's not like I’ve been dwelling on the conversation with my foster mother, but I have been rattled since. My new life and my old life clashed today, and I’m not sure how to feel.
I’m sure Clay already knows what happened; his henchmen would have snapped her image, run it through a database or something like that. I don’t know exactly, but I’m certain he’ll have read a report about my activities today.
I sigh, so glad my babies weren’t there. I don’t think I’d like Eleanor’s judgmental gaze lapping their perfect faces, trying to find similarities between them andherboys.
As if she cares?
Does shecare?
Does she want a relationship withmybabies because she believes they might be Benji’s or Landon’s or Jake’s, becauseherboys raped me in her basement!?
Yes, I’m rattled.
And Iamdwelling.
It makes me question… What is a mother? How do you define one? I am a mother, and I take it really seriously, but is that right? Or am I creating spoilt brats because of my devotion and attention? Should I let them cry-it-out? Should I be playing them classical music? I just want… I just want a role model, someone who is a mother, older, wiser, and all-knowing to tell me exactly how to do this mother stuff? Is that too much to ask for?
Lingering at Clay’s open door, I fondle the flower, the stem gripped between my fingers, held close to my chest.
“Sir?” My voice is quiet, hands nervously fidgeting with the rose stem like I do my hair.
“Did you havefun?” he asks, before turning in his wingback chair, a cigar dangling from his lower lip as if it refuses to be anywhere else.
I get it, cigar, because—same.
“Yes,” I say softly, because despite Eleanor, the two hours I spent at the market today with Bronson were refreshing and weird and fun. Despite feeling Clay’s absence like a pinhole in my heart, I enjoyed myself. I got to spend one-on-one time with my soon to be brother-in-law—the wildest Butcher.
Clay stabs the cigar into the ashtray beside him on the desk. He smokes only in his parlour, office, or outside these days. Then, I have his unwavering attention. A blue gaze captures me before lingering on the rose.
“Is that for me, sweet girl?” His voice is potent, gravelly and dark, a rumble through the room.
I nod and blush.
“Come here and give it to me.”
“You want my rose?”
A wicked smile touches the corner of his lips, the kind of grin that purrs dark intentions. “Always.”
As my legs take me to him, I gaze around his office, every line a contrast to the rose in my hand: wood, geometry, angles and edges. To my left a black wooden table large enough to seat several people, and to my right a bar with a coffeemaker, liquor, and cigars—such a clear expression of him, of his abundance and virility.
The words of my foster mother drift up from the dark: toxic masculinity... Is Clay’s masculinity toxic? Whatever the type, it makes me ache for more.
He wants my flower. That’s not toxic masculinity!
“Little deer?”
I blink the thoughts away and realise I have stopped mid-step, and his eyes are on me, a warm lick of comfort and demand and authority.
The thought becomes an awkward question: “Do you think…” I stammer. “Do you think I’m the kind of girl who… who needs…” The words get stuck. I bite my lip, eyes on the swirling peach-white rose.Ugh.Why did I start this?
“Use your voice. Needs what, sweet girl?”
