What the fuck is a middle?I needed to ask him, but at this point I didn’t want to sound dumb. Besides, I thought I knew what he meant about punishment now.
“Hitting me might not be okay, even if you’re not trying to hurt me,” I murmured.
He tilted his head and the evil smile he had didn’t slip, in fact it only got wider. “That’s fine. We need to get back to the office. I’ll be more than happy to answer any of your questions later tonight. You can make your phone calls with me or stay with Raven.”
I hesitated. “If I need space to think, is that okay? Can I… maybe just spend the afternoon downstairs doing my job, and maybe… maybe call around about Dad tomorrow?”
“No. If he doesn’t stay in jail, you’re not going back there.” Casey lowered his head and stared deep into my eyes. I shuffled my feet under the table, not able to handle that much of his attention without doing something.
“You can’t decide that.”
He tightened his grip on my hand. “I did.”
Happiness and guilt battled in my stomach. “I’ll sit with Raven.”
“That’s fine.” He reached out and cupped my face. I was… mad. I was surprised. I was actually a little pissed off. And happy. My insides were a whirlwind of weird. How long had it been since I was actuallyangryat someone?
Casey must have realized I wasn’t quite right because his eyes went intense and his smile fell away. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“What?” I asked.
“Freedom.”
“You’re… you’re talking about controlling me. You’re telling me what to do.”
He didn’t say anything else, only stood and lifted his suit jacket. “Back to the office.”
I did a quick adjustment of my junk that he was good enough to ignore before I stood from the table. He seemed particularly satisfied with himself as I glared at him while he helped me into layers of his clothing to go outside. We were all the way on the sidewalk before I remembered I hadn’t gotten my dessert. It had been a bizarre couple of days, and I was astonished that I was really hurt about it. I glanced back at the restaurant. We’d only gone a few doors down.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing important,” I said.
Casey stopped and gathered me close to his side. He was warm and solid, and I rested against him. “That look on your face isn’t ‘nothing important.’ ”
“We talked, and I forgot about my dessert.”
He stared down at me. “Wait here.”
I did as he asked and was dumbfounded when he went into the restaurant and then came back out with a to-go container.
“Is that….”
“Of course, I told you that you could have dessert. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
I stared up at him as he stopped beside me and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. I was mortified, but the world went watery and hot tears stung my cheeks. The wet trails on my face chilled in the frigid winter air and made me shiver.
“Oh, you’re a sweet boy,” he said in that deep voice of his that brushed through my insides and made me feel safe. He pulled me close and held me as I tried not to cry, and when I was donenot cryinghe wiped my face clean of the evidence with the back of his hand.
“Can we pretend I didn’t do that?” I asked, breath raspy.
“No, but I won’t judge you for any way you feel.”
“Fuck, stop being nice,” I said and laughed. He held me close the entire walk back to the office.
10
Casey
