I’d been told all my life that I was hard to read. Shut down. Selfish with my emotions. But somehow Folk interpreted my silent inaction for what it was. He dragged his gaze from the floor and latched onto mine, the moon blue of his gentle eyes as compelling as it had been in the bar. “You need to go, Seth. I can’t leave you in this grotty room and feel good about it. And we can’t stay.”
I knew that. And maybe I couldn’t leave him in thisgrottyroom either. Maybe that was the weight in my legs and the lump in my throat.
Or maybe it was the way he said my name, his velvet voice wrapping around that one syllable like it fucking mattered.
I took a step in the same moment he did. We collided again, but softer this time, his kiss and mine laced with regret. Over before the volume cranked up too loud.
Breathing hard, I rested my forehead against his, just for a moment. Then I forced myself away from him, taking the taste of his kiss with me.
I slipped through the open door and gripped the metal bar on the fire exit, bracing myself for the bustle of the outside world again. I didn’t want it. The bar was airless and oppressive, but the thought of traipsing back to the base with nothing but a stolen kiss on my lips... it wasn’t enough.
“Seth.”
Man, I needed him to stop saying my name, or I’d be stuck here forever.
I turned my head. Folk was leaning against the wall, stance casual, but his gaze heavy lidded and too complex for my simple brain to decipher. “Yeah?”
Folk smiled and raised a hand in a wave. “Just wanted to say, for the record, there’s nothing uninteresting about you.”
2
DECOY
Decoy
Present Day
My solicitor was younger than me. She was cleverer too. But sitting in her stuffy office, surrounded by legal texts and documents crammed with big words, it wasn’t hard to feel thick as shit regardless.
“Don’t swear, Daddy.”
A daily battle, and sometimes the mess my life had somehow become got the better of me and it was all I could do not to shout obscenities to the moon. “Can you say all that again?”
The solicitor’s name was Jeanette. She was patient and kind. But her personality was brisk and didn’t fit the anxious, needy human I became whenever I walked through her door.
“All I’m saying is that it would be better if the person taking Ivy to school when you have to work was someone closer to you than a work colleague. And preferably someone without a criminal record.”
“Ivy likes going to school with Liliana. And Mateo’s record is clean.”
“His husband is a convicted murderer.”
I flinched. Couldn’t help it. For Embry’s sake more than mine. “That was years ago. Lauren wouldn’t know that.”
“Theconvictionwas years ago. He was still in prison when Ivy was born. And what if Lauren finds out? Is it worth the risk?”
Nothing was worth the risk of losing my daughter, but guilt ate at me all the same. I took Liliana to school because it helped her feel like a normal kid. Mateo returned the favour because it helpedhimfeel like a normal parent, despite the fact he tailed me both ways each and every time. “Okay. I won’t let her go with Mateo anymore.”
“Is there anyone else who could take her when you’re working?”
“No. I just won’t work. My boss will take the hit if Lauren switches on me at the last minute.”
Jeanette nodded, making a note on her pad. “I know it’s not fair, but your commitment to being flexible looks good to a judge. The stability you’ve found in the last few years. The only thing that would make it better at this point would be if you had a partner. Or a family member close by to support you when you need help.”
I nursed the plastic cup of tepid water I’d been clinging to since I got here. “I don’t have any family. And I’m single. I have to be. Can you imagine Lauren if I had a girlfriend?”
Jeanette winced. “Actually, I can. But it’s not uncommon for either side to react badly to a potential step-parent. You don’t like Lauren’s boyfriends and you’ve never met most of them.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to remind her that Ivy didn’t like my ex-wife’s parade of mystery men either, but I swallowed it. My baby girl wasn’t in the room, but I’d fought hard to make hiding my feelings about her mum second nature. A bland smile. An easy chuckle that ripped a fresh wound every time I forced it out.
