I stared at the bathroom door. Did I love him? Or had he become something so familiar, so comfortable, that I’d convinced myself it was love?
He was on the other side of the door, lying in the bed we shared. The bed we’d slept in all night, and he still hadn’t touched me. He’d held me for hours and never once made a move, despite knowing that Steele was dead.
And that he wasn’t my father.
His path was clear now. He could make a move, claim me. Make me his. Only, he still hadn’t done it.
If he wanted to he would.
The words kept running through my mind. He didn’t want to. I was such a fool. All this time wasted.
He’d told me he loved me. But was it real? Had we both become complacent with our places in each other’s lives? We weren’t a regular couple. We’d never dated, just spent hours together in the dark. Hours where we talked about nothing as we learned about each other.
About our pasts.
As much as we were willing to share.
We didn’t talk about the future. Because we didn’t have one.
Our lives had been thrown together because of my misplaced anger. An anger that should have been directed at my mother.
She was the one who’d kept my father from me, whoever he was. As a child, I wished it were Uncle Stephen. But if he was my father, why wouldn’t they just tell me? Why call him my uncle?
I had so many questions that had no answers. Steele had those answers. He could have told me. He called him the Yankee. I assumed he was from the north, but where?
New York?
Boston?
Minnesota?
Washington?
Half the fucking country lived in the north. “The investigator knows.”That was what he’d said. What investigator? Had Steele hired a PI? Had he looked for my mother after we moved to Louisiana?
We left Arkansas after Titan had died. I remembered Steele’s father. A tear slipped down my cheek as I realized I’d also lost grandparents I’d thought were mine.
I jumped at the knock on the door.
“Grace, we need to talk.”
I stared at myself in the mirror. I was an orphan. A child with no parents. A girl with no family. A woman with no one.
“Grace, open the door.”
I took a deep breath and unlocked the door. When I opened it, there he was, his hands on the trim above his head. So many times, I’d opened my front door and found him standing there, just as he was now.
A few years ago...
I’d just gone to bed after my shift. It was three in the morning and someone was pounding on my front door. I grabbed my phone, ready to call the sheriff, when I heard his voice.
“GRACE!”
King? I climbed out of bed and grabbed my robe. My hair was still wet from the shower I’d taken, trying to wash the smell of stale beer and whiskey off my body.
It was the same thing every night, in every town. Patrons filled with lust and regret got drunk until last call. It clung to my skin like armor, reminding me why I needed to stay away from the man that was at my front door.
I pulled it open and there he was. His hands on the trim over his head. His T-shirt pulled up, revealing an inch of skin between the hem and the waistband of his jeans.
