“Are you now?” Hurt twinges in his eyes for a split second before a slow smirk curves his lips. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Still smirking, he gives the crotch of his jeans a tug before stalking out of the storage room.
He comes back with a clipboard, and I sign for the delivery.
When he finishes stacking the last crate, he takes the clipboard and inspects my signature. Reads it aloud in his deep, drawling voice. “Cathy Earnshaw.”
“That’s right.”
And then he shocks me by putting out his right hand. “Heathcliff Lockwood.”
Oh shit. Did I just fuck a Lockwood? Dad’s head wouldexplode… “No way. You don’t look like a Lockwood.”
He hooks an eyebrow. “How would you know? Our families don’t exactly run in the same circles.”
“Well, I…I’ve heard you’re all redheads. The freckled type. You look…um…”
“Like I came from a different gene pool?” His eyes narrow, and his voice grows more velvety, more dangerous. “You’re not about to ask me where I’m from, are you, Earnshaw?”
“Of course not.” I bristle at the idea.
He chuckles, letting me off the hook. “It’s fine. I’m mostly Italian. Maybe a little Spanish, Romani—who the fuck knows? Never had the money to burn on one of those DNA ancestry tests.” He slams the back of the pickup. “You take care, Earnshaw. It’s been fun. I look forward to the next delivery in, say, three months, depending on how fast you sell out of our lager.”
“We’re not doingthatagain,” I say tersely.
“Right. Because you revoked your consent.” He takes a step toward me, and I shiver, not because of the chilly breeze raising goose bumps on my arms but because I can feel the heat of his body and I desperately want him to grab me, crush me, pound me until all conscious thought leaves my brain and I’m a melted mess in his hands.
He leans in slightly, not touching me but in my space, magnetizing the air, commanding it. He flips up one page of the clipboard, rips off the sheet beneath it, and hands the second page to me. There’s a number scrawled along the bottom of the receipt. “Anytime you want to reinstate your consent, let me know. Happy to drop off another…load.”
“You’re an animal.”
“Says the girl who jumped my bones like a bitch in heat.” He backs away, hops into the truck, and grinds out of the back drive ina roar of exhaust and a cloud of gravel dust.
I watch him go, still feeling his fingers in my hair like the caress of a wishful ghost.
3
Cathy
I detest going to church. But I don’t have a choice, not while I’m stuck living with Dad.
My childhood home is my best bet until I can save up enough for my own place, which is going to take forever because it can’t be just any place—it’s got to be isolated or at least near enough to the woods that I can escape into them during one of my episodes. And I can’t have roommates. It would be too hard to hide what I am from them.
So I have to attend church with Dad once a week, a chore I make more interesting by wearing outfits that are just short of scandalous. The middle-aged moms and righteous old ladies are going to gossip behind my back anyway. Might as well give them something to talk about.
Today I’m wearing a backless, halter-top sundress with a sweetheart neckline. I covered the bare skin with a sweater, but I let the sweater slip off one shoulder as I follow Dad up the steps of the church, my hand skimming the iron rail with its peeling white paint.
My father is a burly man, thick-necked and big-bearded. His hair is still mostly brown, but streaks of gray wriggle through the curlybeard. Above his bristly mustache, below bushy eyebrows, his pale eyes gleam with a hostile intensity he can’t quite suppress, even when he’s being friendly. He carries a worn leather Bible with the same hand that tried to feed me a knife last time he got drunk. I told him it tasted bad and I wouldn’t take it, which surprised his beer-addled brain long enough for him to think better of his actions.
I don’t know if he remembers doing that. We’ve never talked about it. We’re trapped together, he and I, at least for now. Surviving our situation means pretending certain things never happened. Drenched in that pretense, we can smile and climb the church steps like a pair of innocent, God-fearing sheep ready for sacrifice.
There are two grinning greeters lying in wait to open the doors for us. They chirp, “Good morning,” in falsely cheerful voices.
Okay, maybe it’s not entirely fake. Maybe I’m projecting my trust issues onto them.
“So good to see you, Cathy.” Mrs. O’Brien’s voice drips with saccharine pity for my lost-lamb status. “I hope God speaks to you today.”
