My body does not care how good the coffee smells.
I’m tooaware of footsteps. Doors. Breathing. The fact that I didn’t choose this roof, no matter how politely Nash framed it.
The ironic thing is, I might have, if I’d had a choice. It’s pretty here. Peaceful.
I came to New Orleans on purpose. I came with a name and a plan and just enough nerve to get me here. I thought if I found the right place and pushed hard enough, I’d get to Deacon and finish what I came to do.
Instead, I’ve got three men standing between me and the truth, acting like they’re doing me a favor by getting in my way.
I didn’t ask for any of this.
Speaking of Ever.
I crack the door of the little sunroom I hid myself away in and peek out.
He’s there in the kitchen, half-turned toward the coffee pot. He’s been watching me all morning. The way his shoulders angle when he hears the hinge move tells me he’s been listening out for my every move..
I shut the door again a little too fast, my heart hammering harder for the effort.
I tucked myself away in the sunroom, where Shiloh had apparently left the kitten this morning, with a cup of coffee to sulk in private. The continual expectation for me to give and reveal and do as they wished, with nothing in return, was like a rock in my shoe.Irritating.
The kitten—I need to come up with a name for him—is crawling all over me, his sharp little claws swatting at my hair one moment and his gaze intently focused on my eyelashes the next, until I worry he’s going to leap at them.
I stick a finger out for him to bat at, and he accepts it gracelessly, standing on his hind legs and then falling backwards.
In spite of my irritation with the men, I laugh. Is this what my life has turned into now—basically hiding away from my prison guards? I can’t breathe, blink, use the bathroom, or even masturbate without one of them seeing it and deciding whether I’m allowed?
No.
Absolutely not.
I set the kitten—he looks like a Homer, I think—down, grab the doorknob, yank the door open, and head straight for the front of the house before I can overthink myself into staying put. Iwilldo as I want, Nash’s rules be damned.
“I’m going for a walk,” I call out.
Announcing. Not asking.
Something small and stupid and mine.
If they’ve caged me, I at least want to know how far the bars go. It’s morning. I’m walking, not breaking into FortKnox. Maybe I want air. Maybe I want to prove I can still leave a room without permission.
Maybe I want to know if they took more than my keys when I wasn’t looking.
I don’t look back when I step out the front door.
The hill drops from the porch to the road in a long green slope. The morning sun is already bright enough to sting, gold on the grass, heavy and shimmering with heat and humidity.
I make it halfway down the lawn to the street before I feel it. That awareness tickling my shoulder blades.
I turn my head sharp.
Ever stands near the porch, squinting into the light, one hand braced on the column like he’s got all day. Sun catches on his tattoos, turning the dark ink alive against his skin. He looks carved out of the same heat he’s standing in.
My shadow. Again.
“Stop following me,” I snap, loud enough for him to hear.
“Stop acting like you don’t know you’re gonna be followed.”
