Page 31 of Justice

“Skye got Dream.” I kept it level, but I let the edge ride up under it, and I made sure she caught it. “I told you I’d see you at the party. At the Castle. I ain’t tell you to come to my house.”

Her face slipped, then smoothed right back over. See, she ain’t come here to help my baby with nothing.

“Okay, well.” Bright again, reaching. “Can I at least ride out there with you? No sense in us pulling up in two cars.”

I looked down at my watch. I did not have it in me to stand up in my own foyer this morning negotiating with a woman I’d already told, in plain grown English, no.

“Nah. I don’t know how long I’ll be at the spot after the party is over. It’s best if you drive your own car.” I turned toward the stairs and raised my voice up. “Storie. You rolling with me, or you rolling with Skye and your sister?”

A quiet from the top of them stairs. Then:

“Skye.” My daughter’s voice came down. I’ll ride with Skye.”

And out of everything strange that already happened in my house before ten in the morning, that right there might’ve taken the cake. My oldest child, who could barely stand to be in a room with that woman, picking Skye’s car over her own daddy’s. But I dropped it in the pile with everything else I ain’t have time to make sense of yet, and I grabbed my keys off the table.

“Come on,” I told Kira.

She fell in right beside me, looking at me like she wanted to plead for a ride in my car. I didn’t want to deal with her riding there and then riding back. I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to stake a claim in front of Skye, but it was unnecessary. I was not hers to claim.

As I let her step out ahead of me, I caught Skye standing in that sitting room doorway. Dream’s finished up-do and crown shining under the light. She was watching Kira strut out the front door with a look sitting on her face that she snatched back down quick.

She covered it. She was good at covering. Best I ever seen, matter of fact.

But I caught it. I catch everything.

She was jealous. I liked that more than I should’ve.

17

SKYE

Who the hell was Kira, and why did I care this much?

I shouldn’t have cared. That woman was none of my business, not one bit of her. But I’d caught the look in her eyes when she clocked me standing in that living room, and it read plain as a billboard. Envy. Like she’d stamped her name on that man years ago and planted her flag in him. And here I came, just a little caregiver, standing too close to what she’d already decided was hers.

But I clocked how he talked to her. He seemed tired of her, so he kept his responses short and curt. I could tell he was a man handling a woman, not wanting her. She was into him a whole lot harder than he was into her, and any fool with two eyes could see it.

Or maybe he was performing for me? But why would he be? Who the hell am I, but the help?

This was not my business. I kept telling myself that. None of your business, Skye.

I had to get these feelings under control before they cost me everything. I couldn’t be sitting up in this man’s house with butterflies going crazy in my stomach like some sophomore with a high school crush.

I had goals and none of them included falling for Justice. I just needed to do a good job, stack this money quietly, and get up out of Dodge before anybody looked at me too long.

That was the plan. That had always been the plan.

But the plan didn’t know that man had a voice like a warm hand caressing the back of your neck.

Dream was buckled in the back in her little gown, vibrating, because her Justice had texted me with strict instructions. Keep her in the car when we got there. He had some big magical princess entrance cooked up for his baby and did not want it spoiled. So I had precious cargo and a job to do, which suited me fine, because the other passenger in this car set my teeth on edge for a reason I couldn’t name yet.

Storie sat up front beside me. She’d picked my car over her own father’s, which still made no sense, and she’d been quiet most of the ride, looking out the window with her hands folded in her lap like a girl in a church pew.

I tried, because trying was my nature and sitting in silence with this child felt like stepping around a pit viper in tall grass.

“So how’s school going?” I asked. “You got a boyfriend yet, or you breaking hearts and taking names?”

A small smile touched her mouth. Almost real. “There’s a boy I like.”