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I scoff, the bitterness rising like second nature. “So what—you want me to fall apart, bleed it all out, and then what? Sketch my way back to being whole? While also accepting that all this is for keeps?” I laugh, sharp and hollow. “Yeah, okay.”
“Yeah, fool, I want you to do exactly that,” Sophie shoots back, a wicked grin tugging at her lips, “and then you start catching up on ten years’ worth of missed orgasms.”
And there it is—her signature move. That sugarcoated jab, all warmth and wit, but sharp enough to draw blood if you’re not braced for it.
People look at Sophie and see softness. See her tucked away in her cozy little bakery like she’s made of flour and honey, like life hasn’t ever touched her rough. But that’s just her armor. She doesn’t hide in the kitchen because it’s peaceful—she hides there because it’s the one place she can control the chaos. The one place no one asks what she’s really holding together.
She’s got the same fire in her that I do. The difference is, she covers hers in vanilla and fresh bread. I let mine scorch everything it touches.
“Do you want the details?” I ask, wiggling my eyebrows just to push her buttons.
A full body shudder rolls through her. “Absolutely not, and if you try to give me any graphic details, I swear to God, I’m shoving you in the fucking oven.”
“I’m your sister Sophie, we should be able to talk about these things.” I smirk.
She crosses her arms, voice firm. “If it were anybody else? Hell yeah, we’d talk about it. But it’s not. So we’re not.”
“You know if this were Aunt Joe, we’d be able to talk about it,” I argue, crossing my arms under my chest. Because Aunt Joe is 100 percent a big old freak nasty. Just last week she told Lucien how’d she slide down his pole for the change in his pocket, that big bastard was stunned silent.
Sophie grins wickedly at me. “Okay, so you do want to hear about how she caught Maddox in the cooler with Evie spread-eagle while he stocked her shelf?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I think I just threw up in my mouth.”
“Exactly!” she says, hopping off the counter. “Now get your tall ass over here and help me reach the extra cake boxes you shoved on top of the fridge.”
I groan, reaching up to grab the cake boxes perched on the fridge. “You really use me as your personal ladder, huh?”
She grins, folding her arms. “Tall, strong, and always available. You’re a natural.”
I shift the boxes carefully in my hands, feeling the weight—not just of the boxes, but everything we carry. “One of these days, I’m charging you for all this heavy lifting.”
She steps closer, her smile softening. “Maybe, but I’d still call you my rock—even when you’re tired.”
For a second, the teasing fades, and I catch the quiet strength between us—something steady and real beneath the noise.
“I love you, Fi.”
“Love you most, Lou.”
Now, I won’t say that conversation with my sister is why I ended up being devoured like an all-you-can-eat buffet after Sunday service, but I will say I left there, went straight back to Henry’s, and without thinking, snatched my sketchbook up and planted my ass at the kitchen table. Then I just let my fingers go.
At first, I tried to will myself to create certain images—ones I’ve drawn a million times before, like Sophie or Maggie. But Dallas kept creeping into my mind, pulling me away from the familiar. Before long, I was staring at him just like he sat in that barber chair earlier this week—like it was the most boring thing he’d ever endured.
There’s something about the way Dallas sits—half-bored, half-worn down—that pulls at something inside me. I traced the lines of his face slowly, trying to hold on to every detail. The silence he carries isn’t empty—it’s heavy, almost too much to carry.
Sophie’s words echoed softly in my mind—breathing through the wreckage until something soft grew back. But beneath it all, a quiet doubt lingered—am I enough for that?
Still, in that moment, maybe he is that something soft. And maybe, just maybe, I’m beginning to hope I can be too.
I don’t know how long I sat there drawing or what all I had sketched until Henry’s rich voice pulled me back from wherever I’d wandered off to. I could have shut him out when he demanded to know why I kept myself always on the outside, looking in. But Sophie was right—I needed to fall apart and bleed it out. Maybe I could start by being honest with the one person I’d wanted my entire life, even if the truths I had to offer were small.
It was still far more than I had let myself give him in all these years—more than the walls I’d built, more than the silence I’d wrapped around my heart. And as he devoured me on his kitchen table, he fucking knew it too.
Chapter Nineteen
PANTY SNATCHER
LOUISIANA
