6. Rhys
CHAPTER 6
RHYS
I watch Tabitha walk up to her parents’ home, hand in hand with the little boy I’ve come to love like he’s—I don’t know. Not my own, but something awfully close to it.
He reminds me so much of his mom. It’s his mannerisms. The way he walks. The way his smile hitches up just a little more on the right side than on the left. Everything he does reminds me of her.
Seeing him here, alone, makes her death feel more real. It makes my chest ache. It makes me miss the woman who became something of a sister to me.
Erika had a perpetual weariness about her, like the drudgery of each day weighed on her. And I couldn’t keep myself from offering help while I was off with my recurring injury. It never felt like an inconvenience to lend a hand.
Plus, Milo and I became fast friends, and before long, I looked forward to the stretches she’d be away so that he and I could do all our favorite things together. Read. Build forts. Play-wrestle.
Now he’s walking into the home of two people I’ve been told nothing but negative things about. He eagerly hugs them; they lovingly hug him back. And it feels a bit like I’m living in the twilight zone.
Because those stories Erika told me made me so sure that Milo needed me. Those stories tapped into a place deep inside me that I’m not sure I ever recognized—or I just didn’t want to.
All I know is that I spent my childhood in the system, passed from foster home to foster home, and I won’t be letting the same thing happen to Milo.
Over my dead body.
Tabitha glances over her shoulder at me, and I realize her parents have picked up on the guy sitting in her passenger seat. Three sets of eyes land on me, and I try not to squirm under their attention. It’s too acute, too pressing. I prefer my solitude. I prefer flying under the radar.
But Tabitha’s pursed lips are all radar. Her eyes home in on me with accusation, so I look away, out the window, preparing myself for any pretense of friendliness to fly out her truck window the minute she steps back inside without Milo as a happy, oblivious buffer.
I stare down the curving street. The entire development is just a repeating pattern of the same homes, each in a slightly different color. It’s not what I expected. Wide lots. Sidings in all different shades of brown and beige. Not an apple-green door in sight, but still, a safe suburban sort of neighborhood.
The driver’s side door opens, and Tabitha fires her truck up without a word.
“Do they know who I am?”
“No. I told them you’re a friend, and they squealed like we’re getting hitched or something.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Because their hearts are already broken. I’ve decided to pace out the bad news I have to deliver to them like a tasting menu. Right now, they’re having a palate cleanser, thinking I might finally settle down.”
Her words hit hard, each one a blow I didn’t expect to sting quite so badly. Tabitha’s concern for everyone else is admirable… and not at all what I expected based on the stories I’ve been told.
I don’t like the way the realization sits, so I change the subject, not wanting to dwell.
“Do they have a car seat?” I ask, realizing Milo’s is still in the back.
She’s shoulder checking when she snipes back, “No, they just strap him to the roof of their Subaru like he’s a canoe.”
I sigh. “That’s not funny.”
She shakes her head, rolling away from her parents’ place. Hands at ten and two. Knuckles white like she’s pretending the steering wheel is my neck. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Sure seems?—”
“Listen, you’ve done nothing but insult my family and me since I came to get my sister’s things. You insinuated I was there to rob her and accused me of not being sad enough. Then, you popped out of the bushes, trying to catch me doing god knows what, like we were on an episode of Cheaters . Now you casually suggest I’d leave my nephew somewhere without a car seat as though I don’t care about his safety at all. So excuse the fuck out of me for not smiling and nodding at every low blow you lob out.”
I settle back in the seat of her truck and cross my arms before grumbling, “You’re not very likeable.”
And I mean it, even if everything she said is true. I’m suspicious of her and her intentions—how could I not be?—but she’s combative and accusatory at every turn.
“Thank you,” is her off-the-cuff response before we fall into a beat of silence. And when I look over, a subtle curve lifts her lips. “It must be hard for you.”
“What?”
“Not having a woman just fawn all over you. It’s like if you have to do more than be a big, broody, poor man’s Jason Momoa, you get your panties all twisted.”
“Charming,” I grumble, forcing my mouth into a frown. I don’t want to admit out loud that was humorous.
“I’m not remotely interested in winning over the man who’s responsible for my sister’s death.”
“ I’m responsible?”
“You pinky promised.”
I blink, letting her words sink in as I attempt to piece together where she’s coming from without giving too much away. I still don’t trust her. And based on the way she continues, she doesn’t trust me either.
“You’re just lucky Milo likes you. Hard to account for the taste of a toddler, but he’s still the only reason I’m tolerating your presence.”
I know I should rise above. Just sit here and let her take her shots.
But I don’t.
“That’s funny. I thought it was the legal will that was forcing you to tolerate me.”
I know she heard me, because the stubborn set to her jaw becomes even more apparent, but that sentence strikes us both silent for the entire ride back to her house.