Sawyer
When we leave Bernie’s, the sunlight is golden in the sky and Zelda’s shoulders have tensed up a little. On the sidewalk, she turns right and starts walking back in the direction of her parents’ house without saying anything.
“You okay?”
This isn’t exactly the exit I would prefer, but even as we sat talking about mainly nothing and picking at the remains of the fries, something shifted in Zelda’s face. It looked suspiciously like guilt, but neither of us have done a thing to feel guilty about.
I wish we had.
I match my stride to hers, and she glances over at my face for one second. “I’m fine. I—I should probably get home.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she could come to my aunt’s house for a while, but the whole thing seems so like high school that I don’t say it. She seems on edge, anyway, and I don’t know why.
I’m betting it has to do with whatever happened to her in school, but it didn’t come up in the conversation again, and something in my gut told me not to push it.
She’ll tell me when it’s the right time, I think, and then I let out a little laugh.
How long do I even plan on staying? There might not be enough time to let things go that far with this woman, and honestly, for her sake, it would probably be better that way.
She doesn’t need to get caught up in a life like mine.
It’s not all peaches and cream. I’m in good with Domino, but the longer I work in the city, the more people will know who I am.
I’m already becoming a target. Last spring, when I was walking home from a friendly conversation with someone who owed a little more money than they should have, two guys cornered me in an alley.
I got out with only a couple scratches because they underestimated me. And they didn’t have a gun.
That’s never a guarantee.
Zelda picks up the pace, walking briskly the few blocks back to the yellow house on the corner. Across the street, I see her searching the windows, her eyes scanning the curtains like she’s got strict orders to be back by a certain time.
“Hey.”
She’s taken the first step forward to cross the street, but she rocks her weight backward.
“Yeah?”
“That was a good time.”
Her amazing smile spreads across her face, and my cock stiffens at the sight of it.
“I thought so, too.” The cloud comes back across her expression. “Text me?”
“No way.”
Her mouth opens in a little O of surprise. “Really?”
I give her my signature smile. “No, not really. I’ll text you. But I have a more important question.”
“What’s that?”
“What time are you meeting me for our next date?”
I shut the front door to my aunt’s house behind me and it closes with a click.
“Seven,” Zelda had said, with a smile working its way onto her face.
Then she’d turned on her heel and headed across the street, disappearing up the driveway of the yellow house on the corner.
My heart still hasn’t come down from it.
I’ve spent the last five years thinking I was hard as hell and that nothing could really touch me, and I’m practically losing my mind over the fact that she agreed to go out on a real date with me.
A real date. I laugh under my breath. What the hell are we going to do on a real date? It’s been years since I bothered taking a woman out on a date.
I have no idea how this is going to play out, either.
Every five seconds, we’re getting closer to the line, dancing closer together, and then moving back out like a couple of boxers in the ring.
One minute she’s flirting with me so heavily that it’s all I can do not to reach for her, and the next minute, she’s under a thundercloud, feeling guilty for who knows what.
I’m dying to unravel whatever the hell it is.
“How did it go?”
My aunt’s voice breaks into my thoughts, and my mouth starts to answer before my brain has caught up. “She—”
Then my eyes meet hers, and my stomach plummets back down to my shoes. My aunt looks so hopeful because I left hours ago to walk over to my dad’s, to finally see him. For whatever reason, she wants me to make up with him before…
Before he dies, I guess.
I have to swallow the rest of the sentence. My aunt has no idea who Zelda is. Well, she might know of her from living in the same neighborhood, but it’s not like I gave her a full rundown of what happened at the club. If I had, I might have known I’d run into her again.
Would that have changed anything?
Probably not.
I tell her the truth before I can lie. “I didn’t see him.”
Her brow furrows, and she rises halfway up from her chair. “He wasn’t home?” I can see her mind working.
“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the door.” Guilt settles in a cold knot in my stomach.
My aunt looks at me, the corners of her mouth turning down into a frown that guts me, but she doesn’t say anything else. She stands up from her chair and goes into the kitchen. I hear her digging through her purse. After a pause, she speaks into the phone.
“Hey.” More silence. “You’re at home still?
” Her footsteps travel in a slow loop around the kitchen island.
“No, he’s—” I head up the stairs toward the guest bedroom.
I don’t want to listen to this. “He’s still here.
” She waits a minute, and it’s probably to make sure I’m out of earshot, but I haven’t gone down the hallway yet, so I hear what she says next. “I don’t think he wants to see you.”
I close the bedroom door as silently as I can and sit down on the bed, dropping my head into the palms of my hands.
I’m not the kind of person who does the right thing because it’s the right thing. If I was, I wouldn’t have the job I have right now. But my gut is churning.
It’s not about my dad at all.
It’s about my aunt, but how the hell do I fix that without seeing my dad?
I’m almost lost in the guilt when Zelda’s first text comes in.