31. Lily
THIRTY-ONE
LILY
He speaks French . He walks in the room and everyone turns to stare, but not because he’s out of place—although he is. It’s because he commands power, effortlessly inserting himself in the center like it’s his God-given right to be there.
I’ve seen him in my element, but I’ve never seen him like this, and there’s something intoxicating about dominating the thoughts of the man who dominates the room.
Dinner is different than I expected, not that I have much experience to go off. But it never crossed my mind he’d take me somewhere so fancy. And maybe that’s why he didn’t tell me, because he knew I’d say no, too uncomfortable to even think about going somewhere with several sets of utensils and crystal wineglasses for your water.
But somehow, he makes me feel comfortable in spite of that, and the sprouts of trust budding just under the surface root deeper into my chest. With every side he shows, it feels more and more like he’s trying to ground me in something permanent.
I think I’m ready to be kept.
Now we’re at Sumner Lake, a small body of water right outside of Phoenix. And even though I’ve never been here before, its familiarity rushes through my veins, memories throwing me off balance.
Lakes bring flashbacks—of times with people who I thought were friends and family. Times when I tried, really tried, naively perhaps, to be the best version of myself. Before I accepted the fact that there are some demons you can’t outrun.
I’ve worked hard to get where I am, to not be the type of mother who birthed me. To not allow the things that happened to me fuel the fear that could tarnish my son’s childhood. But when I stare out at this lake, soaking in the glow of the moon kissing glossy waters, my sorrow bleeds through the cracks, suffusing the peace with a pain so intense it steals my breath.
And just like that, my body craves to find the numb.
Tinkling laughter fills the air from a group of teenagers down the way, and my heart squeezes in my chest, replacing their distant, blurred faces with those of my past.
Of Becca.
Lee.
Chase.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Alex plops down behind me, his legs lining my sides and his arms wrapping around my middle.
I shake my head, sighing. “I just haven’t been to a lake in a long time.”
“You used to go a lot?”
Goose bumps sprout along my skin, but it’s not the outside that creates the chill. It’s the type of cold that seeps from your soul, spreading like molasses until the frost coats every bone, causing an ache that even the sun can’t take away. My head twists to gaze up at him, wondering if it’s even possible to spill my secrets. I’ve been burying them so long, I’m not sure I can find their graves. But there’s something prodding me to dig up the skeletons, hoping the rot of pain doesn’t suffocate me under its stench.
“Yeah.” I speak slowly. “The town I used to live in surrounded a big one. We used to go all the time as kids.”
He hesitates before speaking. “Who’s we?”
My brows angle down. “What?”
“You said ‘we.’ Who else are you talking about?”
“Oh…my friends.” My nose scrunches in distaste as their betrayal rises through my throat and settles on my tongue, tasting just as sour as it did so many years ago. “And my brother, I guess.”
He nods. “What’s your brother’s name?”
My chest stings, the thought of him like a brand seared into my heart, the burn radiating through my middle and settling behind my eyes. “Chase,” I force out.
I expect surprise, a moment of realization that I named my son after my brother, but he simply nods, almost like he’s known it all along. “Do you still talk to him?”
“Does it matter?” I shrug.
Tingles race down my neck when his lips skim along my shoulder. “Yes,” he mutters against my skin.
“I don’t—I don’t talk to him anymore.” A tear drips from the corner of my eye, and I quickly wipe it away with the back of my hand, not wanting to show how much it truly affects me.
“How come?” he presses.
“How come you don’t talk to your family?” I retort.
His body stiffens behind me, and he lets out a sigh. “My upbringing was different. You already know about the pressure I felt…”
He trails off and my heart falters, sickness swirling through me when I think about him as a little boy, slicing his skin in order to feel.
“Yeah, I remember.” I run my hand along his forearm, feeling the raised flesh underneath the pads of my fingers.
“We all have our stories,” he says. “My parents aren’t good people. Narcissism at its finest. They manipulate everyone , weaving an image so tight-knit and perfect, no one would believe anything other than their lie.”
My chest tightens.
“ Every day more of my character was stripped away, cut to fucking pieces by their expectations.” He shakes his head.
“And the French?” I ask, unable to stop the words from rolling off my tongue.
He chuckles, pulling my body tighter against him, his breath hot against my ear. “Est-ce que tu aimes ca?”
Shivers skate down my spine. “What does that mean?”
“I asked if you liked it,” he rasps.
My cheeks heat. “I don’t know a woman who wouldn’t.” Arousal spikes through my core when I feel him harden against my back. “Is French the only language you know?”
His grip loosens. “It’s the one I’m most fluent in, but I’m passable in others. My parents…they had international guests frequently, and it was important to my father that his child could hold conversation with them.”
I try to picture what Alex’s childhood must have been like, but I come up blank, the bits and pieces he’s provided not enough to paint the image. Or maybe it’s so far removed from anything I’ve known, it’s not able to even exist in my imagination.
“Is your father a businessman?” I twist to see his face.
He nods, the muscles in his jaw tensing. “Yep. For the biggest corporation in the world.”
“Oh.” I’m dying to know more but don’t want to push him. I can tell this is a sensitive subject, and I know if he prodded me , I wouldn’t react well.
He blows out a breath. “There, I told you one of mine. Now tell me one of yours.”
“My what?”
“Your secrets .”
My stomach churns. “I don’t know where I’d even start.”
“The beginning seems like a good place.”
My insides wage war between breaking down my walls and reenforcing them, making tears pool in my eyes. I close them to ebb the burn. “I don’t know if I can.”
He pulls me tighter against him, rocking us in time to the sound of small waves lapping at the rocky shoreline. “Try.”
Try.
One syllable. A thousand different emotions.
“My mom was a junkie,” I burst out. “She abandoned my brother and me when I was little. I don’t—” I shake my head when a tear escapes, annoyance squeezing my stomach because I’m crying over a woman I barely remember. “I don’t know much about her. But she fucked my brother up.”
“She abandoned you?”
I puff out my cheeks. “Yep. Got so high, she left us at a gas station in Nowhere, Tennessee.” A forgotten wound starts to throb in the center of my chest. “Chase always swore up and down that she didn’t mean it. That she just…forgot.” I clap my hands together before dropping them to my sides. “But there were only so many nights he could keep the faith, you know? Eventually, he realized she wasn’t coming back.” I pause, thinking back to how Chase’s eyes grew vacant, his personality hardening into stone.
His faith in a woman who never deserved it grew sharp edges that chipped away his childhood piece by piece. “He was never the same after that.”
Alex huffs, the wispies on the back of my neck blowing from his breath.
“We were placed into foster care,” I continue. My insides squeeze tight, hands growing clammy at even thinking the words, let alone speaking them out loud.
“They split you two up?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, we were kept together, and he…Chase…he was my biggest protector.” My nose burns, throat swelling. “He was my stable ground in a world that always shook beneath my feet.”
“He sounds like a great brother.”
Before I can stop it, my cheeks are wet from the tears trailing down my face. “The best,” I mutter under my breath.
“What was foster care like?”
I lean my head against his chest. “Some places were fine. Others were…not.” The wave of shame surges through my insides, dousing me in blackened memories. “One in particular, he—” My voice gets stuck in my throat, snapshots of a past I’ve trained myself to forget rolling in like fog. I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Alex’s arms flex on my stomach. “It does. ”
I ignore his words. “The last foster parents we had were amazing, though. They actually adopted us.” A soft smile graces my face. “Sam and Anna Adams.”
Alex chuckles. “Sam Adams ? Like the beer?”
I giggle, a sliver of light creeping through the heavy moment. “Yep. They were everything I always dreamed of having. And after years of being toted around place to place, being treated as a paycheck from the government or a…a toy to be used—” My teeth clench so hard I’m afraid I’ll crack a molar. “It was nice to have the picture-perfect family.”
His fingers skim under the hem of my shirt, and the touch alone is enough to ground me. To keep me in the moment. It’s difficult, but it feels good to be able to talk about this with someone.
“So what happened?”
I shrug, not knowing if I can put it into words. I want to say that sometimes broken pieces are ingrained too deep. That no matter how many times you sweep them up, there are fragments left behind. And eventually, those shards become part of you, the thought of digging them out too painful to bear.
“Sam and Anna were amazing. But they were afraid of pushing us away. Most of their focus went to Chase because he was the problem child. I wasn’t.” My lips lift slightly as I shake my head. “I figured out at a young age that when you pretend like nothing is wrong, people believe you.”
“Act weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
I twist to face him. “What?”
“It’s a Sun Tzu quote from The Art of War .”
My chest pulls as I hum.
Act strong when you are weak.
“Yeah, that was me, I guess. Always weak.” Another tear slides down my face, hot and salty as it hits my lips. My tongue peeks out to wipe the moisture away. “But people believe the face you show them. The more I talked, the less they asked. The more I smiled, the less they cared.”
“That’s sad, little bird.”
“Why do you call me that?” I turn in his arms.
He smiles softly, his hand coming up to run down my cheek. “Birds are social animals. They live in flocks and flourish in the skies. But when they’re put in captivity, they become lonely. Depressed. Aggressive. Sometimes, they show their trauma by never singing again.”
My chest aches at his words.
“When I first met you, you seemed lonely. Depressed. Aggressive. It made me want to hear you sing.”
My breathing thins.
His thumb presses into my bottom lip. “Birds aren’t meant to be caged.” He leans down and presses a kiss to my lips. “What stole your song, little bird?”
My heart stutters. “I don’t think I can talk about that.”
His nostrils flare, his eyes searching mine. “I’m afraid I already know.”
Alex isn’t a stupid man.
A sob breaks out of me, and he catches it with his lips, sucking in my cries and letting them rest on his tongue. I don’t say any more about it. I can’t. But I don’t need to because Alex brings me in close and lets me shatter in his arms.
And for the first time, I’m not worried about sweeping up the pieces.