Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dark
“Dad. Dad, wake up.” The most adorable voice dances through my dreams as someone pushes my shoulder. “Dad.”
Wait.
I crack open an eye.
Standing beside wherever the hell I am is a dark-haired, gray-eyed little girl. A little girl who happens to be my daughter. Where the fuck am I?
“Lily Pad?” I croak.
“Hi, Dad.” Throwing her arms in the air, the sweetest ball of energy does a silly dance in shorts and a rainbow tank top.
“Hi, baby girl. What’re you doin’ here?”
“You’re home.”
“Home?”
“At Kali’s.”
“What?”
Swallowing the disgusting taste in my mouth, I lick my lips to dampen them and exhale a heavy, painful-as-fuck breath before forcing my eyelids to get with the program and open wider.
When they do, I’m assaulted with memories I don’t wanna touch with a ten-foot pole.
The scent of lavender and those stupid smudge sticks fill the room.
There’s a canary yellow crystal on my stomach and a bunch more on the nightstand.
Holy hell, I’m in my ex-wife’s house.
How did this happen?
Wait.
Dad showed up at the cabin, didn’t he? I guess that wasn’t a dream. I was put in the back of a truck, and now I’m here, but where’s Iris?
“You’re alive,” Kali teases from the open doorway of what is clearly one of my son’s old bedrooms. “Not that I had any doubt.”
I hum.
Sure, she didn’t.
Smoothing a hand down the front of her long, patchwork skirt as if she needs to be grounded in my presence, Kali closes her eyes, and her mouth moves, but no sound comes out before she reopens them and nods to Lily. “Why don’t you go down to see if dinner’s about done?”
“But…”
“No buts. Dad needs his rest.”
Shoulders slumping forward, Lily sighs as if Kali ruined her whole life.
“I could use a kiss on the cheek before ya leave me. Maybe that’ll help,” I add to cheer her up.
Being the good kid she is, Lily pecks me, and I tell her I love her before she does as she’s told. Kali gives her a tiny hug on the way out of the room, then it’s just me and the woman I loved for more than half my life. She looks good. Healthy. Happy. That makes one of us.
“Pops came,” I rasp.
“He did.”
“I’m fucked up.”
“You are.”
“I’m sorry for everything.”
“I know.”
“I promise I’ll leave as soon as I can. I don’t wanna put this on you.”
“Dark, it’s okay. You can stay as long as you need.”
“Does Abby know?”
“Yes.”
“Has she seen me?”
“Yes, she has. For a moment. It was…” Trailing off, Kali shakes her head. “She’s moving on. She’s gonna be okay.”
“Good.”
“How’re you feelin’?”
“Like I got run over by a train, then eaten by a shark, and shit out into whatever the fuck this is.” I gesture down my tired body, exposed from the waist up. My legs are covered by a blue star blanket and a pink fluffy one, probably Lily’s.
“That’s very descriptive.”
“I’m a descriptive man.”
“Mmmm. Well, if it’s any consolation, whoever stitched you back together knew what they were doing. You’re gonna have some wicked scars, but the infection’s gone.”
“How’s Iris?”
“Who’s Iris?”
“The one who helped me.”
“Ah. Yes. The sister.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s the bad guy here. She’s not.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Don’t do that, Kali. I got myself into this mess. I wasn’t her target.”
“Yet you look like Freddy Krueger went ham on your entire fucking chest and stomach. Even part of your leg.”
“You poison people, Kali. You have no room to talk.”
“But I know who my marks are.”
“Oh. So, you know everything about them? I was sellin’ organs for Penelope’s dad.”
“What?”
“I got in too deep. Made some terrible fuckin’ choices.”
“And our kids almost lost their dad.”
“They wouldn’t have cared, Kali. Fog hates me, and Tarek’s still pissed I left Abby, even though it was for her own good. You said so yourself.”
“Just because you’re an asshole doesn’t mean we want you dead.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
Not wanting to argue with her over semantics, since it doesn’t matter anyhow, I change the subject. “I need to talk to Pops.”
“Dark.”
“We’re done here. Thank you for givin’ me a place to stay. I’m sorry you got dragged into this. I’ll do what I can to get out of your hair as soon as I can.”
Rolling her eyes heavenward, Kali tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and grumbles a slew of angry expletives under her breath, most of which are her cussing me out, before gripping her crystal necklace to calm down.
It’s a thing she does. A lot of breathing techniques and crystals, and earth-loving, tree-hugging stuff.
It’s always been her way, and it’s one of the many reasons why I fell in love with her.
Though, looking at her now, not only as my ex-wife, but stepmom, too…
yeah…Try that headfuck on for size. She’s both the mother of my sons and their step-grandma.
Ha. Our family is a goddamn mess of relationships.
But we’re not a one-size-fits-all, and it works, however it works.
Anywho…
As I was sayin’…
My longing for Kali has officially hit the road.
Sure, she’s stunning. Smart. A firecracker and pretty goddamn perfect, but my obsession—to see her, hear her, touch her, fight with her, fuck her—has poofed.
I dunno when it happened, but I’m cured.
Alright, so cured might not be the right word, but I’m goin’ with it.
I’m cured of loving my ex-wife in an unhealthy way.
See. Growth and shit.
I have no desire to fight her, and my dick hasn’t risen to the occasion in her presence, which he used to do pretty much every time she opened her mouth.
Kali stomps her foot. “Dark.”
“Eh?”
“Did you hear a thing I just said?”
“No.”
On a low, feminine growl, she throws her hands in the air. The bangles around her wrist clink with the motion. “You are the most stubborn son of a bitch.”
“I wouldn’t call your husband a bitch, and aren’t you my new step-mommy now?”
“Dark!”
“What? I’m just sayin’. Where’s Pops anyway?”
“Giving you space.”
“To what? Lie in bed? I’m already doin’ that.” I pat the mattress for emphasis.
She stares up at the ceiling like it’s gonna give her help. “Mother Earth, please grant me the strength not to strangle this man.”
“You can strangle me if ya want. I won’t object. I definitely deserve it.”
“You’re impossible,” she huffs.
“Yeah. I know. Which is why you wanna strangle me, instead of goin’ to get my father, so we can talk.”
Kali cocks her hip to the side. “What do you wanna talk to him about?”
“Christ. You don’t need to protect him from me.”
“You almost died. He’s goin’ through some stuff.”
“But I didn’t, and we’re all goin’ through it. I didn’t ask to be brought here. I appreciate you bein’ the good woman you are, but this doesn’t involve you.”
“If it involves either of you, it involves me,” she sasses.
“No. It doesn’t.”
Rubbing her red-rimmed eyes, Kali backs out of the room. Sure, I feel like a prick for havin’ to put it like that, but that’s the way it is. For both our sakes, it’s for the best. There’s too much history between us.
It doesn’t take long for Pops to enter, and when he does, I don’t mince words.
“Who told you where I was, and did you hurt Iris?”
Sighing long and hard, Pops, rockin’ a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, perches on the end of the bed, pats my foot over the blanket, and gives it to me straight. No fluff, no emotions.
Cell told Kali, and Kali lost her shit.
Iris is okay.
At that, I draw the first full breath into my lungs since I got here, and the tension I didn’t know I was holding releases.
Iris is okay. She’s okay.
Those eyes will live another day.
That shy smile.
The freckles on her nose.
She lives.
Swallowing down the sudden lump in my throat, I close my eyes and rub my fingertips together. Her phantom skin is still with me, soft and warm. So lush and beautiful.
My sleepy cock gives a cursory twitch.
Iris is okay.
She’s gone but… alive.
That’s good. As long as she’s safe.
Safe.
I repeat the word in my head, and it does fuck all to repair the ache in my chest. Not on it. In it. Behind my breastbone.
She’s safe.