23. Millie
CHAPTER 23
Millie
The front door slams.
Today was my birthday, and I’m certain he forgot. I’m almost glad. Big occasions seem to bring out the worst in him. I’d rather go without a cake and gifts than risk him blowing up.
Mom took me out for a cinnamon bun during my lunch break, she does what she can to make us feel special, but she knows as well as I do that it’s safer to act like these days don’t exist. Like most of my birthdays, my twelfth has come the clinical smell of the hospital, mixed with stale beer and cigarettes. The juxtaposition of his two lives. I keep my eyes shut, body angled away from him and pressed into the mattress, hands gripping the duvet cover. I know what is coming. The sound of his zipper comes first, followed by a damp warmth spreading through my bed linen and coating my skin.
“Elena,” he calls into darkness, “your daughter’s pissed the bed again.” His voice is coated in a smirk as he staggers back out into the hallway, leaving me sodden and shivering in the mess he’s left behind.
The lounge has plenty of chairs, but I always find myself in this one, rocking back and forth. It’s a little worse for wear, with its stitched-up arms and sagging upholstery, but there’s something soothing about it.
Whenever I wake in the small hours, I come out here and sit by this window, talking to the stars as if it’s just us. I get lost in the night sky, trying to forget the nightmares and memories that have crept up on me in sleep.
I’ve taken to reading Elodie’s romance books to pass the time, making sure I return them before she wakes up. I can’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve fallen in love with the characters between these pages. At times, I find myself craving that kind of love, the words reigniting a spark of hope in me that a love like that might exist. But I know these stories are just fictional. I’m not naive enough to believe that my life might pan out like that one day.
All of my romantic relationships to date, if you can even call them that, have hurt me more than they’ve healed me. They’ve been heated, and toxic, and messy. The same story on repeat, over and over again. It’s like my brain is hard-wired to search for the familiar chaos that it's always known. And all I ever knew growing up was a man who didn’t mind hurting me – who chose to, no matter how many times I begged him to stop.
Some nights I can’t help wondering how different my life might have been had my father been a better man. He was my first heartbreak. I’ve spent so many years searching for the love he didn’t give me in other people, throwing myself into loving the wrong kinds of men, hoping that my love would one day be enough for them to treat me right.
So no matter how much these love stories tempt me, I won’t do that to myself again.
I won’t beg another man to love me.
The early morning silence is broken by the creak of the front door. The staff house makes no secret of being from the middle ages, its bones groaning with each push or pull.
I clear my throat, rising to my feet. “Umm, hello?”
Caden’s broad frame moves through the dim light of the kitchen. We haven’t spoken properly since I left his bedroom last week.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” He leaps back against the row of fridges, panting with his hand splayed against his chest.
“I don’t know why you’re scared.” The words form around my held back laughter. “You’re the one breaking and entering my house. ”
He clocks his fit watch. “It’s four a.m. I was hardly expecting anyone to be kicking around here.”
“Why are you kicking around here?”
“Need some breakfast.” He pulls open Parker’s food locker, grabbing a loaf of bread and inspecting it like he’s expecting to find something living there. “Don’t mind me.”
“You can’t just waltz in here and steal someone’s food in the middle of the night.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t. But I’m starving and the last piece of bread to exist at the main house looks like it’s growing a beard.” He mashes a banana into the bread and stuffs it into his mouth in one bite, his eyes locked on mine in challenge.
There’s an ease between us that I wasn’t expecting. I thought we’d have to walk around on eggshells for a little longer, feeling awkward around the edges.
“You shouldn’t speak with your mouth full, it’s not very becoming.”
“You can try and teach me manners all you want, Adams,” he scoffs another bite, “but at thirty-three, I think I’m a lost cause.”
He hops down from the bar stool, dusting his hands off on his sweater and scraping the rest of the crumbs onto the floor with one swipe.
Men .
“You know there are no maids around here.” I pull the spot sweep from the wall, nodding to the mess he’s just made as I forcefully clasp his fingers around the broom.
“Shame,” he shrugs. “I’d quite like to see you in one of those silly little frilly dresses.”
My cheeks flush as I make a quick return to my spot in the lounge, diving back into the pages of my book as if it’s the most riveting thing I’ve ever read. My eyes trail over the same sentence, not taking in a single word. I’m going to need to put some serious distance between myself and Caden if this is how he’s going to act, I don’t trust myself to be anywhere near him with the sort of images his words have just put in my mind.
I’d quite like to see you in one of those silly little frilly dresses.
Caden falls into the chair across from me, dragging his palm across his beard as he settles. He leans forward, elbows digging into his spread knees as he stares right at me with his signature ocean blues. Apparently, nobody taught this man manners or how to read the room.
I pull at my pyjama top, fanning the material against my chest.
I need air.
“Why are you up so early, my little maid?” He bites down on his lip to hold back his laughter, his eyebrow raised as if he’s testing my response.
Jesus .
“Couldn’t sleep.” The less words, the better at this point.
I concentrate on my breathing, working out each exhale in a steady, even flow. Returning my eyes to the page, I focus intently on conjuring an image of Cowboy Jack and forgetting about the distraction of a man sitting across from me.
He places his boot in the stirrup, swinging a thick thigh over Brandy’s back and adjusting himself in his Wranglers as he gets situated. Long, blonde hair falls around his shoulders as he brings his Stetson down on his head. He extends a hand towards me, pulling me up until I’m seated in front of him, his arm secured around my waist, my butt taut against his thick, hard…
I snap the book shut, realizing a second too late that my mind wasn’t painting a picture of Cowboy Jack and his flowing blonde locks at all. Instead, I’d planted myself between the thighs of a whole different man all together.
My body heats with shame.
There’s nothing outside the window to look at, but I keep my gaze focussed on the tiny glimmers of light that come and go as the leaves dance with the wind and the moon.
“I’m heading out on the water this morning. Want to catch the sunrise over Lake Braid, only reason to be awake at this ungodly hour.”
“Okay.”
Don’t invite conversation. Keep yourself to yourself, he will leave eventually.
“There’s enough room for the two of us in the canoe. You fancy it?”
No.
I shouldn’t spend any more time with Caden than absolutely necessary.
But it would give me the chance to score canoeing off my summer bucket list.
“I’ll bring Doug?” he adds, as if he knows that’ll sweeten the deal for me.
And it does – the soft spot I have for that shaggy old dog and his slobbery hugs is growing at an alarming rate.