Chapter 6 #3
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, thinking how easy this will be now that I have a colour palette. Everything will match the roses—peach, cream, ivory, and white.
Then, something prickles at my back.
And it’s not a Juliet Rose stem…
I feel someone right there, tapping at my spine, but when I turn around, there is no one. I blink. Only a little old lady about five paces away with a fist full of daisies. But… But I still feel the attention, tangible, like clutching hands.
My gaze jerks to the entrance.
And there… a silhouette stands, unmoving, its posture both familiar and strange. No. I blink harder. Once. Twice. Trying to shake the image, rattle it to reveal another harmless stranger, because it can’t—it can’t be.
It is.
My foster mother.
I sense Bronson’s attention turn, tracking the same line as mine, his boots rapping a step closer to me.
“Friend of yours?” he asks, close.
“I… I think I know her,” I whisper. My voice scrapes out with caution, like stepping through shattered glass. I do know her. I am just not sure how to react.
The henchmen to her left and right stiffen, as if my words and gaze coil electricity through them, awakening them.
They watch her walk towards me with those eyes, dead-set and unblinking, drilling into me like I’m the only point on the map. Last time I saw that face, I was three months pregnant, and every breath was another invitation for her ridicule.
“Fawn?”
I don’t move.
“Is that you?”
My body runs cold.
I want Clay.
Imagining Clay’s finger at my chin, I straighten.
I give my henchmen the smallest nod—the Clay Butcher nod that speaks volumes.
I have been practising it, feeling a tingle of pride when they catch it.
They exchange a loaded glance, then hang back, shoulders squared, not blinking, not breathing, nothing but watchfulness holding them steady as my foster mother closes the distance between us.
"Eleanor," I breathe, the name clawing out of my throat, brittle and thin. The flower attendant backs away a few steps, a perceived distance for privacy.
"Fawn, dear," Eleanor croons, syrupy, that practised sweetness curling around each syllable. "I thought that was you. My gosh.”
My mouth goes dry. "What are you..." It hurts to force the word out. "What do you want?"
A flicker of insult crosses her face, the surprise and annoyance quickly wiped away by that polite but curious mask of hers. The same one she used with the social workers and the police when I misbehaved.
"I heard you were doing well," she says, looking me up and down.
"I saw a girl on the news. Mr Clay Butcher's new fiancé.
Looked just like you. Was that you?" Her gaze stalls on the henchman to my right, then Bronson.
"Obviously, it’s true," she finishes, surrendering the pretence.
Her eyes drag down my body again, landing on my flat belly. "Where is the baby?"
"Dead,” I say quickly. “I miscarried."
She. Does. Not. Deserve. An explanation!
Her lips barely move. "And you expect me to believe that? On the news, I saw twins. Twins, Fawn."
I scoff. "I thought you weren't sure it was me? Another lie. What do you want?”
She sighs, the gears of her annoyance grinding through that sound. "You always jump to conclusions," she murmurs, and for a moment it's like we're in some version of the past, but I don't let it confuse me. "But a mother worries, you know."
"You're not my mother."
You could have been.
You didn’t want to be.
"I know we've had our differences,” she offers. “But the twin boys, couldn’t they be—"
"They are not Benji's!" I snap. She loved Benji—the golden child. The boy who raped me, who is now dead. "My twin sons. They are Clay Butcher's.”
She gapes. "You moved so fast. How did you manage that? One minute you’re pregnant with one of my boys’ babies, the next you disappear and now you have twins. It hasn’t even been two years.”
I hear a word in her tone. Slut. She called me one so often, even while I was still a virgin, she must feel such satisfaction right now.
A song abruptly breaks the air like a plate shattering on a brick wall. "Match in the gas tank,” Bronson sings, “boom, boom.”
I turn to look at him, the outburst almost haunting. He's behind me, hands busy with stems, his tattooed fingers clashing against soft white petals.
I want her gone.
Does he sense that?
I want her gone, like a fucking nightmare. Where is my dreamcatcher—I’ll use it to choke her. "It was nice to see you. Please leave me alone now.”
The henchmen move in, a wall of muscle, silence, and unforgiving authority determined to separate her from me in a wave of smooth action.
She holds up her hands. "Fawn, please," she says, desperation sweeping through her tone. "I was never any good at this. You were my first foster daughter. I’m better with boys. I'm glad you are well.”
Is that true?
All I wanted was a mother.
I signal the henchmen with a nod, and they stop mid-stride, still ready, eyes holding my foster mother in place.
“Can I have your phone number?” she asks.
My heart twists.
I want to believe her, to trust this. Everyone deserves a second chance, like the butterflies, but my body feels like liquid lead is being poured down my spine.
“We can meet for coffee,” she adds. “My treat?"
I look her up and down—she looks smaller, plain, a little weak.
I’m not afraid of her anymore, and her opinion of me is meaningless—it is.
I don’t care about what she thinks, not at all.
I don’t need her to say she’s proud of what I’ve accomplished on my own, or recognise what a wonderful mother I am.
Don’t need any of that…
Ugh, it’d be nice to hear.
I square my shoulders. “I don't need treats from you.”
"Please,” she repeats.
Fuck.
I chew my lower lip and assess her. This feels wrong, but… She is the closest thing I have to a mother. "I'm not allowed to give my phone number out,” I say honestly.
Her brows weave. "What?"
“You can call the house.”
"You don't have a private mobile?" Eleanor's voice drips with judgment.
"I do, but it's…" I fumble on the words she'll never understand. "Not for you. It's for Sir"—I clear my throat—"I mean, Clay."
She scoffs. "Clay Butcher doesn't allow you to talk on the phone to people besides him?"
"I didn't say that."
"That is very controlling, Fawn. Toxic masculinity is not good for your sons—"
"Boom fucking boom." Her sentence cuts off when Bronson takes up the space beside me, his massive shadow falling over us like nightfall.
Eleanor drags her wide eyes up all six-foot-five inches of tattooed Bronson Butcher—from his steel-toed boots to his broad shoulders that strain against Italian leather—and swallows over a lump in her throat so tangible I can see it beneath her neck.
"Time’s up, sweetheart," he continues, his voice rumbling. "It's been swell." He looks at me, disturbingly animated. "Hasn't it, Sister Fawn? Just swell." Now he's looking at her. "Quick like a little bunny, off you hop."
"S-stay safe." Eleanor barely gets the words out as she turns and walks away, her sensible heels clicking frantically against the pavement as she peers over her shoulder at us.
I watch her leave.
Then she's out of sight.
I exhale hard, my shoulders dropping inches, turning to Bronson, who has resumed his budding florist hobby, his tattooed fingers delicately picking blood-red roses and making the newly returned stall lady blush from neck to cheek.
"Quick like a bunny?" I ask, cocking a brow.
"She's a bunny, Fawn. That's all she is." He snaps a thorny stem with a deliberate crack.
"And I'm a little deer," I say, flat-toned.
Hands still full of flowers, his green-blue eyes hit me hard. "And sometimes, no matter the sweet nature of the little deer, it tramples the silly bunny that gets in its way."
Fuck.
He's nuts.
Also, I like it.
I stare at the Juliet Roses, their petals unfurling in layers of peach and cream, delicate as tissue paper. At the edges light seems to pass right through them. Then I gaze at the thorns, the ones Bronson is picking off with his bare fingers.
I’m reminded of a conversation from over a year ago, when I had an existential crisis, considering thorns and roses, and how the roses might be pretty but without the thorns they wouldn’t survive. Clay said he would be my thorns. Yes, we definitely need roses for our wedding.