Chapter 3 From Her Ass
from her ass
Sariah
“Hey, Angel.”
My feet glue themselves to the floor, and I darn near topple with the shift in momentum.
Angel. How long has it been since I’ve heard that name in his sultry voice?
“Ci—” My voice is a whisper. “The flowers are…” I’m fighting my instinct to reveal nothing while wanting to say everything and never stop. “They’re stunning, Ci. I can’t believe you remembered.”
“I remember everything.” He pauses his words and somehow all the background noise stops too, as if he’s no longer pacing and the air has gone still around him. “Everything.”
“Me too.” My quiet admission is the most vulnerable I’ve been since… well, since Renée was conceived.
“I want to see you.”
I want to be seen, but— “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” His voice is firm.
“Because there are things you don’t know. Things better left unknown.”
“Like your name?”
Damn.
“Yes.” There’s no obstinance to my voice, no fight, just the quiet admission.
“I don’t accept that.”
I wait him out, saying nothing. Not knowing what to say.
“Angel, I let you slip away once. I count it among my greatest regrets. You’re back, and I don’t want to regret it any longer.”
I sigh and take a seat at the table. The peonies wink at me, their color vibrant.
His words. My life. And my daughter in the balance.
“I don’t either. But give me a little time?”
“What’s a little?”
That’s the man I knew. Kind, right, but determined. I laugh quietly. “You haven’t changed, have you?”
“I’m not a boy anymore, Sariah.” My name on his lips is the sexiest and damn near the scariest thing I can imagine. “Who I am at my core? No, that hasn’t changed. It won’t. The circumstances of my life, though? A lot has. I’m guessing you’re the same?”
“That’s a fair assessment.”
“If it’s just circumstance and age, then I’ll give you a little time. But just a little.”
That doesn’t feel remotely threatening. It feels downright safe.
“Okay. In the meantime, what have you been up to for the last fifteen years?”
“Fifteen… hmmm. In a nutshell, lost you, graduated college, went into business with my father. Missed you, got a dog, decided to leave business with my father. And now I’m trying to figure out how everything is coming together at the same time. You?”
“Tell me about the dog.” I pretend I didn’t hear his last question.
“Tell me about you.” His voice is low and sexy. “Or we could call this the little time and you could come over.”
“By ‘little’, I meant more than that.”
“Mom.” Renée hurtles into the room. “Something’s wrong.”
“Mom?” the voice in my ear breathes.
“What is it, Renée?” Into the phone I say, “Ci, I need to call you back,” and disconnect to focus on my daughter. “What is it, baby?”
Cian
Mom.
Renée.
What in the ever-loving fuck? I’m not dense. I get it, but damn, I didn’t have this on my bingo card.
“Eleanor, want to go for a run?”
My dog has never turned down the opportunity to exercise. I don’t know whether it’s a breed thing. Then again, she’s more of a Heinz-57 than anything in particular. Very little comes to the forefront when all of her lineage were love-the-one-you’re-with kinds of dogs.
Regardless, her curly, chocolate-brown coat vibrates as she keeps her butt on the floor. “Let me change.”
Full sentences. I’m speaking in full sentences to my dog about our plans for the night.
Aside from seeing Sariah at the wine bar, last night was a shit show. Mom was admitted. Dad was … well, Dad. Ayla was a wreck. Liam went full protector mode. And I— I just wanted out.
This morning was equally as bad.
Stripping down, I throw on some joggers and running shoes and leash up Eleanor. We take off at a fair pace and pound out a mile before I can even sift through my frazzled thoughts.
I need to figure out my business. My sister suggested not becoming direct competition with my dad and my brother-in-law.
It’s what I know, but services in the industry—aside from buying, renting, holding, or selling—require less capital.
And I’d have a built-in base of clients instead of competitors.
My name is solid around town, even if Murphy is somewhat tainted by Dad’s bullshit.
It’s the right decision. Real estate services. Now I need to determine if that’s soup-to-nuts with a full portfolio of offerings or if I want to niche down into one or two and become the best in that vertical. Or could there be a hybrid that allows for both. Like property management.
That’s damn near as competitive as buying and selling in this town.
Mile two comes and goes.
Mom was released this morning. Seems it wasn’t her Primary Lateral Sclerosis that was the problem last night.
They ruled the PLS flare out quickly but kept her overnight, since it complicates so many of the results.
Her symptoms abated after fluids for dehydration and administering meds for the migraine.
She’s home and embarrassed we knew it had happened. I swear we weren’t this dysfunctional when I was a kid. Or maybe I was oblivious.
I miss being oblivious.
Mile three brings the burn to my lungs and the numbing heat in my legs. “You hanging in there, Ellie?” I hate that Ayla took to calling her that. She’s Eleanor, not Ellie, yet it’s creeped into my vocabulary, and I just can’t seem to get rid of it.
A solid tail wag and a smile—which is really just panting, but I can pretend—keep me going.
Now about Sariah. She’s a mom. A mom.
I can’t expect that she never touched another man after our split, but I always thought…
Brass tacks, I always thought her children would be mine.
My dark blond hair and her light brown would make a daughter who was brunette in the winter and blonde in the summer.
Sons would be the same. My hazel-leaning-amber eyes and her deep blues might give us green, but would certainly give us stunning.
I didn’t care actually. I just knew that she balanced me. She was impulsive while I was planned. She was color where I was beige and white. She was laughter when I was serious.
I needed her, and she needed me.
And she left. Without a word and—
Could it be?
I make a U-turn and ratchet up my speed. My feet pound, my heart races, and my breaths saw in and out of my lungs as I sprint home.
Eleanor keeps up step-for-step except for the moment she stops to shit all over the neighbor’s lawn. Great. That’s the last thing I need.
I get us home, grab a bag, and return to handle Eleanor’s poop. That’s what I get for hurrying home, pushing harder than either of us are used to. My body is screaming. Eleanor’s apparently was, too, but from her ass.
Bag deposited, I hit the shower, not bothering to shave, and redress.
I’m in the truck and hauling ass across the Denver suburbs before I can think better of it.
Is Renée my child? Did Sariah leave because she was pregnant? Did she withhold my daughter from me?
I screech to a stop on the street in front of a modest house near Green Mountain. We don’t live that far apart. How long have we been this close? How long has my daughter lived within miles of me and I haven’t known?
I knock on the door before I can think better of it. Knowing where she lives and showing up are two way different things. I’m not the stalker type. But if that’s my daughter—
“Coming.” That’s not Sariah’s voice.
The door pulls open and in front of me stands a young teenage girl. She has her mother’s face, but her eyes are warm brown and her hair is a deep, rich chocolate. “Can I help you?”
“I—” I start but stall out.
Not mine. Why does that hurt even more than if she had been?
“Who is it, Renée? And what have I told you about opening the door to strangers—” Sariah skids to a stop in her socks, staring at me slack-jawed, before looking down at her mismatched pajamas. “Oh. What are you doing here, Cian?”
Cian. Damn.
“I—”
“You can come in if you want,” the younger of the two beauties says. “We’re watching a movie.” She turns and walks deeper into the house, not looking back as she goes.
“Ci.” Sariah looks around outside like she can’t figure out what’s real and how I’m here. “How are you here? How did you know where I live?”
Nothing prepares me for what I do next. I’d bet the same can be said for the woman in front of me. I lift my hands, cup Sariah’s face, and fall on her mouth like a starving man offered one last meal before he dies. I take and take.
My groan when she presses her body into mine is one I can’t stifle.
And I don’t want to.
I need this like I need oxygen.
It takes all the discipline I have to step back and to tell my dick to calm the fuck down. I focus on the former because the latter is impossible while looking into the face of Sariah— Well, fuck. “What’s your last name?”
“Come in, Ci. It’s time we talk.”