You seem more confident this way
29
Being with Johnny again didn’t mean I’d change the way I chose to live my opportunity at a second life in Creswell. He’d given me another place to stay and a little extra attention, but I still lived with Jayleen and spent a large majority of my time with her or among the underworld.
What did change was my attentiveness to how I kept my two worlds separate. After all, Johnny was supposedly aware of the existence of vampires and the underworld, so how I participated in my normal immortal activities had to be altered. That most notably meant I went home immediately after our agreement and ground down my fangs until they looked like normal teeth. My sharp incisors would be the first giveaway something had changed about me. Next, managing any strange nightly behavior, which I could hopefully keep to a minimum or thrall out of his memories.
Things would be different than when I was with Johnny before, but these changes were for the better. Slowly but surely, I was warming up to the idea of being with Johnny again.
After finding such intense happiness with Riftan, I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t necessarily unhappy in my old life. The most painful part of it had been my inability to escape—like a bird with clipped wings—but now, my wings were back and bigger than ever, and I was staying because I wanted to, not because I had to. I didn’t love Johnny, but I loved everything I got from our life together.
I’d always been susceptible to the language of money and power, and this was no different. I loved the money, the jewelry, and all the fancy things that were showered over me simply for existing for Johnny. I loved the supremacy I felt when people on the street would part ways or stray from their path simply so I could walk unhindered. And I loved the strange feeling of family I got by being an unofficial Roufe. Not only did Johnny’s kin treat me like their own, but his kids treated me like the mother I’d never get to be.
The two youngers were still children—neither had crested high school. The oldest of the three, however, had somehow grown beyond recognizability. In three years, the little boy I remembered had morphed into a young man in his last year of high school, making me feel horribly old, despite my un-aging body. The once small and chubby boy now towered over his father with a broad and sturdy build, much like Johnny had appeared at his age. Unfortunately, his build wasn’t the only thing he’d picked up from his shitty father. Alex had adopted the disposition he was the hottest shit in the room, and rarely did he listen to anyone for anything—except his father. Luckily, he still had enough sense to fear the wrath of ignoring Johnny Roufe.
Whether the guiding factor for that was indeed fear or actually some level of respect wasn’t clear. Strangely enough, Alex had taken to regarding me with that same level of posterity upon my return. I could only guess his interactions with me were more based on respect, since he had nothing to fear from me, and he knew that.
It wasn’t long into my stay before Alex made a point to confront me. Calling my name, he rushed down the stairs to meet me as I made my way out of the mansion one night. His smile painted a layer of confidence that almost covered up the way his heart beat rapidly in his chest.
“Hey, I don’t mean to interrupt you if you’re busy. We just haven’t gotten to talk much since you’ve been back. The boys would probably appreciate it if you took them to lunch sometime soon, the way you used to. I’d like to go with so that we could all hang out like before you left.” His smile turned painstakingly genuine, showing the straight white teeth I remembered strapped in braces.
The tingly warmth his words elicited caught me off guard. In response, I shrugged. “Yeah, I’d love to. Do the boys really want that? Do you really want that?” Something in me thought they’d be angry with me for disappearing for years.
“Of course. Here, the boys made these for you, but they were too shy to give them to you themselves.” He extended two sheets of paper, both folded into handmade cards. The outside of each had a unique version of “welcome home.” One with a picture of what looked to be an arrangement of different flowers, and one with a very bright red-headed cube lady holding the hand of another, smaller cubey boy. The art was drawn in colored pencil, and the lines were smooth, unlike the old messy crayon drawings the boys used to give me. They’d even colored inside all the lines.
Alex went on while I admired my gifts. “They missed you a lot. We all missed you a lot. Nobody admitted it, but everyone knew there was something missing when you weren’t around.”
His words meant more to me than he’d ever know. They almost brought a tear to my eye, tugging on a part of my heart that was unfamiliar to me. His and his brothers’ love was unconditional, something I got merely for being me. There was absolutely nothing I’d done to deserve it. Maybe that’s what it felt like to be a maternal figure. If so, then I wanted to cherish this opportunity to experience something I may never experience again. I had the chance to be a mom. Not just any mom—but a good mom. One who didn’t selfishly want their love. One who wanted to give them a better future outside of their father’s plans for them. Righting the Roufes’ wrongs may have started with the intention of protecting the city of Creswell, but it would end as a scheme to protect those boys.
“Thank you,” I told Alex. “I needed to hear that more than you know.”
His cheeks blazed red in the waning light of dusk. Pursing his lips to hide a smile, Alex shuffled his feet. Impishly, he added, “By the way, I like the hair, and the new style.” He gestured from my head to my black leather boots. “It’s kind of edgy compared to before, but I think it suits you better. You seem more confident this way.”
“Thanks kid, I suppose I am.” I laughed a little, but Alex wasn’t laughing.
Instead, he looked down at me, a few stairs below him, with a heavy gaze that oozed admiration against his blushing skin. I liked to think his admiration was like that of a son for his mother, but I knew this look better. I was acquainted with it because it wasn’t familial, it was closer to infatuation. Thanks to that, I wasn’t surprised by his next statement. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to get even prettier.”
I should have known. He was so much like his father; he wouldn’t be able to help himself from flirting with me at this age. It’s not like I was much of a motherly figure to him, so obviously his version of admiration toward me would be different than his brothers’. After all, I wasn’t technically old enough to be the mother of someone his age.
A little crush from Alex wasn’t anything to worry about. He’d never infringe on his father, so I wasn’t worried about him doing anything that might make me uncomfortable. Instead, he’d probably showcase his feelings as an overabundance of affection. And if I made it obvious that the kind of affection I wanted was of the motherly variety, he’d probably be more than willing to oblige that.
“Thank you so much, buddy.” I ruffled his hair like I used to do when he was a little younger and a lot more self-conscious. “I missed you and the boys tons. I know I made a mistake by leaving, but I’ll make it up to you guys. I’m not going anywhere this time, and I’m going to mother the shit out of you until you’re absolutely sick of my motherly love.”
“I don’t think moms talk like that. They certainly don’t curse.” He couldn’t hold in a coquettish laugh when he pulled away from my teasing palm.
“Shit is hardly a curse… but you’re right, don’t say that word. And if you do, you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Okay, mom.” He exaggerated the honorific in the most joking way possible, but it still kind of pinched my heart strings.
After that, Alex wasn’t ever far away—kind of like a teenage shadow. It’d been common to run into the kids in the house back in the day, but now it was a lot more as though Alex was dedicated to finding me whenever I was home.
Honestly, I liked having him around like that. I wished he’d treat me a little more like his mother than the schoolgirl he had a crush on, but at least he did still feign the respect he should have for a motherly figure. Fortunately, his brothers—who usually acted as his shadows—did treat me like a mother. So, having Alex around more meant Danny and Anthony were around more, too, and they were slowly accumulating the same level of interest that Alex had in me.
The lot of them probably liked me more than Johnny did, and I certainly liked them more than I did Johnny. I probably loved those kids, and loving those kids was about as close to healing up my broken heart as I was going to get. Being their makeshift mother let me experience both love and being loved like never before. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always pretend to be mommy time when I was with the Roufes—as much as I’d have liked it to be—I did still have work to get done.
Johnny still needed to be pleased, and though I no longer had the stomach to please Johnny the way he wished me to, I could thrall him into thinking I’d pleasured him in any way he could possibly dream of. And dream of it, he would—because of all the things I was willing to do, I absolutely wasn’t willing to break my dry spell on Johnny, of all people.
So, while I sent him off to dream of the many indecent things I could do with him, I took my time versing myself in his business. There were paperwork, records, and people to research in order to get up to date on his dealings. Once I’d caught up, I could start taking control.
I thralled Johnny into telling me everything he’d been up to every day when he wasn’t with me, and other times I’d convince him to let me be involved myself. Eventually, I had a grasp on every little crevice of his operation. It was all too easy for me as an immortal. The hardest part was making sure no mortals slipped through the cracks. Every one of them who had communication with the other needed to have a cohesive story. That meant if one was thralled, then their thoughts needed to make sense to anyone else they came in contact with.
Unfortunately, that meant I couldn’t thrall Johnny whenever I wanted for whatever reason I wanted to. It had to be calculated, or things would fall apart.
And yet, day by day, they never did. Instead, I placed myself more and more in his shadow as the unseen benefactor who called the shots.
I came to love my place by his side. I had a goal in mind—the objective to check the power that the Roufes’ held over the city of Creswell. But I quickly came to the realization that I needed to become a Roufe to truly control the Roufes, and I no longer feared the repercussions of taking that plunge. I eagerly wrapped myself up in their world at the top of the food chain, welcoming the throne that waited for me. I didn’t need to destroy them up there, but become them—not crush, but control. Once I had a tight grasp on their empire, I could ensure it’d flourish, and be sure that Creswell didn’t suffer in its wake.
I’d be a more efficient leader than Johnny could ever be.
Leading such an empire all while feigning innocent housewife took hard work and careful calculation. I’d grown a hardened spine and a wicked poker face, and it felt natural to me. I was confident in my place, and I no longer dreaded the emotions I felt thinking back on Prague because I’d replaced them with more current and pressing affairs. I’d officially become too preoccupied to grieve.
Instead, my saddened memories remained, not as something to avoid, but as a reminder of who I didn’t want to become again—the love-struck girl who was pushed around by another man. The more I came to terms with that, the more I thought I might be able to view my time with Riftan for what it was—a gift. I learned more about myself during our time together than I could have in a millennia alone, and I was grateful to him for that. Though it was fleeting, I appreciated the love Riftan gave me while I learned those lessons. Maybe one day I’d get up the nerve to call and thank him.
I wouldn’t hate hearing his voice again, though I knew it might be painful. There were still those meager hours of silence when my mind could drift to thoughts of him and I’d wondered what his life looked like now. More so, I worried about him, as silly as it might seem to worry about a very competent eight-hundred-year-old adult. There was an awful ache in my chest every time I imagined him suffering from the nightmares he used to get. I couldn’t tell if it hurt worse to think there was no one there to soothe them, or to think my job of comforting him had already been taken over by another.
Truly healing meant I needed to settle on the acceptance that Riftan deserved to heal as much as I did, and it would start with letting someone else in. My anger always flared at the thought of another woman in his bed, which told me that I wasn’t ready to fully let go yet, but the finish line was in sight, and that was a start. In the meantime, I would busy myself with Johnny’s business and focus on making my own legacy.