Chapter 28
KIERA
After Sean got back from whatever “team business” he had to do—and frankly, I didn’t care what it was so long as he was back—we ate our breakfasts, then returned to the cabin.
As soon as I stepped inside, the woodsy aroma and the cabin’s cozy embrace filled me with a sense of safety and security.
It smelled like home, which was strange given this was only my third visit.
The trailer I’d grown up in had never given me such a feeling of belonging, even on those rare occasions when Byron didn’t blow half his paycheck on Bud Lite and scratch-offs and Loretta celebrated by making her “famous” chicken quesadillas for dinner.
Sure, we only had American cheese and canned chicken, but the sour cream and brand-name salsa made it a step-up from Cheerios or hotdogs and beans.
“Is chicken okay for dinner?” Sean asked, making me wonder for the umpteenth time whether he could read my mind.
This time, I had to actually ask. “Are you reading my mind?”
He laughed. “Does that mean you want chicken?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. It was so…normal. So…domestic. As if planning dinner together was an everyday thing for us.
My eyes jerked up to his. “I was just wondering if you were thinking about chicken quesadillas.”
His forehead furrowed. “No. I wasn’t. Is that what you want to eat?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Okayyy.” He dragged the word out because obviously I wasn’t making sense. “So, how about chicken divan?”
“Is that a recipe from your new cookbook?”
“Oh.” Sean glanced toward his book collection, then shook his head. “No, it’s something my mom taught me how to make. It’s got broccoli in it. Are you okay with broccoli?”
“Sure, but it sounds fancy.”
“It’s not, but I can do fancy if that’s what you want. I make a mean million-dollar pasta. It’s basically spaghetti with globs of ricotta. I also learned how to do beer-can chicken, but I usually only make that in the summer.”
“Wow,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“No,” I said. “Seriously, wow.”
He grinned, then opened his freezer and dug through its contents. “You can put on a movie, if you want. Or if you want to do some work, I can clear out a corner for you to take some photos.”
Sean had tilted my computer, ring light, camera, and my most recent deliveries out to the cabin. There were three new outfits that were going to photograph brilliantly against the horizontal lines of the log walls.
“I’d rather continue our conversation from last night,” I said.
“Ahhh.” He waggled his eyebrows at me in a suggestive way, then pulled a package of chicken out of the freezer and set it on a plate on the counter. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days? A conversation?”
“Nooo,” I said with a disapproving tone. “That’s what everyone calls it because I was referring to the literal talking part from last night.”
“Oh.” Sean’s face fell into mock desolation when he realized I wasn’t speaking in sexual innuendo. I really did want to talk.
His silly, sad expression made me laugh, and he broke out in a grin.
“Fine,” he said. “What did you want to talk about?”
“You made some big revelations last night.”
“Mmm.” He moved to the cabinets and pulled out a bag of rice and read the label.
“I liked hearing your thoughts on us,” I said. “The ones about us being more alike than we are different. About like recognizing like.”
He didn’t respond to that.
“It would help me understand why you think like that…if I knew you even better than I already do.”
He set the rice on the counter and turned to face me. “This is your polite way of tiptoeing into a conversation about my family history?”
I shrugged. “I figured mine came in like a wrecking ball. We could stand to let yours slip in quietly.”
He sighed, then hoisted himself up onto the counter, letting his long legs hang down toward the floor. “What do you want to hear?”
“Start with your father. What happened to him?”
Sean cast his gaze toward the windows and pushed out his lips as if he were considering his words.
Finally he said, “He was older than my mother. First generation fae after our initial assimilation into your world. His father, my grandfather, revealed himself to a powerful investor, and they formed a partnership, using each other’s gifts for mutual advancement.
My grandfather made a ton of money. My father grew up surrounded by all that wealth. ”
A coolness settled over me, not exactly a chill, but my earlier feelings of camaraderie and likeness were dampened by it. I knew Sean had money now because of his job. What I hadn’t realized was that he’d grown up in it. I was back to seeing all our differences in stark relief.
“It made him calloused,” Sean said. “Life had always been easy for him, so he didn’t understand how other people lived. He saw someone struggling and assumed they were simply stupid. Or lazy. Then he met my mother.”
“She made him a better man?” I asked brightly, hoping for a little bit of a happy ending because Sean had already told me how the story ended—with a betrayal and his father’s death.
“No.” Sean scoffed. “She was beautiful. A trophy. He kept her on a shelf. Trotted her out when he wanted to show her off. Same with me, but to a lesser degree. He liked how our shine reflected on him.”
I held my breath, feeling the end coming sooner than I’d hoped.
Sean hopped off the counter and walked to the living room area. He opened a cupboard under the bookshelf and pulled out a thick album. He brought it back to the island and flipped it open. It was full of photographs and newspaper clippings.
“That’s him.” Sean pointed to a photo of an incredibly handsome man with dark brown hair, perfectly styled.
The man held his body with assured confidence, to the point of expressing arrogance right through the camera’s lens.
It wasn’t Sean’s kind of cocky arrogance though—the kind I teased him about. This man’s brand of arrogance was mean.
I couldn’t exactly tell from the photo, but I sensed that he and Sean shared the same moss-green eyes.
“And this,” Sean said, pointing to the man standing next to his father, “is the man who killed him.”
“They were friends?” My hand rose involuntarily, and I pressed my palm against my chest.
“Best friends. Until my father slept with his wife.”
“Oh, boy.”
“My mother was humiliated. She refused to leave the house. Then she was widowed—alone and grieving. You know the rest.”
I did. Kind of.
“So, you live out here in this cabin, so you can be closer to her?”
“I live out here so she knows where I am and has a path back to herself, if she chooses to take it.”
“Will she?” I asked.
“After all these years? I doubt it.”
“But you won’t abandon her.”
“No,” Sean said.
“Even though she abandoned you.”
He didn’t need to respond to that. He was here, wasn’t he?
“Isn’t it interesting?” I asked.
His eyebrows drew together in an inverted V. “Interesting?”
“How sometimes genetics can be so strong, and other times we turn out nothing like the people who spawned us. Your father died for his disloyalty, and you are the most loyal person I know.”
He blinked.
“You are, you know.” He clearly needed convincing.
“If you say so,” Sean said.
“I do. And this is the part where you’re supposed to say I’m nothing like my mother.”
He laughed and drew me into his arms, resting his chin on top of my head. “You’re nothing like your mother.”
“Thank you.” I leaned back but didn’t pull out of his arms.
He looked down at me, then kissed me. It was soft. Lingering. Sweet. The scent of him filled my nose, bringing with it the same safe, secure, cozy feeling that was becoming so, so familiar.
Sean broke the kiss. “I’m kind of afraid to ask but…are you liking my cabin a little better now?”
“I love your cabin.”
He blinked. “I’m fixing it up.”
“I know. You told me, and I can see that for myself.”
“I could put on an addition for you.”
“What?”
“I could put on an addition for you,” he repeated. “If you’d be happier with more space.”
“Sean…you don’t need to do that. We don’t even know if we’re going to work long-term.”
“We’re going to work,” he said. “I won’t compromise on location, but the cabin itself can be whatever you want it to be.”
I thought on this for a while. What if we did work?
If this woodsy, cozy, embracing cabin could be my home, what would I want it to be? Bigger with a second bathroom? Maybe an office where I could make my videos?
Sean tightened his arms around me, prompting me to speak.
“I would want it to be cozy,” I said. “Just like it is.”
“Then you can pick out all the finishings: cabinets, paint, hardware, lighting.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.” Oh my god. What was I saying? What was I doing?
“But not that French-boudoir style or whatever you were going for at your apartment. That wouldn’t look right here.”
I laughed, breaking through all of my apprehension. “No. It definitely would not.”
“I could build a she-shed out back for you to use like a studio.”
“You’d do that?” I asked.
“Of course, I would.”
“I… Wow. I, um, don’t know what to say. That’s so nice, but...”
What he was suggesting… It really was so nice, but the difference between fae and human expectations was never more obvious.
“But what?” he asked.
“But aren’t we moving a little fast?” I asked. “I can’t move in with you. We haven’t even gone on a real date yet.”
“I’m not asking you to move in, Kiera.”
I felt my face go slack with the realization that I’d totally stuck my foot in my mouth. “You’re not?”
“No,” he said on a laugh.
“Oh.” Heat filled my face. “Okay.”
“We’re just heading in that direction,” he said. “And renovations take time and planning. Nothing happens overnight.”
“Okay,” I said again, knowing if this went bad between us, it would hurt more than any other loss I’d ever experienced. And yet, here I was, plowing full steam ahead. Such an idiot.
“Hey,” he said, clearly reading my thoughts. “It’ll be fine.”
“Right,” I said.
“So, we have an understanding?”
“We have…something,” I said.