Chapter 24 #2
I tip her chin up to look at me. “How can I help?” I ask, leaning forward and kissing across the base of her neck.
The truth is, there’s no sage advice or role that I need to have in how she comes to terms with what her mother and grandmother have done.
If she wants me to leave, knowing what I’ve done and how I’ve helped them, I would hate every day hereafter, but I would go.
I think I’d do anything she asked of me.
“You already are,” she whispers.
“Moral codes are subjective,” I tell her softly, running my fingers along the edges of her shoulders and then down her arms. “Right and wrong depends on the side of the situation.”
“Is that why you said this was your last job?” she asks, taking my fingers that hovered over her side and pressing them there. She holds my palm against a place that I know hurt her, and it makes it impossible to be anything but honest now.
“I lost sight of the reason why we did it. And then without him, I didn’t have an anchor.”
She hums in understanding, without asking what I mean. She understands what it’s like suddenly finding yourself alone. “Tell me more about him,” she prompts. “About your dad.”
“My dad was . . .” I shake my head and smile, even as my chest tightens with emotion.
“He was funny. Stoic around the people he didn’t know—a little like me in that way, but he made me laugh.
And he was smart. He turned the jewelry business into something.
My grandfather had gotten the nickname of ‘The Jeweler.’” I let out a grounding breath.
Fuck, it feels good to have someone who wants to listen to this—someone I don’t have to hide from.
“But really, that was my dad. He was a goldsmith—so damn talented too. He learned and then made the most intricate details with the most basic handcrafting tools. He wasn’t designing pieces; he would just make what he wanted and sell them.
” My fingers roam around her waist, making me want to hold on for as long as I can.
“I didn’t think twice about the fact that my dad was my best friend.
Not even when I was a kid. When my friends were embarrassed of their parents, I thought they just weren’t lucky enough to have one as great as mine. ”
She smiles at hearing that. “And he taught you, all of it?”
“The basics of goldsmithing, a little about gemology, but most of that I learned later in school and apprenticeships. But the cleaning business?” I nod. “Every detail in situations where details are the most important thing.”
I shift my weight forward and lean closer, drawing my fingers up and down the center of her back.
“My mom wasn’t in the picture for long. I barely remember her, but knowing now the kind of life my father led, having to be two different people and carry this legacy, this secret .
. .” I sigh and look at where my palm rests, wanting to know more of her story too.
“Who would want that? Cleaning horrific scenes where death lingered was why there would always be a part of him a partner would never really know.”
“I think some people are more understanding than others.” Her fingers roam along my shoulders, tracing a path to the paper airplane shapes that start there. “And I also think we share things with people when we know they can handle bearing the weight of it,” she says, and then takes a deep breath.
What she’s saying somehow helps make sense of this pull between us.
My mouth tips up along the side when I say, “I met a woman. Beautiful, smart, she said something to me, and it clicked. I wanted her more than favors and secrets and a legacy.” I clear my throat and shake my head.
The conflicted feeling that I’ve been stifling finally surfaces.
“But then I came here, thinking this is it, I’m done.
And she’s here, you’re here, and you see what I do, who I am. ”
She moves her hands to frame my face, all of it registering with her that it wasn’t just a connection and hot hookup in Montana. She shifted something within me—and maybe it was a long time coming, or maybe she was my someone worth mentioning.
“And then come to find out, there’s a whole part of my dad’s life that I didn’t know about.”
“How he used to stay in at The Rackhouse when he would come to Rumor?” she asks.
“There was a picture of my dad and Birdie together, and I had wanted to ask her before I made any assumptions about it.” I shake my head, knowing what I saw in an old photo between the two of them. “They looked young, maybe around our age even.”
I get lost in her green eyes, knowing now what that look between them was.
I was wrong. “It was never about the job or having to keep this secret. It was being able to share it with someone who could handle knowing and wanting him anyway. It’s why I need to talk to Birdie.
I need to know that I was wrong. That he didn’t die alone, not having had someone who cared for him like that. ”
She hears me as she says, “Okay,” taking in all that I’m saying, what I’ve confessed to her, and the truth that I’ve been feeling. “Then I think we need to have a chat with Birdie,” she says, moving her fingers along my hairline.
I close my eyes at her touch, leaning into it as I say, “Even if I hadn’t decided to stop, it would’ve eventually ended with me. I wouldn’t force my kid, if I ever had one, to take on this burden.” I don’t know why saying that out loud sits differently right now.
“Is that what it was for you? Did you not have a choice?” she asks, a pout pulling at her lips.
The question hits me square in the chest. “I had a choice,” I tell her.
“I wanted to do all of it, be like him, make him proud, but then I liked it. Being a creative has always felt good. But I didn’t mind the meticulous details of it, and I believed in the morals my father lived by, so I went along with his clients and partners—some of them even became friends. ”
“You still have a choice. You can always change your mind,” she says, leaning back on her hands.
“I do,” I say, working through if I want that. “And I can.”
She tilts her head and gives me a smile that somehow calms my thoughts even more. “What was it that beautiful woman said?” she asks playfully, knowing that the woman I was referring to was her.
“The devil is in the details,” I say, leaning forward and kissing the center of her chest. “It wasn’t a phrase I hadn’t heard before, but this stranger said it, and for some reason, it made me want all of it—every last detail about what she was doing there, why she was in a place that couldn’t be found on any map or GPS search.
I wanted to know every detail and share mine. ”
“Julian,” she whispers, and I have to kiss her. My lips press against hers, and she opens for me, guiding my tongue and taking my fucking breath away. Her legs wrap around my waist, and we get lost in each other. When we both need a breath, I pull back, letting my forehead rest against hers.
I flatten my hands on the inside of her thighs and push her legs wider. There isn’t a need for any more words or clarity and truths. The intimacy of everything said between us needs action and payout, and fuck, am I willing to pay.