Chapter 26
Wyatt
I’m early to pick the girls up from the bar.
I check my watch. Got about an hour ’til I can safely go in for a beer and check on things.
Fallon’s a stickler about her own timetables, everyone else’s be damned, but she’ll throw a shit fit if I head in there early and spoil her night out with Alice.
Fern was deep in a nap at home, so I haven’t even got my dog to talk to.
I dig around under my front seat. There’s a Sweet Valley Twins book in here somewhere.
Fallon picked up a plastic bin of them from an old barn a few years ago, and Caden and I have been making our way through them.
My fingers wrap around If I Die Before I Wake, and I grin at the haunted house on the cover.
Looks kinda like our house, now that I think about it.
The twins are trapped in a dream with a half-monster named Eva, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
As I kick my feet up on the dash, a prissily dressed white woman in her sixties comes out of the bar.
She gives me a Sector kind of feeling, which isn’t particularly odd.
But the way she stands in the golden pool of light under the bar’s striped awning, scanning the parking lot, catches my eye. What’s she looking for?
I follow her gaze until it reaches my truck.
When she sees it, her looking around pauses, and her eyes slide straight to mine.
At first, she frowns for half a second, and then the slipperiest, most conniving smile I’ve seen in a long-ass while spreads over her face.
On the surface, she looks like someone’s granny, but that smile. That’s something else entirely.
And not a supernatural something else. A completely human, downright evil sort of expression.
I toss the twins aside, and I’m out of the truck before I can think a second thought.
Before I can get across the parking lot, an old silver station wagon pulls up, a white man who looks like the perfect pair to the woman standing under the awning at the wheel.
As she gets into the car, she grins at me, her pale gums showing, eyes practically maniacal with some kind of secret joy. I break into a sprint, but can’t make it in time. The car pulls away, speeding out of the lot before I even have a chance to stop them.
Fuck Fallon’s timetable. Girls’ night is over.
I push the wooden door to Lucky’s open. Joan Jett they’re like a fucking wasp’s nest. “Okay,” I reason. “Well, that’s good then. We can find out what she wants.”
Alice huffs angrily. “Don’t try to convince me this is a good thing, dammit.”
I’m not sure exactly why she’s so mad. But maybe it’s not “Cookie” that’s got her in a tizz. “Why’s this eating at you so much?”
Alice throws her hands up in the air, shaking her head. Like I’m the slowest creature on the planet. It stings a little. “Because I’ve been talking to a Sector agent for…I don’t even fucking know how long. Because I thought Cookie was my friend.”
And Alice hasn’t had many friends. I’ve got a better handle on this now. I nod. “Okay. Well, good news there.”
“What?” she growls, leaning against the counter, crossing her arms tight over her chest. It’s then that I realize she’s standing in my kitchen in nothing but a tube top and a pair of black cotton panties, and that the whiskey’s catching up to me.
My cock has a mind of its own and jumps at the thought of her half-naked and apparently a little pissed at me.
But now’s not the time for thoughts like that. Now’s the time for getting her to see what’s happening here. Alice is all up in her head, her big old brain working overtime, telling her stories that aren’t all the way true.
The kitchen timer goes off. I pull the pizza out of the oven and set it on the stove to cool before turning back to Alice. “You said she looked like your Granny, right?”
Alice nods but doesn’t say anything else.
“Well, that’s good news,” I continue. “If that’s so, then it’s likely you haven’t been talking to the woman you saw in the bar. Bad news is, it seems like they’ve probably read a good amount of your messages with Cookie, if not all.”
I’m scrambling, putting the pieces together as I go, but I’ve gotta get her to see this wasn’t something she did.
It was something done to her. “So the secret part stands. But I don’t think that was actually Cookie.
Somewhere out there, there’s a little weirdo with a stringboard just like yours, who probably loves you. ”
I think I’ve done a pretty good job of summing things up in a convincing way, but Alice just glares at me. “You don’t get it.”
I reach out for her hand. “Maybe not all the way, but I do understand why you feel like shit right now.”
She snatches her hand away from me, shaking her head and gesturing at the fridge. “No,” she breathes. “You grew up with all this. You have no idea why this fucks me up.”
I stare at the fridge, almost twenty years of photos covering it—just like there are up at Fallon’s and more at Cade’s.
It’s all evidence of the life my siblings and I have had here.
School dances. Pumpkin carving. Even a few school plays.
Proof that despite how shitty things have been, we’ve been here, while Alice was out there.
I grab Alice’s hand again, gripping harder this time. “Tell me then, sweet girl. Tell me why it fucks you up.”
She shakes her head at me, angry tears falling on her cheeks. “Can’t you even fight with me?” she sobs. “I’m trying to have a fight with you, Wyatt.”
This isn’t drunken crying—she’s not that drunk. It’s something deeper. Some essential wound that Alice needs healed. But I can’t help if I don’t know why it hurts. I pull her closer. “Why?”
Her forehead falls into my chest. “Because it would make it easier if I could hate you right now. If I could convince myself this isn’t where I belong.”
I take a long, deep breath, hearing the depth of her words.
My mind wants to overanalyze, but I don’t let it.
Instead, I push Alice away from me ’til she’s looking up into my eyes.
“I’m not making it easier for you to leave this place, Alice Blythe.
You go if you want to. If you don’t like it here.
If you don’t like the town, the people, whatever. Go if you want to go.”
Her eyes widen, like she’s a little shocked by my words.
I move my hands to her shoulders, the strength of my grip increasing as I bend toward her, my eyes narrowing.
“But you’re not leaving here because you baited me into a fight.
You leave, you leave because you want to.
Because you don’t want me, or this life.
Not because I’m pushing you out of anything.
I’m not. I’d pull you all the way in if you’d let me. ”
She stands staring at me for half a second, and then she’s in my arms, her bare legs wrapped around my waist, all silk skin and soft curves, her hands in my hair. “I want you, Wyatt. I want you so fucking much.”
“You sure about that?” I ask. “I’m not one to take advantage of your state.”
“Not that drunk anymore,” she whispers, her eyes clear.
“Thank the gods,” I growl, pushing her onto the counter as our mouths crash into each other.
She yanks the tube top off in a move so elegant, it nearly takes my breath away, then pushes my t-shirt off before pulling me back into her arms. When we’re skin to skin, she lets out a gasp, her back arching.
“Tell me more about how you want to pull me in,” she murmurs, bringing my hand between her legs. “Tell me how you want to be inside me.”
I chuckle. “That’s not exactly what I said.”
She looks up at me, those gorgeous eyes of hers heavy-lidded with desire. “But that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Every bit of me heats at her words, my fingers moving lightly over the tiny bit of remaining fabric between us. “I think you know what I want, sweet girl.”
Alice whimpers as I increase the pressure of my touch.
“I want you in every way possible, for as long as you’ll have me.”
Her lips are plush and a little swollen from kissing me as she moans. “Please,” she pleads. “Please, I need you. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
I slide a finger between the elastic of her panties and where she’s begging me to touch her. The warmth of her core is just millimeters from my fingers, but I don’t give her what she wants.
“I need to know this is what you want, Alice.”
She looks up at me, tilting her hips so her body meets my teasing fingers. She’s wet, and I almost lose control, but I need to hear her say it. “I need you inside me,” she insists. “Now.”
There’s no choice, then. What Alice wants, I’m going to give her. As I sink deep inside her, she moans. “Lift your hips for me,” I prompt her as I free both hands to pull her offending panties off.
She does as I ask, and I reward her with a kiss so deep, I wonder if I’ve lost myself, if I’ve already disappeared inside Alice Blythe.
She’s unbuckling my belt, and though I try to stop her, try to tell her we should go slow, she shakes her head.
“We can go slower the second time,” she pants.
“I’m on birth control. I’ve been tested, and neither of us have fucked anyone in so long it’s probably a little embarrassing, right? ”
I laugh, but nod. “Yes, and I’ve been tested too. Every year at my check-up. All good.”
She pushes my pants down over my hips, my underwear going with them to the floor. “You want me to fuck you here on the kitchen counter?”
She looks around, as though she’s just realized we’re still in the kitchen. “No. Take me upstairs to your room, Wyatt. To our room.”
“Anything you want, sweet girl,” I whisper as I throw her over my shoulder.
She squeals happily as I march her upstairs.