Page 100 of The Banned Books Club
When she didn’t text him back, he assumed the answer was no, so he was stunned when he heard a distinct knock on his back door fifteen minutes later.
Gia told herself she was being a fool. She and Cormac had already quit seeing each other. The hardest part was over. She should leave it there.
She wished she could be just that logical, knew it would be for the best, especially when it came time to leave Wakefield. But she couldn’t.
“Are we going to lay down any ground rules?” he asked hesitantly as he let her in.
She closed her eyes for a second while she tried to decide. But nothing came to mind that would help the situation. He was all she’d been able to think about since they’d first kissed, and she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to be with him again.
“We’ll play it by ear,” she said and stepped into his arms.
“I know I’ve asked you this before, but you don’t think Sheldon would ever really hurt you, do you?” Cormac asked as he got ready for work the next morning.
Gia was still in his bed and barely starting to stir, but he knew she had to get up soon to make it home before her parents started their day. “I’m not so convinced.”
He scowled at himself in the mirror while combing his wet hair. “Maybe I should have a talk with him.”
She shoved into a sitting position. “No, don’t. He’s looking for a target right now, and I don’t want you to become a focal point. This isn’t your fight.”
“But maybe it’ll take some pressure off you. I’m afraid of what he might do if he thinks he can get away with it.”
She shoved a hand through her hair. “It’d help if I could get the damn restraining order...”
“Why can’t you?”
“The police say I don’t have enough grounds. He insists he wasn’t the one who shot the garbage can to hell the other night. When I showed them the gif he sent me, he claimed it was just a Halloween joke. And they don’t give out restraining orders because he peeled out on the front lawn. The officer I spoke to chuckled and said the grass will grow back. ButIthink it’s that everyone in this town knows him and his family and can’t believe he’s truly dangerous.”
Cormac put his comb away and walked out of the bathroom. “So where do you see this going?”
She covered a yawn as she looked up at him. “I have no idea. If he can’t find Margot, maybe he’ll snap.”
“But you’ll protect your sister even if she comes home.”
“Of course.”
“Have you really not heard from her?” he asked with a skeptical expression.
She gave him a secretive smile but that smile quickly faded. “Nothing meaningful.”
“She can’t come back now, you realize that. I mean...not until the kids are of age. Even then... I don’t think I’d want to be in the same town as Sheldon and his folks.”
“That she felt desperate enough to do something like this is upsetting. I keep wondering what that would be like. To want to escape someone so badly you leave your family and the town you grew up in and go into hiding.”
“That’s the thing. She would know whether Sheldon was dangerous more than anyone else.”
“I know. I think about that, too,” she said.
When he bent to kiss her, it felt like the most natural thing in the world, which made him slightly uneasy. A voice in the back of his head said,You can’t get used to this.But how could he unravel what had already transpired?
He couldn’t. Neither would he back out on her again.
“I’ll call you later,” he said and left.
Gia came home at least thirty minutes before her parents typically got up. She thought she’d have no trouble slipping into her room unnoticed. And yet she found both Ida and Leo sitting in the kitchen when she came through the back door—her mother still in her nightgown, which she never wore out of the bedroom.
“Oh, my God!” Ida exclaimed and burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” Gia glanced from her father to her mother and back again.
