I very maturely stuck my middle finger up at him in return.
He grabbed his chest as though I had pained him, and then shot me a wink that made me blush like a little girl. I quickly looked away from him.
Why did I seek him out all the fucking time?
After what he did to me on the boat, and what he had done to manipulate me into staying, I should hate him—Ididhate him. But old habits were hard to break, and being back here, it was so easy to slip back into our old routine and forget what had happened.
But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t forget. I couldn’t put myself in the position to be hurt by him again. I had the golden ticket waiting for me at the end of these six months, and I had to hold on firm to my goals. I couldn’t allow myself to be vulnerable. I would play by the rules, but as soon as I could, I was getting out of here, and I was taking both kids with me.
Even if I wasn’t allowed to say that out loud, I was going to keep it on repeat in my mind.
Chapter 21
Rachel
The rest of the day slipped by fairly uneventfully. Shark stayed with us for an hour or so, enjoying his time with Axel. He did his best to talk to Bee, and even asked me for a few words in sign language, but she didn’t respond to any of his efforts.
When he left, Dante and I put a movie on for both of them whilst we cooked dinner. I almost snapped at him for being in the way, but caught myself just in time before he could accuse me of starting an argument. Dante had never helped me in the kitchen before, and I couldn’t help but be suspicious of the way he was hovering now.
But then I remembered Vienna’s earlier words about things being different now that they were no longer at war. It made me reassess the Dante I had known back then. Could it be that I was only seeing one side of him? The side that was stressed, and anxious, and angry, and losing so much?
But then again, we hadn’t been at war when he thought burning my mother’s house to the ground was a reasonable reaction to me not wanting to be kidnapped, so I quickly shut down my line of thinking.
We all sat down at the kitchen table, with Axel in his highchair, and I did my best to engage in the conversation. I caught Bee smiling once when Axel threw some food at Dante, which slapped him directly on his cheek.
She had looked down at her food as though she was tempted to do it too. I leant down and whispered in her ear that I dared her to throw it, and she even picked up her fork with some peas on, ready to flick them. But then she dropped it back on her plate, frowned, and pushed her chair away from the table. She quickly scribbled the word “done” on her tablet and walked away.
We let her go, because we knew she was overwhelmed, but my heart still shattered at the thought of her being alone up in her bedroom whilst the rest of her family were sitting together and bonding. I didn’t want to push her, but I knew what it was like to be the child constantly alone, and I hated that she thought she needed to do that as well.
And I hated that she believed being alone and distancing herself was thesafestchoice she could make. How had we fucked her up this much?
Not long afterwards, Dante bathed Axel, and then I ran a bubble bath for Bee. She quickly signed “thank you” and then slammed the door. I sat outside the bathroom, listening for any signs of splashing—the midwife had freaked me out, saying children could drown in an inch of water, and it had become the biggest fucking fear for me—and then both kids were put to bed.
Which left me and Dante alone.
I had tried to escape him by offering to take his mother some food. After all, we had already more than exceeded our compulsory hour together today. But Kitty soon put an end to that by kicking me out of the room and saying the next time she sees me, she hopes it's during an open casket.
We watched a bit of TV together, each of us sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, and then, after the tenth stifled yawn, I called it quits and told him I was going to bed.
I hadn’t expected him to follow me, but it seemed he was taking this whole “sleeping together every night” seriously.
“Honestly,” I said, as we both entered the bedroom. “You don’t have to go to bed at the same time, you know. It still counts, even if it’s not thewholenight together.”
“Shut up, Rachel.”
Well, that was me told. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
“You’d think on my first official night here, you’d cut me some slack and give me some space. It’s a lot to process.”
“And you’d think at twenty-nine years old, you’d understand what shut up means, but yet here we are,” he snapped back at me.
Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Since you’re in such a delightful mood,” I called after him as he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. “Maybe now will be a good time to talk about something that’s been on my mind.”
He came back into the doorway, raising one eyebrow at me.
“Just how long have you known about me and Axel?”
