Home. My father is finally coming home.
Yet, this tightness in my chest… it’s not a feeling of relief.
My father turns to look at me over his shoulder, his grin bright and eyes shining with triumph and perhaps something more raw, vulnerable. Something genuine, or perhaps I’m only seeing what I so desperately want to see. Projecting my feelings onto him.
I force my lips upward while my insides explode into chaos and uncertainty, doubts clashing with rational thought as I internally spin out of control.
“Your release date is set for ninety days from today,” the judge states.
Ninety days.
I have ninety days to determine with certainty if my father is the man I always believed him to be… or if he’s the man Gran fears.
I’m still reeling from the news of my father’s release as I walk across the Halston U campus that afternoon. I have class in an hour, although admittedly, the last place I want to be is in a classroom. Honestly, my focus hasn’t been on my studies at all this semester. With all the other shit going on in my life, school has fallen to the bottom of my list of priorities.
With time to kill before my next class, I head to the food court to grab a coffee and a table while catching up on missed calls and emails from this morning.
Entering the glass building, I head straight for the coffee stand and order a double espresso before swiping my student card over the card reader.
“Have a nice day,” the overly happy cashier says as he hands me the cup. I don’t acknowledge him before turning away. Perhaps I should be as ecstatic as him, but all I feel is more weight being added to my already weary shoulders.
Coffee in hand, I scan the room. Since the lunch rush hour has passed, the usual chaotic bustle has dimmed, and most of the tables are now vacant. However, there are still people milling around, chatting, or working diligently.
Three people seated at a table against the glass wall on the far side of the room catch my attention, and I pause for a moment, taking a sip of the scalding liquid before striding toward them.
My heels clip against the marble floor as I close in on the table. I keep my eyes on Riley the entire time, watching as she laughs at something Logan says. She nudges him with her elbow before he throws his arm over her shoulders and drags her into his side. She goes with zero resistance. The apparent casualness of their intimacy causes my blood to boil and, with it, brings images of her stretching around me while she moaned my name.
It fills me with primal satisfaction when she cranes her neck, and I catch sight of a deep purple hickey on her throat.Ileft that there. Not Logan, with his fucking arm around her. I made a very firm point of marking her as mine last night for reasons I don’t care to look at too closely. Still, the sight of my mark sends blood rushing to my cock, and the desire to strip her naked so I can explore the others and leave brand-new ones is all-consuming.
So what if I haven’t been able to stop thinking about having her again since that first time in the field? It doesn’t have tomean anything. Fucking her rebalances me. It hits the reset button so I can function. That’s all it has to be.
Last night was about resetting my system. I’d lost control after visiting Gran, and I needed her to re-establish that because, apparently, she was the only one who could. She’d managed it that night in the field and again on Christmas Eve, although I barely even remember that encounter. I’d been in a haze after leaving Gran, her words spinning on repeat in my head until I didn’t know what to feel. What was real, and what was imaginary. I was so distracted with trying to reconcile the dad I knew with the one my Gran fears, that I was caught entirely off guard when I stepped into the kitchen and saw her there.
I just needed her to tell me that she lied. I needed to know my father was who I’d always believed him to be.
But, of course, she couldn’t give me that. Shewouldn’t.
I’ve been too fucking terrified to honestly look at what that might mean because acknowledging that truth… I don’t think I can fucking handle it.
Each time Gran mistakes me forhim, I splinter a little more. For how much longer can I dismiss her ramblings as paranoia? Especially now that my father is about to be a free man.
Shaking my head to dispel the downward spiral of my thoughts, I’m still watching the three of them as Riley says something that has Logan throwing his head back with laughter and Royce’s lips twitch upward in a brief, genuine smile.
What the actual fuck, have I entered the twilight zone?
Royce doesn’t smile. He barely smiles around us anymore, and he sure as fuck doesn’t smile in the middle of the motherfucking food court. It’s a miracle that he’s even here. Nevertheless, he’s joined Riley and Logan for lunch every day for the past week while I lurked in the corner of the room and watched them.
He catches sight of me as I approach, and his lips flatten, eyes hardening in a silent warning.
Noticing his shift of attention, Logan glances my way, his jovial expression falling.Fuck no, I see him mouth as he gets to his feet, looking ready to deck me. “No fucking way,” he says louder, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“What did I do?”
He snarls. “You know exactly what you did.” Turning, he points to Riley. “Look at her! She’s fucking covered in your bites.”
Like the smug bastard I am, I smirk, which only sets Logan off. With a curse, he dives for me, and only Royce’s quick movements stop us from brawling in the middle of the food court.
“Sit the fuck down,” he hisses, shoving at Logan’s chest before turning to glare at me. His eyes blaze with a glacial intensity, and I know he’s just as furious as Logan. He’s just better at masking it. “You should leave.”
