Talent drops three more cubes into his coffee and waits for them to dissolve. His curly dark hair is contained, gelled, and brushed over in a classic gentleman’s style just as sharp and sophisticated as his business suit. By the end of the day, a wave will come loose and fall across his forehead like Superman.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he wears the red and yellow S under his white button-up like the hero himself.
Even if he’s half-villain.
“Why does it matter if I like it or not? I can get you something else. Orange juice?”
He shakes his head, taking a more tolerable drink. “It’s the same reason you drink whiskey with us, even though you don’t like it. You’re important to Lydia, so you’re important to me. And something tells me you’re very fucking important to my brother.”
“That’s ridiculous.” My cheeks burn remembering the way Wilder slowly undressed me before kneeling on the bed between my bare thighs last night. Only to leave me breathless and untouched, until I took matters into my own hands after I heard the gentle closing of the front door.
“Which part?”
“All of it,” I say.
After setting down his mug, Talent buttons his cufflinks with a smirk on his lips, looking down at me under lashes that rival his brother’s for length. Without a hint of desire or motive in his eyes, I’m left contemplating what I see in his dark gray stare. Here is this man, who sometimes sleeps under the same roof as I do, similarly exists between moral and immoral, and drinks coffee because, like whiskey and me, he wants to belong. But why?
He takes a step toward me in a pair of red-bottomed loafers, showing his ankles under the slim-fitting pants. There isn’t a blade strapped to his calf, and I wonder where he’s hiding it.
“I drink coffee with you in the mornings because it’s the only time I get a glimpse at who you really are, Camilla. You’re not sizing yourself up to Lydia, you’re not fighting a blush in front of Wilder, and you’re not hiding behind your candles. We don’t talk about anything but the weather and our workdays because that’s all you ever bring up, and we’re doing this at your pace.”
Somewhere between the wordsblushandpace, I translate the meaning behind the steely look in Talent’s eyes. It’s not one of desire, motive, or even foreboding. Lingering somewhere closer to confusion and exasperation, the emotion reflecting back at me like a mirror is disappointment. The realization doesn’t hit like an accusation, but it falls at my feet like a plea.
“You and Lydia are so much alike. Neither one of you sees yourselves clearly.” He places a chaste kiss on my cheek. “But we’re working on it.”
Lydia emerges from her bedroom, fastening a diamond earring to her right ear. She’s clothed in a dress as black as Talent’s suit, wearing heels with the same red bottoms as his shoes. Our focus immediately shifts to her, like she’s the real supernova and we’re no match against the gravitational pull. Talent’s gaze changes from quiet disappointment to one of utter devoutness, like he’d gladly be torn to shreds if it meant being close to her.
The shredding is unnecessary. Lydia drops her hands to her side and walks right into Talent’s open arms. He adores her, pressing the palm of his hand against her lower back to pull her close while resting the other against the side of her neck. He kisses Lydia between whispered devotions, pressing his lips to her cheek and to the corner of her mouth, not to disturb her bloodred lips. She closes her eyes and absorbs the affection, answering only by letting this happen at all.
This might be an intrusion, but I can’t look away.
Then her hazel eyes open, and she places a hand on Talent’s chest. “I hope you weren’t giving Camilla a hard time on her birthday.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says like an afterthought. Nothing makes it out of a black hole in one piece.
She manages an incredulous smile, wrapping her hand around Talent’s tie to lead him out the front door. Before they go, she says, “I’ll be home early today. I made dinner reservations for your birthday.”
God created man in his own image, and women—well, women are nothing but a rib.
Unlearning the self-serving blasphemy my father taught me is an everyday struggle, but it’s particularly hard on my birthdays. Somewhere during my childhood, Daddy determined that I wasn’t a child of God but instead a curse sent to Earth to test his faith. His job was to get me in line, submit and serve like a good rib bone.
He did so by shoving me into a closet at four years old.
Mom celebrated my birth however she could, with homemade decorations or cupcakes after dinner. As I got older, the acknowledgment got smaller and smaller, until one day my birthday wasn’t even circled on the calendar anymore.
My fifteenth birthday fell on a Sunday.
Daddy took my developing body as a sign that his work to convert me wasn’t working, and I spent most days locked up because of it.
“If the Lord had only sent me another boy,”he’d said.
But Sundays were for worship, and I was allowed to attend Sunday school with the other kids my age. Six Sundays had passed in our new routine, and for six Sundays, Elijah Read had only acknowledged me with tight smiles and a safe distance. I’d begun to think I was a curse, until the day I turned fifteen and he finally sat next to me during Bible study.
“Happy Birthday, Cami,”he whispered, passing me a chocolate bar under the table. He got up right after, but not before saying,“You better eat that before your daddy takes it away.”
Three years later, I left home.
I forgot my own nineteenth birthday, but on my twentieth birthday, I arrived in Grand Haven, California on a Greyhound bus from Nevada. It was a pit stop on my way to Los Angeles, where I heard the sun shone the brightest and hottest. I got off the bus only to use the bathroom and grab something from the vending machine, when a newspaper left on a chair caught my attention.
