“Everybody pick five things each from your activity station to pack away.”
I returned to tidying my desk as the kids scrambled to grab five items and return them to their rightful homes. The fact I only needed to make it a game and they’d snap into action, no matter how grumpy, tired, and hungry they were, made a giddy smile appear on my face every time.
After they’d left, I finished tidying what little hands and eyes had missed and printed off fresh spelling tests for Monday.
Glowing sunshine lit the world outside Lilyglade Prep, and my eyes watered as I blinked at the brightness, almost stumbling down the steps with my folder and bag to the parking lot.
After offloading my stuff onto the passenger seat and closing the door, I turned and screamed.
Thomas scowled as if my fear was a pest he wished he could swat away. “Honestly, Little Dove.”
“It’s Jemima,” I said, my hand fluttering to my face. I hastily raked it through my hair and looked over his shoulder to his car, where I could see the top of Lou Lou’s pigtails through a dark tinted window.
“Same thing,” Thomas said, following my gaze. “She’s playing an iPad, and the A/C is on, so she’ll survive.”
I coughed over the laugh that tried to barrel free. “Okay then.”
Looking him over, in his pressed suit and dress shirt, I decided to kill one of my many questions. “What happened to her mother?” I waited for the anger, the scolding sure to follow such a personal question.
Thomas merely lifted a brow. “So she finally asks.”
“I know she’s not in the picture,” I muttered. “School records and all.”
Thomas nodded once, but otherwise, no part of him moved.
My fingers curled at my sides as I let my eyes meet his.
“She’s dead.” His voice held no trace of emotion, neither did his eyes.
Still, I said, “I’m sorry.”
His head tilted. “There’s no need to be sorry. She was a rotten woman.”
Well, shit. I couldn’t help it, and an incredulous laugh slipped past my lips. “I’m sorry,” I said again, breathing in a steadying breath. “That’s just …”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s shocking.”
Thomas rubbed his lips together, and my eyes followed the movement. His bottom lip was fuller than the top but not in an overly noticeable way. No, you had to be standing close enough to see, which had me sliding along my car, heading for the driver’s side.
“Anyway, I better get going.” I had no idea why he’d hung around after picking Lou Lou up. Perhaps he was running late after work. Lou Lou waved when I glanced over at their car, and I waved back. “Have a nice evening.”
“Wait,” he said in a tone that conveyed no urgency, only gentle command. “My text messages.”
With my back to him, I let my eyes shut. Then slowly, I turned, acting about as nonchalant as a bumbling elephant. “Oh yeah, about them …”
“Don’t contact me.”
I wasn’t planning to, but his quick words pulled me up short. “What?”
“Trust me when I say it was a foolish move on my part. I’ve since discovered the error in my ways, and you can’t contact me.”
A little bit stung, yet unsure why, I felt like saying I didn’t even want to. But meeting his gaze again, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. He exuded professionalism, a little too much, yet beneath that hard exterior, something simmered that I didn’t trust, something I feared to upset. Whatever that was.
“No worries.” I opened my door, watching as he turned for his car. “Hey, but you never did tell me how you got my number.”
“And I never will,” he said, then climbed into his car. I was about to do the same when his window wound down, and his next words stunned me. “Are your eyes open, Jemima? Because things are never as they seem.”
“Babe,” Miles cooed in my ear as I prepared a salad at the kitchen island. “I missed you. Where’d you go last night?”
He stole a piece of carrot, pecking me on the cheek and chomping down as he leaned his hip against the countertop.
“Went to Dad’s.” I drizzled the dressing in, then tossed the salad.
The sound of his chewing, even with his mouth shut, grated like nails down a chalkboard.
My skin prickled.
“Where’d you go?” I asked before he could drill me on why I went home.
Home. Funny how that hadn’t changed even after I’d been living here with Miles for months.
“Got called out to a job. Someone found a snake in their yard, and I wasn’t about to turn down five hundred bucks.”
“A snake?” Grabbing two plates, I set them down before removing the chicken from the oven.
“Uh-huh.”
Miles would probably gripe that this wasn’t enough food for him, but I wanted chicken and salad, so that was all I cared about. His eyes danced hot on my profile as I readied our plates.
Once served, I dumped the oven tray in the sink, snatched some cutlery for myself, and went into the living room to eat.
Miles followed a minute later, carrying half a loaf of bread in one hand and his dinner in the other. He sat on the other couch and kicked his feet up onto the ottoman.
I’d just about finished eating before he finally asked, “Are you going to tell me what’s bugging you yet?”
“You are,” I said, shocking myself and him.
Ignoring his pinched expression, his mouth stuck mid chew, I took my plate into the kitchen and began cleaning up. He wisely let me be, or maybe it wasn’t so wise as my frustration only grew.
I slammed plates into the dishwasher, almost cut myself on a knife, and when I tossed the food into the trash, half of it landed on the floor in front of it.
Fuck it, he could pick it up.
At that moment, I could barely discern what was eating at me so much. Miles and his lies, or Thomas and his weird vibes.
An odd combination of both.
I stomped down the hall, ripping off my dress, panties, and bra, then tore open the shower and stood under the cool spray until the water warmed, hardly feeling it.
Miles came in as I was working conditioner through my hair, his arms looping around me and pulling my back flush with every hard part of his chest.
Sliding his tongue over my shoulder to my ear, he breathed, “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know if I can.” And the truth in those words hadn’t registered until then. I didn’t know if I could talk to him. I didn’t know if I could handle knowing, or if I could survive the frustration and anxiety of not knowing.
When his hands glided over my stomach and wrapped around my breasts, he started rocking his hips and sliding his hardness over my ass and lower back.
“Do you need me?” His teeth plunged into my neck. I squeaked, and not totally in pleasure, but in pain. “Let me fuck you better.”
A coil wound tighter than any knot unfurled in an instant, fraying and snapping as I spun in his arms, shocking him enough that I was able to shove him back into the shower wall.
“Who is Shell?”
I watched his eyes, watched the way his pupils dilated and the whites shrank even as he kept his expression tight with confusion. “The fuck? Who?”
“I heard you on the phone yesterday.” I was past the point of wondering if I sounded like a crazy, paranoid fiancé. If it would quell the shaking terror that quaked higher every day my worries festered, I was giving myself a pass to be as crazy as I needed.
Miles seemed to fade into the tiled wall, his gaze turning down to where the soap-clouded water swirled around our feet.
After a minute of only the running water to drown out my stalling heartbeat, he met my eyes again. “She’s my sister.”
“Your sister.”
He nodded, and I stepped under the spray to rinse the conditioner from my hair, my eyes never leaving his as I digested his blatant lie.
It wouldn’t go down easy, no matter how much I longed for it to.
And so I left him in the shower, dried myself off, and retreated to the living room.