TWENTY-FOUR
Zeus
Summer may be on the way, but the nights can still be colder than a nun’s cunt. The engine of the GTO warms while I wait on Belle to come out and join me. I rub my hands together and huff on them as a set of headlights flash in my rear-view.
Fuck.
I wind the window down as they pull up beside me, gaze flicking back to the house—no Belle still.
“Hey, mate.” I nod at John as he gets out of the car. “Cerise.”
“Hi, Zeus.” She closes the door and narrows her gaze on me.
I can’t stand her, but like a cat and a dog fated to live under the same master’s roof, we tolerate each other enough not to draw blood for his sake.
“Where are you headed?” John leans an elbow on the roof of the car, looking down at me.
“Late night eats.” I tip my chin up at him. “Why you two home so early?”
“Movie was shit,” he muses as Cerise tucks herself in behind him.
I find myself staring at her a fraction too long, wondering if that’s how Belle will look in twenty years. Cerise isn’t unattractive by any stretch of the imagination, but what does outer beauty matter when the inside is an ugly rotten pit?
“That’s a shame.” Awkward silence hangs between us all; John and Cerise don’t move an inch, choosing to stare me down. “What?”
“Nothing.” John takes a step away, the Cheshire cat at his back smiling.
“Oh, hey.” Belle steps out the front door, hesitant as though not sure if she should shut the house up after herself or leave the door open for these two.
“Hey, sweetheart.” John moves toward his daughter.
Cerise takes a step back, her body blocking my view as she leans on the car. “Just going to get something to eat, huh?” She tilts her head to the side, talking low enough for just us to hear despite the fact she watches John and Belle.
“Never done a midnight dash?” I ask.
“It’s not midnight, Zeus.”
“It’s also none of your fucking business what I do with my time.”
“It is when it involves my daughter,” she seethes.
I reach up and grab a fistful of her jacket while Belle and John still talk, tugging the bitch down so she’s face-to-face with me. “How does it feel calling her that after ten years, Cerise? Awkward? Uncomfortable?”
“Natural,” she sneers.
“You wouldn’t know a goddamn thing about how to be a fucking mother if it slapped you in the face.”
She jerks from my hold as Belle skips past the hood. “Well, I sure as fuck won’t be asking you for advice on how to look after her,” she whispers. Her gaze narrows. “I believe if I followed your lead they’d call that incest.”
My breath catches in my throat, choking me as she walks away with far too much fucking pep in her step. John raises a hand to see us off before they head inside the house. The car rocks ever so gently as Belle gets in, the slam of her door enough to snap me the fuck out of it.
“You okay?” she asks, buckling herself in.
Guilt washes through me in a hot wave. Belle is such an incredible young woman. She deserves better than this, yet I also know I’m too fucking selfish to give her up. I’ll ruin her before she sees the destruction coming.
“What did your old man say?”
“Gave me a rundown of how shit the movie was.” She chuckles. “Told me we’re off to get a late night snack.” She raises one eyebrow as I back the car down the driveway.
“Seemed like a legitimate excuse.”
“You ever going to run out of them?”
I smile as I pull away. “Nope.”
“So where are we really going?”
I tense as her hand rests on my thigh. “Exploring.”
She doesn’t utter another word, simply rubbing her thumb in small circles on my leg as I drive us toward her surprise. I told Belle I’d made an offer on a house—I lied a little.
I closed the offer on it.
As soon as the agent walked me in to view the place on a stormy afternoon, I knew I had to have it. The picture windows that face the backyard gave an uninhibited view of the shifting grey hues as the clouds rolled overhead—a perfect picture for a perfect girl.
I’ll never think of anything other than Belle when I look out those windows.
Her eyes widen when I pull up the curved driveway, her hand slipping off my leg as she sits forward in her seat. It’s a treat in itself to see Belle work through the motions as I park the car.
“We’re at a house?” She can’t contain her smile. “And it looks like nobody’s home.”
“The owner just pulled up.”
Belle twists in the seat to look out the rear window, and then slowly turns back toward me. “Zeus….”
“Yes, dove?”
“Is this yours?”
I nod. She squeals. And for a fleeting second, everything is right in my world.
“It’s amazing.” Her words drift off into the night as she launches herself from the car. “Did you really buy it?”
I slap her arse on the way past, and unlock the house while she stands in the driveway taking in the single-storey building. “Yep.”
Grey flagstones line the columns that frame the porch area. The weatherboard exterior is painted a similar colour, an established garden providing a green contrast against the wood. Belle trails her fingertips across the hedge plants that line the front, a goofy grin making her whole face light up.
“I love it already, and I haven’t even gone inside.”
“Get ready to blow your mind, then.” I swing the door wide and then step aside to let her go first.
I want to witness every little hint she gives off as she sees the place for the first time. Actually. I pull my phone from my pocket and flick across to the camera, setting it to video as Belle exits the entranceway and steps through to the open-plan living room.
“Those windows are huge!” She beelines straight for them, looking tiny in the empty space.
I set the camera recording and follow her in. “What do you think?”
“This place is so you.” She runs her hand over the ash wood mantle above the fireplace. “The colours, the size.” Her chin lifts and she realises what I’m doing. “Zeus.”
“What, dove?”
“Stop it.”
“Not until you check out the fourth door on the left.” I point down the hallway with my free hand.
She frowns, tipping her head to the side before she follows my directions. I keep the camera trained on her as she makes her way down to the hall, looking back over her shoulder with a suspicious smile every so often.
Her smile turns to a frown as she opens the door and looks around at the empty double garage. “Okay?”
“Open the door on the other side.”
“And go outside?” She crosses the concrete floor with me in tow.
I can’t help but laugh at the look on her face when she opens the door. It doesn’t go outside.
“Holy shit, there’s a studio attached?”
“Previous owner worked from home.”
She turns, smiling, although I can tell she’s not sure why this should be exciting for her.
“I thought you could too.”
Her hand lifts and she gently removes the phone from my hold, tapping the red icon to stop the recording. “Getting my hopes up is a horrible thing to do, Zeus.”
I lift her chin with the tips of my fingers, hating that she feels she has to hide her true emotions from me. “I’m not getting anyone’s hopes up.” My hand slides down to her shoulder. “A year, five. Fuck, even ten. However long it takes, I’ll have you here working out of your own tattoo studio.”
She huffs a little laugh, still refusing to look me in the eye. “You’ve got this all planned out, huh?”
“Nope.”
That grabs her attention.
“I just know what I want, and I figure if I act like it’ll come true, then it just might.”
She loops her arms around my neck, leaning in to my body as she places a chaste kiss to my lips. “You’re too good to me.”
“Because you deserve it.”
“Do I?” She frowns a little. “What have I actually done that deserves all this?”
“Be you,” I murmur against her mouth before stealing another kiss—a better one.
She tilts her head and parts her lips on a moan, tangling her tongue with mine as I pick her up and walk her into the room. A blush colours her cheeks when I set her down, tucking her to my side to point out how I envision the setup could go.
For those ten minutes while we stand in the middle of an empty studio discussing benches, tables, and facilities, everything else melts away. I forget my concerns about the logistics of our relationship, and I forget about the hurdles we’ll face along the way.
The world becomes Belle, me, and a house that checks the most important box on my to-do list for a fresh start. I was an arsehole as a kid, a troublemaker, and I ended up exactly where I put myself. I can blame circumstance all I want, but the truth of it is I resigned myself to what I got. I paved the way, and life took me on a long walk down that road.
I’m don’t want to be that guy. I never wanted to be a criminal, a man skimming his way through life, getting by on the bare minimum. I have dreams and hopes—most of which include the woman beside me.
All I have to do now is convince the other people in our lives that this is it, this is how our futures are supposed to go: together.
Sounds simple in theory, but I’d be a stupid man if I believed it was.