Lilah
“Look, I should have said something sooner, but I wanted to make sure I had accurate information,” Cole told me, barely able to hold himself up. He reeked of alcohol, and I could smell it even from where I stood, a few steps away from him.
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” I asked him.
“Just a few.”
“Yeah. Maybe we should forget the whole thing,” I said, not trying to hide my disgust.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing from him. I thought I had prepared myself for that kind of disappointment from him, but I wasn’t prepared to find him sloppy drunk on top of the realization that he’d been withholding information from me. I was tempted to walk out, but I didn’t. Something kept me there. Perhaps it was the way I was beginning to feel about him. Maybe I felt sorry for him – for what he’d put himself through. Largely, though, I needed answers.
“No, I need to explain myself to you now,” he said, forcing himself to stand up a little straighter, as if that was going to make him seem soberer than he was.
“Maybe you should sit down,” I suggested to him, but he wasn’t having it.
“No, I’m good,” he said, shaking his head.
“Fine. Start explaining. How did you learn what you know about Troy?”
“The other night when I had to go to the tattoo parlor because the guys caught the person trying to break in. The guy they caught told me he was working for Troy. Troy staged the break-in at your house, too,” he told me.
“I knew it. The bastard. He’s trying to take Micah from me.” Which, I knew, was exactly what Cole had just said to his brother while I was standing at the door.
“Yeah, but we found out where he’s staying in the meantime, before they leave the country,” he added.
“What?”
“Yeah, I had a guy hack into his computer today to figure out where he was. He’s at a cabin not too far from here. That’s how we found the emails – he’s been talking to some lady in Belize.”
“Are you serious? You found this out today, and you decided for whatever reason to keep it from me? You could have called, texted, stopped by the library, or anything, but you decided you wanted to go for a ride to clear your head and help you decide when you were going to let me know and how you were going to go about stopping him?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I was waiting for the right time to break it to you.”
“That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“I didn’t want you to run off again. I wanted to be able to help you,” he insisted.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, you’re just trying to control me. Ever since we slept together the first time, you’ve been trying to control my actions – when I come and go, everything.”
“I’m trying to protect you. I’m not your ex. Stop trying to paint me that way,” he said, stepping closer to me and putting his arms around me again.
Before I realized what I was doing, my hand smacked his face. His head turned from the force of it. I didn’t regret it. He’d earned it. Several times over.
“Don’t touch me,” I growled out. “Hand me my keys,” I demanded. He opened the drawer to his nightstand and lifted the false bottom in it – yeah, I felt like an idiot, realizing I had overlooked it.
“Here,” he said calmly, handing me the keys to my car and house.
“Thank you.” I took them and pointed a finger at his face. “Stay away from me. You hear me? Stay away from me.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get my son,” I said, turning to walk away. “Don’t follow me.” I paused at the door.
I had forgotten all about that damn cabin. I had never been allowed to visit it. It was just for Troy. It was his special sanctuary in the woods. I hated him for it. Now he was hiding out there with our son while he prepared to take him out of the country. That shit wasn’t going to happen.
I hopped in my car and peeled out as I left the parking lot, heading for the cabin, going to take my son back. Once Micah was safely in my hands, I was going to make sure Troy never got his hands on him again. Sure, I’d called him to pick Micah up from school because I couldn’t, but I hadn’t known that he had set up the break-in at my house.
It made my blood boil to think about it. This was one of those moments when I was glad I didn’t have a gun. I would have wound up in prison if I owned a firearm, and leaving my son fatherless was something I would have regretted for the rest of my life.
The cabin was only a few miles out of town, but it was in a whole different world. Off the main road, I took a long, dirt driveway deep into the woods to a small clearing. I hated that driveway. I hated almost everything about the cabin except for the isolated feel of it. It wasn’t far from everything, but it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere.
I pulled up out front and parked right by the front door. I didn’t see Troy’s car anywhere, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t parked in the woods behind the cabin, out of sight, hidden from prying eyes. There was a light on inside, so it was likely that someone was there.
I got out of the car and walked to the door. I paused and listened to the night. I listened for any sign that someone was inside. All I heard, though, was the night all around me. I heard the crickets, the frogs from the nearby pond, and the breeze blowing through the trees, but there were no sounds from inside the cabin.
I tried the front door. It was unlocked. I figured he must not have been too worried about people stumbling upon him at random. I pushed it open and stepped inside. I expected to hear something – Troy in the kitchen, Micah laughing at something or asking him a question. But there was still nothing. My stomach felt cold. Something wasn’t right. I was chilled to the bone, but it was the kind of chill that came from inside.
I stayed silent as I crept through the cabin. I walked through the living room, with the single light that was on. The kitchen was dark, but I could see from the living room that it was empty. I walked through the bathroom and the two bedrooms. No one was there, but there were clothes laid out on both beds, so it looked like they could have been back at any time.
I went and sat in the living room on the couch in front of the stone fireplace. I listened to the blissful silence. Anyone or anything approaching the cabin would have been announced.
Like the motorcycle coming up the drive.
“What the hell, Cole?” I asked the empty living room.
The engine died down in the front yard, probably next to my car. A moment later, the door opened. He wasn’t quiet at all, and he had no business trying to drive in his state.
“Didn’t I tell you not to follow me?” I snapped when Cole stumbled in. “What the hell are you doing driving right now anyway? You should be back at the clubhouse trying to sleep this off.”
“I couldn’t let you do this by yourself,” he told me, taking a step towards me.
“You stay back. Stay back. I want you out of my life. I don’t have room for someone who’s going to try to control me and manipulate my behavior the way you’ve been trying. It’s like you’re working with Troy on this to keep me from finding him.”
“What?! You can’t really believe that, Lilah,” he argued. “I would never conspire against you.”
“But that’s how it’s working out. That’s exactly how it’s working out.”
“No,” he said, taking a few more clumsy steps toward me. “Not at all.”
“Don’t come any closer,” I told him, holding a hand out.
“Don’t do this to me, Lilah,” he pleaded. “I can’t leave you alone, baby. I care about you too much. I’m starting to have feelings for you.” He kept walking towards me… until his chest pressed against my outstretched hand.
I relaxed my arm and let him come closer to me. He took me in his arms. The smell of whiskey enveloped me. He didn’t reek of it now, and it had dulled to an enticing aroma.
“I want you in my life. I’m afraid if I let go, you’ll leave,” he continued.
“You should have thought about that before,” I told him. “After I told you about my ex, you should have realized that I didn’t want another controlling man in my life.”
A low rumble roared gently through the woods.
“Was that thunder?” I asked him. I hadn’t noticed a cloud in the sky all day. Then again, I wasn’t the type to pay attention to the forecast. I didn’t know what the weather was doing until it did it.
“Sounded like it,” Cole said, backing away from me and turning his ear toward the door, as if he was listening for more.
About that time, there was a bright flash of light and an almost immediate peal of thunder. I groaned. I couldn’t believe I was going to be stuck in here with him.
“You need to go if you’re going to go,” I told him. “Before the rain hits.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied. Instead, he walked over to the door he’d left open and looked outside.
I heard a few drops here and there as the storm moved in and the rain began. The slow drumming of the rain soon gave way to a downpour. I looked past him out the door and saw the rain coming down like one solid wall out there. There was no way I was going to try to convince him to ride back on his motorcycle in that.
“Do you need to bring your bike in?” I asked him.
“Nah, she’ll be fine out there. She’ll dry overnight,” he said, closing the door and coming back in.
“My words still stand,” I told him. “You can stay here only because you can’t leave right now, but you stay away from me.”
“Fine,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender.
He walked over to the couch, standing almost next to me but not touching me. He made sure I saw that he was keeping himself apart from me.
“Where am I sleeping?” he asked.
“I’ll show you the rooms,” I said, leading him into Troy’s room and then the other bedroom. The second bedroom was supposed to be Micah’s whenever he stayed up here with Troy, so the bed was much smaller, a twin. Troy’s bed, of course, was a king, which made absolutely no sense if he was only ever up here by himself.
“I don’t see any reason why we can’t both sleep on the king-size bed. There’s enough room we don’t even really have to share it. We can sleep on our own sides and never touch each other,” he said. His voice was heavy with exhaustion and the effects of the alcohol he’d had earlier, slowly wearing off.
I wasn’t sure if I was buying what he was selling, but the bed was a lot more comfortable than the couch. That much I did know for sure. While I considered his suggestion, he kicked off his boots and climbed into bed, sliding underneath my ex-husband’s sheets.
“Well, I guess that decides that, doesn’t it?” I mused out loud. “Goodnight, Cole,” I said, turning to walk out of the room. He was already snoring as soon as his head hit the pillow.
I was going to try to stay awake to wait for Troy’s return, but it was late. If he hadn’t come back by now, he was probably spending the night somewhere else. I cut out the living room light and lay down on the couch, pulling the thin blanket that lived on the back of the couch over me. I listened to the rain waging war on the cabin. Then, I heard crashing sounds outside as the wind took old limbs down from the trees surrounding the cabin.
Sleep eluded me until I finally decided to join Cole in the master bedroom. I climbed into bed on my side and pulled the covers up, careful not to disturb him. I lay there and stared at the wall, trying to focus on anything but the man who had followed me out into the woods to tell me that he cared for me, despite the mistakes he’d made. It was those mistakes that made me so angry.
I closed my eyes and listened to him breathing on the other side of the bed. It was calming enough to lull me to sleep finally, despite the distance between us. I couldn’t control my feelings. I wanted to be angry at him, and I was, but it didn’t change how I really felt.