* * *

Present:

I can’t lie. I feel like I’m living on borrowed time. Eventually everything is going to explode, and when it does, I’m not sure who or what will be left standing in the aftermath. I need to prepare Luka. I need to express to him exactly the hate his father keeps directing towards me, but I keep chickening out. The worst part is that I know why I’m doing it, and yet can’t store up enough courage to face it.

Luka never believed me when it came to his father—not while we were married. I have no guarantee he would listen to me now, and if he didn’t, there would be no coming back from it. So I’ve been stupid. I’m the chick sitting on a powder keg holding a match and wondering when it’s all going to blow.

It’s been a week since his father cornered me at the school. A week in which I’m practically living with Luka. My mother thinks I’m being a whore with the man Black set me up on a date with, and I’ve done nothing to make her think otherwise.

Which essentially means I’m lying to my mother.

God. You would think after all this time, I would have found a way to grow up and grow some lady-balls and just live my life. I’m disgusted with myself. I admit it. But let me tell you, there isn’t a greeting card around that says, “I’m sleeping with the offspring of the slime-secreting, fly-sucking, pond-scum-dwelling tree frog who raped you. P.S. Were you raped?” I’ve looked for a card, too, not because I thought there might actually be one, but because I was hiding out at the local Walmart card aisle to avoid talking to Luka’s mother when I saw her standing at the checkout lane. When I told Luka moving would be an easier option, I wasn’t lying.

“What are you thinking?” Luka asks, looking up from the table where he’s helping River with his homework.

“Just that our parents are going to catch on to what we’re doing soon.”

“Yeah, I think my father might have already,” Luka confesses before turning around to laugh at something River said about his writing homework.

He has no idea the cold fist that wrapped around my heart at his words. “What do you mean?”

“He’s come by the office a few times and made some snide remarks. Nothing concrete, but…” He shrugs.

“This is not good, Luka.”

“Lo’, quit worrying. There’s not a damned thing he can do about it,” Luka laughs. He laughs. I swear, for a man who is so smart, when it comes to how truly evil his father can be, Luka can be downright stupid. Maybe it’s because Luka tries to deal with people being straightforward and honest. He can’t understand how his own father can be as dark and evil as the Devil himself. “River is sleeping over at Green’s tomorrow night with Allen, right?” Luka asks, changing the subject.

As much as I worry, I let it go. I might as well be like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand and ignore all potential threats… and Luka’s father is definitely a threat.

“Yeah, it’s Allen’s birthday. Green promised him a sleepover with all his buddies… though I doubt he planned on Allen inviting fifteen boys over,” I add with a laugh.

“Jesus. I don’t even think our house could hold fifteen kids.” Luka ruffles up River’s hair.

My heart literally flips over in my chest. Does Luka even realize he called this place our house? He’s been calling me Lo’ more and more lately, whereas before, it was only during sex.

I’m noticing other things, too, and Luka probably doesn’t have any idea he’s doing them, but he is. It’s like I’m finally touching the dream I always had of the two of us being together. In the evenings when I am here and it’s just me, him, and River, we feel like a family—a family that is together and strong—and I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

I don’t want to lose it. I can’t.

“I don’t think Green realizes just how bad it’s going to be yet,” I say with a grin. “We may have to do some investigating and film it… for research purposes.”

“Research purposes?” he questions with a laugh.

“You know, in case River ever wants to have a sleepover.”

“I do!” River pipes up. Luka looks at me with terror in his eyes, and I probably shouldn’t, but I can’t help laughing.

“I’ll have to visit Mary that night,” I mumble.

“No way, woman. You will be right here where you belong,” he says, his voice quiet and whisper-soft and his dark eyes so warm, they make me melt.

I love Luka Parish… more every day.