Sparrow

“Bullshit.” I smiled bitterly, knowing that I’d hit a nerve. He was as chained as me. Something drew us together, and it wasn’t love. Wasn’t lust either. “You’re just as miserable about this as I am.”

A brief silence filled the room while he took a sip of his drink, brushing his fingers over the neat row of expensive whiskey bottles in his bar.

“You probably don’t remember, Red, but when you were a kid, you sat two rows in front of me in Trinity Chapel every Sunday at mass. Your dad used to fall asleep on your little shoulder because he was drunk, but you would stroke his gray hair, like the loving daughter that you were, and help him walk all the way back home afterwards. You were always giving hugs to all the kids your age and younger. You even used to make f*cking lopsided cupcakes when someone had a birthday. You were all f*cking heart despite your shitty upbringing—the no-mother part and the drunk-father reality. And you didn’t drop out of school, didn’t do drugs, didn’t become a slutty biker chick. You finished high school, worked your ass off in a shitty diner and took night classes to become a chef.

“You…” He pivoted, shoving an accusing finger to my chest with the hand that still held the whiskey glass. “You’re so good, too f*cking good. And whenever I looked at you—from afar, of course, because my family didn’t mix with your nobody father—I thought to myself one day, my children will have a mother this noble. A mother whose goodness would rub off on them, because their dad is bad. Really. Fucking. Bad.”

I was shocked, confused, and underneath it all, maybe even touched. I fiddled with my hair. “You know stuff about me? I didn’t realize…”

“That I noticed you? Yeah, I’m not exactly the flowers and chocolate type of guy.” He loosened his collar, and my gaze dropped to catch the sliver of skin he exposed. “You better get used to it, or you’re in for a miserable-ass life. Now what the f*ck is it that you want, Sparrow? Why did you wait up for me? It wasn’t to ask how my day was or what I do for a living.”

I caught my bottom lip between my teeth, rubbing the back of my neck. Somehow, it seemed difficult to ask him for a favor when he’d shown me a glimpse of honesty. Of romance. Even if this favor was only a request to let me out of his house to work at his restaurant, the first part of which he’d already agreed to on our wedding day.

I forced a patient smile, despite the impatient need whirring in me to break free. “It can wait. Can we talk about it tomorrow? You obviously had a shitty day, and it’s three a.m. and...I don’t know, maybe in the light of day, we’ll be able to communicate like two grown-ups and not like dogs in heat.”

He brushed my shoulder as he walked past me, not sparing me even a second glance. “Go buy yourself something half-decent tomorrow. I’ll take you out to dinner and we can discuss whatever it is you have in mind. And Sparrow, I’m not a nice guy.” He emphasized every word. “So if you’re looking for favors, you better start reciprocating. Start acting like a goddamned wife and not like a prisoner. Oh, and a few more days of that magical period of yours and I’m sending you for a checkup in the ER. Don’t want you to bleed out, huh?”

With that, he disappeared up the stairs, leaving me high and dry.

Jesus Christ. This man.



TROY



THE INVITATION TO dinner was an impulse I might regret. Taking her out on a date? What the f*ck was that all about? This wasn’t Pretty Woman, and Red sure as hell wasn’t Julia Roberts.

I’d made up the story about church. I hadn’t watched her. In fact, I’d tried my best to pretend she didn’t exist, suppressing the idea that one day this kid would be my wife. Even when her preteen friends inched close to me after mass, giggling, and she stood beside them, shyly eyeing me like I was f*cking ET. Even back then, I knew that Sparrow Raynes was not for me. Her quiet behavior screamed something I didn’t want to hear. I knew her mother deserted her and her father was an alcoholic, that life had fed her shit from all directions. But she never got under my skin. Not many people did, and only one woman ever had.

So, truly, the feelings I had for Sparrow Raynes were the same as I had for every women other than the bitch who broke my heart—a big, fat, hollow nothing.

I took a leak and shower, letting the water wash off the last of my crappy day and not caring if she’d followed me to bed.

The only reason I’d given her false hope that we shared some kind of history together, at least from my end, was because I wanted to shut her up. She was getting all let’s-talk-about-it on my ass, and it reminded me of the stupid, misguided women who’d tried to get through to me over the years.

I admit I was a little intrigued when she came out of the bathroom the night of our wedding and produced blood from her *. I saw the socks on her feet, her slight limp when she entered the room like a mouse with a thorn in its foot instead of the lion. She’d purposely hurt herself to buy time. She chose pain over humiliation. The daughter of the drunk, the spawn of the runaway mother, had pride and wits.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by it, but I was.

As it turned out that night, Sparrow was the only girl from our neighborhood who didn’t lose her shit and drool over any affluent, suited man who walked down the dark path.

Even before she marched out of the bathroom dripping blood, I knew she wasn’t one of those girls who’d just spread her legs for me. She probably thought I’d rape her. That she’d just lie there and take it like a dead body. That we would both hate the situation—and one another—but with a bit of luck, I’d manage to knock her up and hope that would shut her up for the next nine months.