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When Adam was in the hospital, they did visit. Once. Took me to dinner. Brought flowers and two self-care baskets, one for me and one for Adam. I get a text on my birthday, not a call. Holidays aren’t a given with them. Sometimes I’ll see them, sometimes I don’t. They’re busy, enjoying their empty nest lifestyle. I’m not bothered by them about when I’ll give them grandchildren. They congratulated me and Adam on the engagement and my father told me they had $40K aside for my wedding. Dad asked me if I was sure, if I was happy, and that was that.
After losing Bryan. I think they walked around numb for months, semi-numb for years. Every one of us withdrew into ourselves. Losing him broke the family unit.
Adam’s family is a lot closer to one another but never really made me feel like a member of the family.
Alannah’s family loves me. That’s where I get the lovey dovey squishy family feels fix from. I often go there for holidays. It’s a loud, expressive, butt-into-your-business group. They often fight. They also laugh together a lot. It’s kind of ideal.
My mind drifts to Derek’s dysfunctional family as I curl up on the bed that Derek already made. I push those thoughts away while I catch up on my unread text messages. Just a few from Alannah and one from Coraline, who messaged me last night.
Alannah told us you and Adam split. She said you’re not ready to talk about it. So sorry girl. I’m here if you need me day or night. Hugs.
I decide to scroll my socials and see a selfie of Coraline, Maddie, and Jeffy at brunch today, posted by Jeffy.
They’d normally invite me if they were going out as a group. Maybe Alannah told them not to. Alannah didn’t go either, but she’s probably busy planning how to help me out of this mess.
Panic suddenly envelopes me at the notion of what might happen. At the notion of the unknown. At the idea she could get punished by intervening.
I just don’t know what to do about any of it, but Alannah has resources to get information and I’m thinking I’ll get the downlow on what her plan is in the bathroom at City Hall before anything. Then I can hear her out and decide if there’s too much risk.
I open the browser on my phone and type inmate+pedophile+dead. And immediately I see the results.
Alan Howard Bell was found dead in a maximum security prison in Michigan. The article was only two paragraphs, published in the local paper of the town where the crimes were committed, and it said that the cause of death was not yet known. He was twenty-three years into a life sentence. He not only committed sexual offences against multiple minors, but also got convicted of murdering a nine-year-old girl.
I resisted the urge to dig into the case against him, instead feeling sad for Adam’s grandmother, who, regardless of the sins her son committed had to feel all kinds of pain at the idea of his death. It had to bring all the stress and devastation back to her.
Monday
I wake up in Derek’s warm embrace, with my head on his bare chest, his arms are wrapped around me, and I’m thinking that waking up in my dream house sleeping on the chest of a hot guy… it’s quite a trip. I refuse to let the question bouncing around the edges of my consciousness take center stage, knowing it’s got something to do with the curious way I keep waking up cuddled with him.
I blink the haziness away as I stare out the giant window in my periphery. It’s a blustery, windy morning.
For the most part, Derek left me be the rest of the day yesterday.
I tried to work, setting my laptop up in the office down the hall from the master bedroom, but there wasn’t much to do after my marathon work session of the day before, so I mostly did some online “Steele” snooping until I tore myself away from it. There was a particularly upsetting Reddit thread full of comments from people who had things to say about how crooked the family is and how they ruin the lives of anyone who dares to try to get in their way. The threads included disgruntled ex-employees, mostly. They said some not-nice things about Derek’s mom. Some very blunt things about Thaddeus getting what he deserved. He would throw tantrums in restaurants. He didn’t take well to his advances being rebuffed from women. He was described as arrogant, pompous, and out of touch with reality. He was compared to Joe Pesci’s character in the movie Casino. I dragged myself out of that unpleasant wormhole and then spent the rest of the day curled up in the perfect reading chair in the corner with the sexy wolf shifter romance instead.
I moved to the bed when I got to the last chapter at around eleven o’clock. Derek was already there, reading his novel on one side of the bed with an open bag of peanut M&Ms beside him. I tried not to react to the fresh bottle of water and bag of mini white chocolate Reese’s peanut butter cups laying on the table on the empty side of the bed. I didn’t dig into them or the yellow bag of M&Ms, despite the sudden sugar craving.
The giant bed proved big enough for me to simply stay on my side. Him being here ruined my plan to finish the last chapter and epilogue in bed the way I usually do. Alone. I always save the end of a book for when I’m alone in bed, so I can read uninterrupted and also… in case I cry. Not to mention how not easy it would be to focus on reading while beside my stalker. And that’s down to multiple reasons, including the fact that the sight of a hot, muscled guy reading would set panties on fire if I posted a pic in my favorite online book club.
If we were together I’d probably have tried to playfully steal some of his candy and stuff it into my shirt, hoping to distract him from his reading. Or ask him to read me a sexy passage from my book aloud. But we aren’t really together, so I turned the light off on my side of the bed.
“My light bothering you?” he asked softly.
“Nope. It never will bug me,” I answered and then wanted to kick myself because that made it sound like I was anticipating a lot of instances like those in our future, like I was letting him know he could feel free to read in bed beside me any time for the rest of our lives.
To blow off my mortification, I went downstairs and made another sandwich. And I sent Alannah my ‘proof of life’ message. She gave me a thumbs up reply immediately and as I was wondering what she might have planned for tomorrow, Derek showed up, read over my shoulder, and stole half of my sandwich from my plate, kissed my neck, and walked off.
I wandered the main floor for half an hour, staring out windows, snooping in the drawers, cupboards, and closets, and when I got back upstairs, the light was off, and he was on his stomach in bed.
And the thought occurred that I could just leave. Just walk out.
I didn’t leave. Because what would the fallout be? I got into bed beside him and stayed as far from him as possible without dangling off the bed. The next hour or maybe hours were spent thinking about how Adam didn’t want me to visit his grandmother. I was thinking about his pedophile uncle dying in jail. And I was thinking about all the things I know about Derek so far. All the things I never know about Adam.
And I woke up like this. On his side of the bed. Snuggled with him.
I’m about to roll away when I become aware of something. A ring on my finger.
He didn’t!
