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The son they like to pretend doesn’t exist because he brought shame on their good name. Hart is a strange kind of community that ebbs and swells with the tides of the season, sleepy on the side sprawling towards forest and lakes, quiet and suburban in the middle, and in the heart of it, a whole range of wealth and poverty mashed up and mingling with one another. It’s small enough a place that everyone knows everyone else’s business.
I adjust the tie that’s strangling me as I eat up the sidewalk and take the porch steps in one wide leap. Mabel opens the door for me, her face a tight mask. I expected bitterness and even outright derision and hatred. I’m the reason her son went astray. I’m the reason he’s not here right now to take his baby sister to her prom. It’s just me, and in this ridiculous rented getup from the tux to the shoes, I feel like a fraud.
She says nothing as I enter, which is a kindness in itself. The living room is eerily silent. It’s just Mabel, and neither of us know what to say.
The house is so much the same, even though it’s been almost ten years. Same floral couch and matching chairs, samephotos of family on the walls, same immaculate beige carpet and the green throw rug in the center with the diamond pattern and flowers at the edges. Even the green floral curtains are the same at the large bay window. The only real difference is the TV. It’s larger and newer, mounted on the wall now and not a small thing in an entertainment stand.
Mabel looks older. I’ve seen her around over the years, but never really noticed how much she’d aged. Has it just been in the last year, since Raiden went to prison, that the gray in her hair has thickened and the lines around her eyes and mouth have set in deep?
“Gray.” She finally says my name, not an accusation or a hiss, just that one syllable in her soft voice. Dark, tired eyes sweep up to my face.
There’s a plea in them.Be good to my girl. Please. I can’t stand to lose another child.
My palms start to sweat, and my chest constricts. I don’t ask where Henry is. As a man, I couldn’t imagine abandoning my own son because he made different life choices. Him not being here in this room with me now saves me from having to rely solely on my self-control to keep from ripping into him.
I clear my throat roughly and shift from foot to foot. I miss my boots. Big, chunky, and heavy, at least they’ve been long broken in. These rented shoes are torture chambers. The suit feels itchy. The house is air conditioned, but even still, I can feel myself sweating underneath the stupid button up shirt and the noose of a tie.
“She’ll be down shortly.” Mabel blinks at me like she’s seeing a real ghost, looking back into the past at the boy I once was. A look of longing shadows her face.
I wouldn’t undo it all, but if I could, I’d go back a year. Prevent that run from ever happening.
“I’ll have her home by whatever time you’d like her to be home. I’ll keep her safe, I promise.”
Mabel shakes her head like my word means nothing. I can see how she’d think that. It doesn’t make me angry.
She leaves me and I hear her in the kitchen, probably getting refreshments. Even if she has every right to hate me, she’ll still offer lemonade and homemade cookies. A pang of pure nostalgia lodges in my chest. I glance over at the photos on the living room wall. They haven’t been updated since Lark and Raiden were just kids. Fifteen and eight. Raiden has a horrible haircut that I remember well. He thought getting a mullet was a great idea. Lark’s in a puffy dress with a big hairbow holding up auburn hair she started dying jet black when she was fourteen.
Soft footsteps echo above me. The house breaks off into stairs right by the front door. Raiden’s room used to be at the end of the hall. Is it still, or has it been cleaned out and used for storage or made into a guestroom? Lark’s was just down the hall. Across from hers was a small office. It used to have an old-fashioned desk with a home computer and a daybed in the corner, her parents’ wedding photos on the wall above it. Is it still unchanged?
My mouth is dry, and my chest feels like a thousand knives have been lodged into my vital organs.
Lark walks down the stairs like a queen. At first, I’m not even sure what I’m seeing. This goddess, radiant and beautiful steals my breath like a hammer to my lungs. It punches out of me and rattles up my throat. I’ve seen and known a lot ofbeautiful women, rough men and rumbling bikes are like catnip to them, but there has never been one as beautiful as this.
This can’t be my best friend’s baby sister. Seven years younger than me. Always a child, someone to be protected. Raiden and I knocked a lot of heads and threw a lot of punches, gave out more warnings than I can count, in an effort to make sure all of Hart knew Lark was off limits.
That’s exactly right, you fucking idiot. She’s as off limits as off limits can ever be to you.
I know that, but I’m still standing here like a fucking pervert, my jaw hammered down to the floor with silver nails, because I can’t believe that this is Lark. Out of the t-shirts and loose-fit jeans, in a form fitting black dress with the crystals and sparkles all over it. With the boning at her tiny waist, the sleek skirt with the high slit all the way up her long leg, she looks otherworldly. Like she’s aged ten years overnight in that way that a girl can transform herself into a woman.
She’s wearing some delicate perfume. It wraps around me like tendrils of smoke and goes right to my dick and this suit will do nothing to contain the problem the way my jeans would.
“Hey, Gray,” she whispers. That sensual voice doesn’t sound like her either and it sends a shiver right through me. I realize now that I forgot a corsage. She should have had one. Raiden mentioned it.
“Fuck,” I groan. “I don’t have a flower for you. I’m sorry.” I regret not getting a rose the same dusky deep red as the lipstick adorning her lips. They look petal soft and her dark, lined eyes with the impossibly long lashes and high cheekbones only set them off.
Yeah, I’m pretty much fucked.
“No worries.” She drops her voice. “We can make something out of mom’s flowers. I’ll snag some on the way out.” She pops a hair elastic off her wrist. “I’ll hold it together with this.”
I give her my signature smile to show how at ease and unaffected I am. What a load of bullshit. “You sure you don’t want to wear that with say… a pair of jeans underneath? A sweater overtop? A trench coat?”
She laughs and the sound is musical and silky. “This dress cost half a fortune. I want to show it off.”
I try very hard not to look straight down at her breasts. She’s a tiny thing, five four and about a foot shorter than I am. She’s willowy, never striking me as a woman before, but that dress.Fuck. It makes her breasts look bigger than they are. It’s cut so low that they’re pushed up and on display. Her waist is far smaller than I ever knew. The dress flows out over her hips, making her look like she has some. More than some.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I’m going to get in at least twenty fights over you tonight.” I roll my eyes like I’m annoyed. I shake out my hand and make it into a fist. “You should apologize now for the state of my poor knuckles.”
