“Daddy!” Eli crowed, plowing into his dad’s legs for a hug. “Guess what!”
Pierce looked down at his son with love and adoration that would have melted the wall of ice I’d put up around my heart if I let it, but I refused to.
“What, buddy?”
“Mar-Mar took me to get ice cream, then we went to the park to see who could swing highest on the swings! And I won!”
“That’s great!” He smiled at his boy, but I could see the sadness Eli had told me about. I forced that to the back of my head and looked to Eli. “Why don’t you go put your backpack in your room and color a bit, yeah? I need to talk to your dad.”
“Okay.” He started toward the front of the house, stopping just long enough to give me a big squeeze. “Love you, Mar-Mar.”
That lump in my throat that I’d been battling for the past couple weeks made a sudden reappearance. “Love you too, Cool Guy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He took off like a bat out of hell, running up the stairs and into his room with Titan on his heels.
I pulled in a fortifying breath before turning back to Pierce, and what I saw in his gaze nearly struck me mute. The longing in those clear blues was so obvious you couldn’t miss it or possibly mistake it for anything else.
“Hi,” he said in a low, husky voice. “Thanks for doing that with him today. I bet he had a blast.”
“He did. But we need to talk.”
He blew out a sigh and rubbed at his jaw that was covered in a few days’ worth of stubble. “You’re right. Marin, I—”
I wasn’t sure what he thought we needed to talk about, but I was certain it wasn’t something I could handle. At least not right now. “We have a problem.”
At my blunt statement, his back shot straight and concern carved into his features. “What’s wrong? Is it Eli?”
“No, nothing like that. When we were leaving the park, I saw your mother. Or more correctly, she saw me . . . with Eli. And she did not look happy.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, his shoulders slumping like the weight of holding them up was just too much.
“Yeah. And from what I saw on her face, I don’t think you have much time before she gets here.”
As if Satan himself had summoned her, the doorbell rang through the house, the normally melodic chime suddenly seeming like an ominous gong.
Pierce lifted his glass to his lips and threw back the entire thing in one gulp before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Might as well get this shit over with.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, my eyes darting toward the back door.
“You are not sneaking out,” he grunted with a frown. “You have every right to be here. You’re one of Eli’s people, whether she likes that or not. Let’s go.”
Without giving me a chance to object, he started toward the front door just as the person on the other side began to pound on it. I stayed a few paces back as he whipped it open, the picture of calm as he greeted the woman on the other side.
“Mom, this is a pleasant surprise,” he said in a deadpan voice. “What brings you by?”
Dun, dun, dun.
Pierce
The past couple weeks had been absolute misery. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. My sheets still smelled like Marin, like sugar and flowers, and I couldn’t bring myself to wash them or strip them off the bed.
It was a self-imposed punishment. I’d made the huge fucking mistake of throwing Marin away, and having to smell her every night, having that fragrance surround me, was my penance for screwing up one of the best things I’d ever had.
I’d been racking my brain the past few days, trying to think of ways to make it right and summon up the courage to actually do it, but every time I started, fear would clutch my chest in its icy grip, refusing to let me go.
What if I gave my heart to her completely and something happened? What if I lost her too? I couldn’t possibly survive another heartbreak like the one I’d had with Constance. But I also didn’t know how to live any longer without the light Marin brought into my life, and that talk with her sister earlier that day only made that more obvious.
Any attempt I’d made at talking to her the past two weeks had been shut down in an instant. She wanted nothing to do with me; she made that clear every time she walked out of my house, brushing past me without so much as acknowledging me.
I couldn’t get a word in edgewise with her, not that I was putting my all into trying. That was on me. Just another example of my complete and total cowardice. I’d let her go without a fight, and I continued to do it again and again every single day, every time I let her walk away from me. But Tali had helped to pull my head out of my ass, and I knew it was time to act, really and truly act.
When she came in earlier and said we needed to talk, I felt a niggling of hope bloom in my chest. This was my chance. Then she squashed that hope with what she said next.
Now I was standing in the doorway of my house with my mother on one side and the woman who held my heart in her delicate hand on the other.
This was the last goddamn thing I wanted to deal with.
“You know exactly what brings me by,” my mother declared acerbically. Her focus shifted over my shoulder and her face pinched with so much anger and hatred it took me aback. “What I want to know is what in the hell is she doing here,” she spat, jabbing her finger toward Marin. “And what in the world is she doing carting my grandson around town like it’s her right?”
“She is here because it is her right,” I stated in a flat, cold voice. “And she’s carting my son around because, one”—I lifted my index finger in the air— “she’s his babysitter. And two”—my middle finger joined the first— “because Eli loves her and enjoys spending time with her.”
I felt Marin edge closer to me, and when she spoke, her tone was soft and soothing, attempting to ease the situation. “Suzette, would you like to come in for a cup of coffee? We can sit and talk about this like—”
“Don’t you dare invite me into my own son’s home like it’s your place!” my mother barked. “You have some nerve, young lady, moving on to my other boy after what you did to my poor Frank.”
What she did the Frank? What the hell was she talking about? Before I had a chance to ask, my mom’s narrow-eyed gaze returned to me. “And as for you. I’m absolutely ashamed. Where’s your family loyalty, huh?”
“My loyalty lies with that little boy upstairs right now,” I gritted out. “That’s the only place my loyalty lies. Frank’s a fuckup. He’s a piece of shit, and you’ve allowed him to remain that way. He thinks the world owes him something simply because he exists. Newsflash, Mom, the world doesn’t owe him shit. I’ve got no loyalty for someone who’s done nothing to earn it.”
She jerked back, placing her hand on her chest in affront. “Do you even know what she did to him?” She seethed. “Your brother will walk with a limp for the rest of his life because of her!”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Marin said just then. “It’s obvious you’re geared up to do this, so let’s do it. But we’re moving this outside, because I’m not going to allow Eli to overhear what I have to say.”