I ignored that. “Do you think I could go there? To the community in Florida?”
He returned to combing Dixon, focusing on his tail. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I could use the vacation.”
Tink glanced at me. “You probably could.”
“And…” I took a deep breath. “If Caden doesn’t end up picking a Queen soon, I’m eventually going to start showing. It won’t be easy to hide.”
“Wait a second.” Dropping the comb beside him, Tink picked up the remote and paused the movie. He looked at me. “You want to go down to the community to basically hide.”
“And to relax. I have enough money saved up, and I’m sure Miles would—”
“You want to go hide in a fae community while becoming obviously pregnant?”
“No one down there should know who I am, right? It’s not like Fabian or you told any random fae that I was the human chick the King was hooking up with.”
“Of course not. Although, that would’ve been juicy gossip. But do you really think Fabian isn’t going to know who the baby daddy is?”
I opened my mouth.
“He’s not going to believe for one second that anyone but his brother is the father,” he said before I could speak. “So, you’d be putting him in a position where he’ll have to either knowingly lie to his brother or betray you.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Shit. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Obviously.”
“I really hadn’t.” I sank into the couch, surprised that I had forgotten that very important detail. “It’s like my brain isn’t fully functional or something.”
“I just think you’re really desperate, and desperate people do and think stupid things.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Tink was still for a bit and then placed Dixon in my lap. “Can I be honest for a moment?”
I slid him a sideways glance. “I have a feeling you were just super honest right then.”
“I’m about to be even more honest. Like really super honest. The realest real kind of honesty.”
“I think I get it.”
“But you don’t.” He tipped toward me as Dixon sat up in my lap, watching him. “I get why you’re doing what you are. I do. You want to save the world and some shit. Honorable. I’m not going to mess up your need to martyr your warm and fuzzies.”
“It’s not my need—”
“But it’s become clear to me that you really are delusional.”
“Wow,” I murmured.
“Why else would you think your idea to hide with your baby daddy’s brother in a community of fae was good enough to interrupt Eclipse? But it’s more than that. Do you honestly think Caden is going to marry someone else even if he believes you don’t want him?”
My stomach dropped. “He has to.”
“He doesn’t have to do jack shit, Lite Bright. I feel like everyone, including Tanner and Faye, is forgetting that. He didn’t want to be King in the first place, and the last I checked, he’s a grown-ass adult. Besides in the highly unlikely event that he’s going to be like ‘YOLO, let me pick a fae Queen now,’ do you really think he’s just going to let you walk away? Not fight for you? And I don’t mean that in a creepy, super-possessive way either, but in a way we all would want someone we cared about to fight for us.”
All the pizza I’d shoved down my throat was starting to settle wrongly in my stomach.
“But I have a really important question for you. One you need to think about long and hard before answering,” he went on. “Do you honestly think you’re going to be able to shut down the way you feel about him? You’re going to be able to stand by and watch him be with someone else? You’re going to be able to resist him—resist what you want—when he does fight for you?”
* * * *
I hadn’t answered Tink’s question, and he hadn’t expected one, but I had thought about it. I’d spent the rest of the day and a good part of that night thinking about it, and every time I said that, yes, I could resist all of Caden’s attempts, there was a little laugh in the back of my mind.
But what other choice did I have?
Restless after downing a glass of orange juice and a small army’s worth of eggs, I took the prenatal vitamin and roamed upstairs, my head in a really weird place.
Slowly, I went down the hall of the second floor, past the closed door of the office, beyond the room Tink had commandeered, and to the other closed door—the one my mother had used.
I could use her room for the baby. My stomach wiggled like it always did whenever I acknowledged being pregnant. That was if I was still here then. The community in Florida was a stupid idea, but there were a million other places. If I was here, though, the room would be large, but since the small one that had once been a nursery had been converted into a walk-in closet ages ago, it was the only option. Well, unless Tink ever moved out. His room was smaller. Maybe he’d want the larger one?
Pushing open my bedroom door, I halted just inside the threshold. Last night, I hadn’t really paid attention when I climbed into bed, too caught up in my thoughts. Now, I cataloged every square inch as if looking for something to be different. The drapes had been parted, letting in the morning sunlight. The velvety-soft cream bedspread had been smoothed back from the thick pillows. A pair of slippers I always left out but rarely wore waited by the bed. A fluffy and chunky gray throw blanket was draped over the chair by the window. It looked and felt the same. The room even smelled like I remembered. Like pineapple and mango.
But I wasn’t the same.
My gaze made its way to the closet. I forced my steps forward. Opening the closet door, I switched on the light. What I saw first were the wigs in various colors and lengths, the knee-high boots and spiky heels, and the skintight dresses. They were all costumes designed to hide my identity while I hunted the fae responsible for killing my mother. I didn’t need them anymore. I’d succeeded. They were all dead now, and those wigs and dresses…
They’d become a part of who and what I’d been shaped into. I ran my hand over the Lycra material of a red dress that I wouldn’t have dared to wear five years ago. The outfits, the wigs, the shoes—all had aided me in finding the fae responsible for killing my mother, but they’d also done something else. They’d given me the confidence I’d been sorely lacking.
But this stuff still wasn’t me. They were words written in blood and tears for a chapter that had come to an end.
Pivoting around, I hurried downstairs to the pantry. Black garbage bags in hand, I went back to the closet and started cleaning house. Everything went. The wigs. The shoes. The dresses—well, almost everything. I couldn’t bear to part with the studded mid-calf boots or the silvery sequined dress. Those boots were surprisingly comfortable, and the dress…
It was the outfit I’d been wearing when I killed Tobias—one of the fae I’d been looking for.
And it was the dress I had on the first time I came face-to-face with Caden in the club.
For that reason alone, I should toss it with the rest, but I hung it back up between the thick, oversized cardigan and the blazer I never wore.