Page 37

Thinking about the weird imagery makes my skin crawl. “A little too much.”
Sterling sighs, keeping his gaze on the book for another moment before stuffing it into an interior pocket in his jacket. It’s just like Xeno did, but once it’s tucked away he stands, pulls the jacket off, and drapes it over the back of his chair.
When he sits again, he rubs his eyes. Sterling looks exhausted and I realize that hearing about a new body should bother me more than it is. I think reading that damn book is fucking with my brain. His shoulders look tense, and I can feel the stress rolling off of him from the other side of the room.
I click my tongue. “Coffee.”
He grunts, and I get up to brew another cup. I can hear Jo moving about upstairs, so she should be down in a few minutes. “Why is it always coffee? Don’t you ever drink bourbon or something to take the edge off?”
I take a deep breath before turning back to face him. “I don’t drink because of stress, I drink when I’m happy. My fatherused alcohol to cope, and when he would get angry, he’d throw his whiskey glasses at us. When I was seven one of the glasses broke beside my head and some of the glass got in my ear. It left a scar on my face for years. Coffee makes me think. Liquor reminds me of the pain.”
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I didn’t… there’s no report on that.”
I shrug, turning back to the coffee maker. “One of the housekeepers pulled the glass she could reach out of my ear. Papa called a family friend to come over, who did scans of my ear and removed the rest. Fucked up my eardrum too. But it’s all off record because I never went to a hospital for it.”
He’s quiet long enough that I can hear Jo walking down the steps when he speaks again. “I’m so-”
“If you tell me you’re sorry for a moment in my past, I’m going to feed you the book I just threw at you. Be careful, Sterling.”
I hold his gaze for a moment longer before walking away to get the coffee. Last time he took sugar but no cream, so I make it the same way. Jo comes up behind me while I’m doing so, and I glance over my shoulder at her.
She came down in a shift dress. It’s loose, flowy, and I think she pulled it out of the dirty pile. There’s wrinkles everywhere, but it's something I’ve seen her wear for years as a comfort item. I’m not all that surprised by her choice, but it doesn’t hide the scars. Most of them are now on display, and even if Sterling saw plenty of her skin last time it’s different now that we aren’t in the heat of the moment.
Her blue eyes meet mine before glancing past me towards Sterling. Her voice is low, but I think he can still hear her. “He looks tense.”
Pushing away the conversation we just had, I nod and finish stirring his coffee. “Just like you, darling. Take him this, I’ll make yours.”
She hesitates, staring down at the cup. After our talk last night her mind seems to be all over the place, and I imagine seeing the weird book her mother wrote was just another checkmark in the long list of mindfucks she’s experiencing. I took care of her last night, but sex seemed to numb her pain instead of soothe it. She’s still struggling, and I can see the war in her eyes as she looks between the cup and Sterling, who appears lost in something on his phone.
Reaching out, I tap her chin when she doesn’t move, leaning in to speak quietly to her. “Tell me your thoughts, Trauma.”
Her eyes flash. “We can’t do that again.”
I frown. “Did you not have fun the last time?”
She shakes her head. “No…” her voice trails off as she watches him, looking back after a few moments. “But we can’t. It’s a betrayal.”
“To Alastair?” I clarify, leaning back a little bit.
“Yes,” she breathes.
“Did you think we might actually reconnect with him?” I ask seriously. Alastair is a wild card and I think it’s a waste of time to focus on him. There’s little to no chance we’ll be together with him again. “Is that something you’ve fantasized about?”
Jo bites her lip, closing herself off as one arm wraps around her middle. The other lands on top of her arm, tracing one of the exposed scars. “I don’t know. But it was a possibility. Even slim. Like a… final request.”
I snort, but my back is to Sterling and I can’t tell if it caught his attention. “Cute. I know how you care for him, Jo, but in reality the likelihood that you can be with Alastair again is slim. That would involve a lot of things lining up just right. If youwant this, take it. Holding out on the possibility of being close to Alastair doesn’t change what’s happening right now. We don’t know where he is, or if he’s ever coming back.”
She swallows hard enough I can hear it. “I suppose.”
“Whatever’s left of Alastair when and if we see him again, we need to be prepared to pick up the pieces. What’s left will be a different person altogether. In our fantasy world maybe there’s a moment of time to be with him, but in reality, the chances aren’t high. Right now, there’s something real, even if our time with Sterling is limited to the days and weeks it takes to return Alastair to prison.”
Her eyes are so sad I’m certain I’ve killed her mood. But the reality is she can hope all she wants, but Alastair is a wanted man. He’ll go into maximum security and be guarded twenty-four seven the moment he’s caught. We don’t fit into that reality with him.
She blows out a breath, straightening her back as she grabs the mug. “I want my safe word to be trauma. I’ll say it to you instead of you saying it to me.”
I nod, but I have an issue with that. It might get misconstrued, and it’s not our normal word. I’m okay with changing it to whatever she wants, but this feels like it might get complicated by accident.
“If he wants one,” she breathes, moving to the living room, “he can ask for one.”