Page 21 of Breaking Rules
“They’re wonderful,” Keli said, taking the container from Evanne. “I’ll carry them, sweetie.” She looked back at the older woman. “Thank you, Theresa.”
I could see it was on the tip of my stepmother’s tongue to say something harsh. I cut in, “Aye, Mom, thank you.”
Theresa smiled, as she always did when I called hermom. “You’re welcome, as always.”
“Before we leave,” I said, “a reminder that Evanne’s birthday is coming up, and I’ll be having a party for her.”
“Yay!” Evanne threw her hands up in the air.
“A birthday?” Da asked. “Dinnae you have one last year?”
“Grand-da!” Evanne gave him a disbelieving expression. “Everyone has a birthday every year!”
“Do they now?”
I enjoyed the banter between grandfather and granddaughter, both showing the same teasing sense of humor. I didn’t notice Keli coming over to me until she took hold of my arm.
“We’re thinking we’ll rent a venue so Evanne can invite all of her little friends too.”
All eyes turned to her, and my surprise at her statement kept me from shaking her hand off. Where had she gotten the idea that she would have anything to do with the planning of Evanne’s birthday party? If she was still in Seattle, she could come because I wasn’t the sort of monster who’d keep his daughter from her mother, but she’d signed over custody and left the country, all for a man. I would not be simply returning things to how they had been before.
“Can I, Daddy?” Evanne looked at me with those big blue eyes of hers. “Can I invite the whole class?”
“We’ll talk about it more after we get home,” I promised. “How about on the flight, you start thinking of ideas?”
“Great!” Keli said brightly. “We girls will make up a list of everything we can have.”
I caught a flicker of confusion in Evanne’s eyes before she let Keli pull her into a hug. I hated this. What little girl wouldn’t want to think that the last couple months had just been a vacation and her mom hadn’t left her? And while I didn’t like the idea of deceiving her, I couldn’t bring myself to deliver the harsh reality that Keli had chosen a man over her daughter.
I’d deal with whatever Keli had been trying to do this week, pretending as if nothing had changed. No, I amended. She wasn’t behaving as if nothing had changed because, before she left, this wasn’t how things had been between us. She was behaving as if she, Evanne, and I were all…family.
What the bloody hell was going on in that woman’s head?
Thirteen
Lumen
The week had gone fasterthan I’d anticipated, probably because I’d kept myself busy. Now, it was Sunday afternoon, and I felt like I’d accomplished a lot. I’d done some tutoring at the group home, thoroughly cleaned every inch of the apartment, answered phones at Real Life Bodywork for a few hours on Thursday, and gotten so far ahead in my lesson plans that I’d probably regret it if I had to redo more than a couple hours a week.
The sense of accomplishment I felt, however, did nothing to alleviate the way my stomach had grown steadily more twisted as time passed without me hearing from Alec. I told myself he was busy, and my head knew that was the most likely explanation for his silence, but the part of me that had never completely healed from my parents’ abandonment could be obnoxiously loud at times.
I wouldn’t have to wait much longer for answers. I’d be back in the classroom tomorrow, and Evanne would most likely want to tell me about all of the things she and Alec had done while visiting her grandparents. I’d liked Evanne’s grandmother, Theresa, when I first met her. In a way, she’d reminded me of Lihua, and I imagined that, in their own way, Alec’s family was like the Jins. Full of their own quirks and squabbles, but at the core, a fiercely loyal and loving group.
The big question was what I would do if Evanne didn’t offer up anything about her trip that would tell me why Alec hadn’t called or texted for several days. I already hated that I was obsessing over this, and to make it worse, the thought kept popping in my head that it wouldn’t be too difficult or out of line to ask Evanne how Alec was doing, especially if I did it when I asked the entire class how they were feeling about the prior week. Unless we were instructed not to talk to our students about the shooting, that was one of the first things I already had on my schedule for tomorrow.
Just as I was beating myself up over how completely unprofessional that would be, someone knocked on my door. I went to it, wondering who it could be since Mai was working, and she tried to schedule times when Hob was already working so the two of them had an easier time seeing each other. No one else really visited. Unless it was the super, of course. He came around each spring and fall to ask if there were any repairs that needed to be made before the weather changed.
I wracked my brains for anything we needed to have done, but every thought I had flew out of my mind the moment I opened the door and found Alec standing there, looking rumpled and sexy.
“Hello, lass.”
I took a step back and motioned for him to come inside, still too surprised to speak. He’d said he’d let me know when he and Evanne arrived home, and I’d taken that as a courtesy so I wouldn’t worry about them while they were traveling. Nothing would’ve made me even consider him coming over to tell me in person.
“You’re back.” I could’ve kicked myself for how completely moronic that statement sounded. “How was your flight?”
He closed the door and then came to me, ignoring the question. My mouth went dry at the sight of his eyes blazing, and then his lips were on mine, and that was all that mattered. His hands were hot on my cheeks, and my body thrummed in anticipation of that touch elsewhere.
When we finally broke to breathe, his hands dropped to my hips, and I curled my fingers in his shirt, neither of us apparently ready to let go. All of the doubts I’d had were melted away faster and more cleanly than they would have been had I pushed for a conversation.