Page 2 of Meet Me In The Dark (Skeptically In Love #3)

Julian

Every time I drive down this street, it feels like slipping backward through time. I’m nine again, angry and alone in the back of a social worker’s car, convinced this will just be another pit stop before they shuffle me off to the next place.

When I saw the house, it was small and a bit weathered, but the garden had flowers—yellow tulips and some pink ones I didn’t know the name of. On the porch, a handmade banner read, ‘ We’re glad you’re here.’

I park outside that same house now—still small and immaculate. Still stubbornly standing despite my best efforts to convince them to move somewhere I can show my gratitude with something physical instead of words.

They won’t budge.

My mother always says, “This house has good bones. Just like me.”

I slam the car door shut and walk up the path, the garden blooming like it always does. I swear that woman could coax roses out of concrete.

I tap the picture hanging in the hallway. It’s a framed photo of adoption day, with me in a flannel shirt, standing like I’d rather be anywhere else, and my parents smiling behind me.

Behind us, another banner reads: It’s a Boy!

It still amazes me that after years of infertility, they chose me.

“Ma?” I call.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” My mother shrieks from the kitchen. She spins around, wielding a wooden spoon. “Oh my God, Julian! You scared the holy hell out of me. I nearly had a heart attack and shit my pants at the same time.”

“Glad to see your language has improved.”

“Bullshit. I’ve been working on it,” she says before storming across the kitchen and throwing her five-foot frame at me. I wrap her up, inhaling hand lotion and pasta sauce.

She pulls back and pats my cheek like I’m twelve again.

“Where’s Dad?”

She rolls her eyes. “Being neighborly. He’s over at that bitch Melinda’s house, mending a fence.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you start mending a fence of your own?”

She waves a hand as if to swat the idea away.

“It was twenty years ago, Ma. The woman didn’t steal your identity.”

“She may as well have,” she snaps. “She copied my potato salad recipe and then had the nerve to win first prize at the church picnic. I couldn’t go that year, and she knew it. I was in my sick bed, fighting for my life.”

“You had the flu.”

“She added bacon, Julian, like she reinvented the wheel.”

A loud thud sounds from next door—the traitor’s backyard—followed by a string of expletives from my father.

I raise a brow. “Did you send him over there to die?”

“If she wanted a fence fixed, she should have called a contractor. He’s seventy and has a bad knee. This is a test. If he comes back alive, then I’ll reward him.” She winks, and I try not to gag. “If not, well, I guess I’m free to remarry.”

“Maybe I should help.”

She points a finger right in my face. “Do it, and I’ll disown you.”

I hold my hand up like I’m backing away from a fight.

Satisfied, she spins around and goes back to stirring the pot.

Her apron says: Kiss the Cook or Go Fuck Yourself.

I bought it as a joke.

She wears it like a badge of honor.

“You hungry?” she asks, glancing at me as I sit down at the kitchen table.

It’s still the same one I did homework at, got grounded at, and carved my initials into at eleven. They never sanded it down.

“I could eat.”

She smiles and starts plating up. “Your cousin Tommy got arrested again. This time for shoplifting a microwave. Who the hell steals a microwave, Julian?”

I shrug. “Maybe he was hungry.”

“He’s an idiot. A hungry idiot. Your aunt called me crying. Said he’s misunderstood. I said, ‘No, Carol, he’s just stupid.’”

Grinning, I lean back before she slams a plate down in front of me.

“Eat. Mama’s got gossip, and you’re the only one who can handle it.”

She spends the next thirty minutes telling me about everyone who has been excommunicated from the neighborhood over minor infractions. She’s halfway through telling me about Margie, who reversed into the church noticeboard and fled the scene, when her voice drops and her eyes soften.

Reaching across the table, she squeezes my hand.

“So,” she says softly. “Are you going to tell me what that look on your face is about?”

“It’s just my face.”

She smacks her lips together. “Julian, you’re my son, and I love you to death, but that look is usually one I have to find behind that charming smile you always plaster on your face.”

God, that woman can see right through me.

“I was born with trouble and charm. That’s what you always told me,” I mutter.

She nods. “It’s probably what’s gotten you so far in life. But you—” she points a chipped nail at me “—you look exhausted.”

I blow out a breath and dig the heels of my palms into my eyes.

Because I am.

I’m so fucking tired lately from the noise, the pressure, of working myself half to death to outrun a past that still manages to sleep in the bed next to me.

When I don’t reply, she pats my hand and nods toward my empty plate. “Want seconds?”

“Can’t. I’ve got an event this evening. I need to leave soon.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” There’s not a shred of sarcasm in her tone.

“Worst part of the job.”

“So show a face and dip out early. You don’t owe those wankers anything.”

Nothing in my life impresses my parents. The charity galas. The six-figure donations. The towering offices with my name on the glass.

They don’t care.

I knew, even as a kid, that no matter what I chose to do, they’d tell me they were proud.

The money, the business, the suits—they never needed it.

“Once you’re happy,” my mother always says.

That’s her barometer for success. Not the profits. Not the press. Not the skyline buildings that bear our names.

Once you’re happy.

I think I’ve been so busy striving for success that I forgot about the happiness part.

When I look back at her, she’s chewing her bottom lip while wiping her hands on a tea towel. After a long silence, she stands, crosses to the counter, and uncorks the wine like she’s got something bitter in her throat.

She grabs a glass, fills it halfway, and sits down again.

Something’s wrong.

My mother has always been chatty, but I’ve had the feeling she’s been avoiding telling me something since the moment I walked through the door.

“Spit it out.”

She doesn’t meet my eyes as she draws in a breath. “I saw your mother last week.”

The words hit like a bullet, and my blood runs cold.

“You’re my mother.”

She nods, eyes flicking up. “You know what I mean.”

Yeah, I do. She means my birth mother.

That old, rusted pain squeezes in my chest, but I swallow it down like I always do.

“She doesn’t look good,” she murmurs.

I grip the edge of the table, my voice cold as stone. “She’s well cared for. I make sure of it. Besides, she has a family looking after her.”

“I just thought you might want to know, in case you wanted to see her.”

“She wants nothing to do with me. You know that.”

“But—”

“No,” I cut her off, harder now. “You owe her nothing.”

“She gave me you.”

“She gave me up.”

She flinches before taking a slow sip of her wine.

Thankfully, she doesn’t argue. She knows there’s no winning this one.

Even if there was, I don’t need her to try .

I don’t remember much from that day, but I remember enough. I remember being six with my backpack strapped to my shoulders, following her down the stairwell of our rat-infested apartment building. My socks didn’t match, and my shoelaces were too tight.

She held my hand, which was strange because she never held my hand, but she told me we were going on an adventure, so I took it.

It wasn’t an adventure, far from it.

We had been there twice before at the same squat building with those peeling signs on the windows and the buzz of fluorescent lights. Inside, the same lady was at the front desk—the one who always gave me a lollipop and had a smile that made me feel like I was already broken.

My mother—my birth mother—told them she couldn’t do it anymore.

She shouted it, like it was something someone else had done to her.

“I can’t do it,” she kept saying. “I can’t do it. I can’t even look at him.”

They took me into another room and asked me my name. When I answered, they asked me if I wanted juice.

She was still yelling when the door closed, still yelling while I sat on a bean bag chair, legs swinging, pretending not to care.

I didn’t cry.

Even then, I knew better.

Crying was weak. Crying made you a sissy. That’s what she used to say when I scraped my knees. When I didn’t want to sleep in the dark. When I asked if she’d pick me up from school this time .

She never did.

A woman with red lipstick and a kind face took my hand and said she was going to take me somewhere safe. Somewhere new.

That’s when I cracked.

For the first time, I screamed for her and begged her not to leave me.

To just stop yelling.

To take me home.

She just stood at the end of the hallway. One tear slid down her cheek before she turned her back and walked away.

Just like that.

A hand covers mine, pulling me out of the memory.

My mother—my real mother—squeezes gently.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is thick with guilt she doesn’t deserve. “I shouldn’t have told you. You don’t owe her anything either. You’ve done more than enough for her.”

Nodding, I push back my chair and stand up before this conversation can go any further. I need to regain control of myself today before I fall deeper into the dark hole I’m staring into.

“Julian,” she sighs.

“I’m fine. I promise.”

She stands and presses her small hands to my face. “You’re always fine. That’s the problem.”

I plaster on a smile that doesn’t fool her, but maybe I might fool myself if I keep it in place long enough.

Bending down, I kiss her cheek and grab my keys from the table. “Tell Dad I’ll be back to see him. Maybe give him a couple of days to get the smell of that traitor’s house off him first.”

She beams with pride back at me .

“Text me when you get home,” she calls as I head for the door.

“I’m thirty-four.”

“And still my baby. I carried you in my heart long before you set foot in this kitchen.”