Page 101 of Our Radiant Embers

The words carried slightly more challenge than I usually dared with my dad, and the way his eyes narrowed told me he’d noticed. With measured steps, I moved towards the door—I better get out before I lost my embryonic backbone.

“Adam.” It was sharp as a whip. Fuck.

“Yes?” I turned slowly, calmly. Showing nerves would only encourage him to come down hard in the hopes that I’d finally crack—we’d been here before. Last time things had escalated, I’d ended up in a pub and, some time later, with Liam’s cock down my throat.

“Need I remind you”—my dad’s clear enunciation sought to make a point—“that you have a duty to this family?”

“Trust me, I’m well aware.” I rolled my shoulders back and raised my head, allowing bitterness to tinge my tone. “Hard to forget, really, when that seems to be my sole purpose around here.”

“I do not have time for this.”

“Oh, excuse me.” I bit out a sharp laugh. “I do damn near everything you ask of me, Dad—just like a good little foot soldier. But of course you don’t have time for my…what? My drama?”

“My job is to protect this family, Adam—and by God, I will.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Coddling you hasn’t accomplished anything, now has it?”

“Coddling me?” I repeated blankly. “Is a simple ‘I see you’ really too much to ask for?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake—I am not your mother.”

I drew back, a harsh intake of air rasping along my throat. Faint piano notes floated by, the sickeningly sweet piece turning my stomach as I stared at my father and he stared back. His face was impassive even though I caught a brief glint of regret in his eyes.

“Message received,” I said softly.

He inhaled as though to speak. Then he nodded once, a dismissal, and I honestly didn’t know why I’d expected more from him. I should have learned by now.

I slipped out of the room and into the hallway, my steps echoing on the polished marble. ‘You’re worth every second.’ I tried to focus on the warm weight of the words rather than the fact that Liam deserved better.

He did, yes.

But I was his for as long as he would have me.

19

LIAM

‘Hey. Belated birthday dinner with some friends tonight. Want to come? Gale and Cassandra will be there, her boyfriend too.’

Adam’s message came in a mere two hours after I’d left his flat. I nearly replied with a teasing ‘Miss me already?’ Something stalled me, though—maybe it was the full stop after his ‘hey’ or something about the rhythm of his words that struck me as slightly off.

‘Should I bring a present?’ I asked instead.

‘You already got me one.’

‘Are your friends the kind of crowd where a no-name leather bracelet counts?’

‘It does to me,’ was his simple response, and I decided this was not a battle worth fighting. I wasn’t trying to compete with his friends anyway.

I glanced up from my phone when Laurie and Jack launched into a spirited disagreement about who got to pick the music. Clad in a greasy overall, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, Laurie pointed out that Jack had been in control of the stereo yesterday. He countered that yes, true, but since his ears were still bleeding from “that godawful K-pop stuff” she’d played on Saturday, he was entitled to pick twice in a row.

“You know how people first dismissed The Beatles because young girls liked them?” she countered.

Jack’s head tilted at a stubborn angle. “BLACKPINK are hardly Beatles contenders.”

”Why?” She leaned forward with a predatory smile. “Because they’re girls?”

He snorted. “Because music quality.”

I tuned them out and sent Adam a, ‘When and where?’

---