Page 123 of Your Soul to Keep

To give yourself over without a single thought to carrying your own weight?

The distance between me and Zoe shrunk all too quickly.

She barely spared me a glance. Her yearning gaze searched the sleepy face of her child.

I tightened my hold.

Her lips thinning into a straight line told me it did not escape her notice.

She returned her attention to Gabe. “I wanted to see her for her birthday.”

“Then you should have called and made arrangements,” he snapped.

“I miss her. I miss you.” Turning slightly away from me, she rushed on. “Even if it’s only for Dylan’s sake at first, I think we could have something special. At the very least, I want to try.”

I recoiled, punched backward by her words.

I suspected all along it would come to this, but the fact she had the audacity to say it in front of me like I was nothing shocked me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gabe growled.

Dylan raised her sleepy head and looked around. “Aunt Zo-Zo,” she murmured, smiling shyly.

Zoe winced, her regret obvious.

She looked at me then.

I recognized the wild in her eyes. The desperation. The panic. The willingness to do anything to change the outcome.

Could she see the same in mine?

I’d been there more than once.

She was the mirror of my past.

The blood rushed to my feet. Because I was the reflection in their rear-view.

Gabe scoffed and angled his body away from both of us. Hands on his hips, gaze trained to the ground, chest rapidly rising and falling, he fought to rein in his temper.

Lifting his head to meet my eyes, he jerked his chin for me to take Dylan inside and, putting himself between Zoe and me, placed a guiding hand at my back and unlocked the front door.

Holding it open, he dropped his voice to my ear. “Please, Shae-baby, take Dylan inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Dylan didn’t protest as I walked past her mother, my knees shaking so badly I was surprised I managed to walk a straight line. As much as I despised Zoe, I could hardly bear the pain she must have felt at Dylan’s easy dismissal.

Dylan’s head drooped once more to my shoulder.

Every atom of my being urged me to listen at the door, but Dylan needed her little bed. And if things got ugly, she didn’t need to hear it.

Thankfully, we’d changed her into her pajamas before leaving her grandparents’ house. She went down easily, and I headed back to the front door to listen shamelessly.

“Zoe, where is this coming from?” Gabe asked quietly. They sat side by side on the top step. “We’ve never been anything more than friends.”

She snorted. “The child we made gives evidence to the contrary.”

He leaned away from her, shaking his head. “I put my dick a lot of places I shouldn’t have. Are you saying I should have made a family with any one of the other women if one of those hook-ups resulted in a child?”

“So, I’m just a hook-up now?” she asked bitterly.

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