Page 84 of Caged Bird

“And a nephew,” Augie added. “Ridge. He’s only a few weeks old, so we don’t have a printed photo of him yet but…” He pulled his phone from his pocket and brought up an app. “Here’s a photo.”

I blinked at the image. A beautiful auburn-haired woman sat in the middle of the couch, baby in her arms, and the same two small girls from the photo on the wall either side of her. Three men rounded out the photo, my brother being one of them, the other two vaguely familiar. Not in the sense I knew them, but that maybe I’d seen them around town somewhere. “Who are they?”

Ophelia leaned over to peer at the screen. “V’s partners. His relationship is…unconventional.”

I gazed down at my brother’s face in the photo. “But he’s happy.”

Ophelia nodded. “He is.”

I nodded. “You both are.”

She had that almost guilty look on her face, like she wanted to apologize. But instead she glanced at Zane before dragging her eyes back to me. “You will be too, Fawn. I promise. We’re going to get Otis back for you.”

I bit down on my lip so I wouldn’t cry again. “I know.”

And the thing was, I believed it.

I had to, or I’d fall apart. And I didn’t get to do that. Ever since I’d first felt that tiny baby moving inside me, so desperate to live even though he was born into the worst of circumstances, I hadn’t had the luxury of giving up.

Because he needed me.

We’d needed each other. He’d been my reason to keep going, every day, to keep putting one foot forward, even when those steps caused me pain.

They were all leading me here. I closed my eyes, imagining a world where Otis ran around happily, playing with the two girls in the photo on the wall. His cousins.

A sense of peace and calm fell over me. I hadn’t come this far to fall apart now.

I was getting my son back.

But Ophelia and Zane were dead on their feet, and all of us needed showers and some proper sleep. Ophelia and Augie led the way up the stairs, and I smiled at their backs, and the way she melted into his side the moment he put his arm around her. He kissed the top of her head on the upstairs landing, then pulled open a linen closet, taking out two soft towels and passing them to Zane.

Augie still didn’t seem very happy about the man standing behind me, but I shot him a “please be nice” look.

He grumbled something that sounded like, “I never could say no to you” beneath his breath.

“You can have Banjo’s old room.” Ophelia pointed across the hallway. “Bathroom is right there. I’m prioritizing sleep, so you two have it all to yourselves for at least a few hours. Help yourself to anything else you need. Food’s in the kitchen if you get hungry.”

She pushed Augie into their room, and a second later, their bedsprings gave a telltale squeak of her getting into it.

Zane and I were suddenly alone. Nerves lit up in my belly, the adrenaline I’d been living on exhausted and only raw feelings left in its place. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. We’d done things, said things, but all of them under the veil of fear and forced proximity.

Nobody was forcing us to do anything right now. It should have been the most freeing feeling in the world, and yet it was somehow also terrifying.

But Zane’s hand slid to the side of my neck, and he tilted my face up. His lips landed on mine softly. I melted into him the exact same way Ophelia had with Augie. I let him catch me, let his touch fuel my tired body, even though he was clearly just as exhausted as I was.

But his kisses weren’t. They were warm and sweet and held a feeling of safety we hadn’t had before.

In the bathroom, he broke away, turning on the faucet to fill the bathtub. But then he went right back to kissing me, and I let my head swirl with the feel of his tongue in my mouth and our bodies connecting in a new way. One that wasn’t driven by adrenaline or the threat of being caught at any moment.

His fingers found the zipper on my dress, and he drew it down my spine, twisting me in the process to follow it with his lips. The fabric fell at my feet, a puddle on the floor, my underwear quickly joining it.

I stood naked before him, in the warm light of the morning, nowhere to hide, his gaze taking in every broken part of me.

As well as all the parts his touch had started to heal.

He kissed my shoulder. “Get in.”

I did, well used to having someone watch me bathe, but this felt entirely different than when Eddie leered at me, roughly groping my tits and pussy whenever he felt like it.

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