Page 37 of Give Me Perfect Love

My brows lift at the fact she told him that. I’m not sure what he says back, but she says, “Sure.” And then she rambles off the address before hanging up.

She puts the phone in the cup holder and looks out the window. “He’ll be here in a few.”

I slow the car as we near the house again. “He’s going to join us?” I ask.

She twists her head back to me. “He knows my life back then was no picnic. He deserves to have a part in this… him being my dad and all.”

I park the car and smile at her. “You amaze me, girl.” She returns my smile and I reach over and grab the back of her neck before kissing her forehead and then her lips.

“I love you.”

She looks at me and slightly shakes her head. I’m not sure if she believes that I really do love her, or she just can’t believe someone actually does.

Either option breaks my fucking heart, and I swear I’ll make her feel my love every day from here on out. Until she knows it deep in her soul.

“Say it back,” I tell her. “Just once say it back to me.” I changed my mind. I need her to say it more than I’m willing to wait for her to be ready.

She folds her lips in, about to say something, but then we hear a truck flying down the road. I curse under my breath but open the car door. She repeats this action as Mills turns into the drive and parks his two-door truck. I grab the gas cans and hand one to her.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Yes.” She takes it from me as Mills walks up. “Sorry to keep you two waiting. I got here as fast as I could.”

“We heard,” Kat says playfully, like this is a lighthearted moment and we’re not about to burn a house down, which could put us all in jail.

He smiles at his kid. “Well, let’s do this.”

We all make our way up the steps and walk into the house. Kat goes to the back first and I follow her. Mills stays in the living room, looking at everything like I did. He’s probably mentally shooting Saw in the head, like I’ve pictured myself doing a million times over.

With the gas can in her hand, Kat pushes open a door I didn’t in the very back of the house. She walks in like she owns the goddamn place and starts pouring gasoline over a dresser before she goes to the bed.

“Don’t get it on you,” I tell her. She listens without responding and walks to what I assume is a bathroom, splashing gas onto the sink and countertop.

She moves past me, clearly on a mission. Her bedroom is next, and with pure determination, she smothers the room in fuel. Gas consumes the smell of mold and a dirty past.

My girl is fierce in her task of drenching this place and burning it to the ground. I’m in awe of her. She came from this. She lived here with that son of a bitch. I wish he were here so I could cut his dick off and shove it down his throat.

Abruptly, she stops what she’s doing and looks out the window of her old bedroom. Her ponytail is falling and her eyes look wild. She breathes heavily with a white-knuckle grip on the gas can. Her eyes move from the window to the single bed she’s soaked.

I notice the slight shake in her hand, and I see it when her grip loosens. The can falls to the floor. A sound comes from her throat, laced with agony as her hand goes over her mouth.

I don’t rush to comfort her.

I don’t say a word.

I was right earlier when I thought she hadn’t been in this room, and from her reaction, the scabs of her past have been ripped off, freely bleeding again.

I can’t imagine what happened in this room, because it kills me. I won’t allow my mind to fully go there.

But she knows.

She lived it.

And now she’s reliving it.

She drops her hands to her sides, forming fists. She turns, looking at me.

Rage, pure and hot, burns in silver-blue. The emotion dilates her pupils and tightens her jaw. A vein twitches in her pretty neck and her lips are line straight. I know this emotion all too well.

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