Page 10 of Late Nights & Love Lines
If I could stab my own conscience, I would. Of course it’s her fault. She fucked my best friend and VP, not me. I’ve always been faithful.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I almost drop it.
Alexei:You doing okay?
Before answering, I scroll through my messages. It’s something I’ve been doing obsessively since Mya left. Not for me, but with an overwhelming sense of sadness I have for my children. How can she go no-contact with our kids? At least the boys have stopped asking for her every night. That was like getting kicked in the nuts over and over again.
Seren made her position perfectly clear when she blocked her mother, but the boys aren’t carrying that same rage, at least not yet, and their innocent questions electrocute my heart when I’m least expecting it.
Me:Fine. You on your way?
I’d told him he didn’t need to come, but he wanted to meet with Elijah in person.
Alexei:Yes. Meeting’s set for 10 tomorrow.
Alexei:How’s Seren?
This. This is why I keep the womanizing prick around. He always has my back, and he loves my kids with a fierceness most children will never experience. He once said it’s because he never intends to have his own children and showering mine with all his love ensures it doesn’t fester in his body and make him soft.
He’s an idiot.
Me:I’m giving her space to explore the camp.
Alexei:In the woods? Is that safe?
Me:You know that I’ve successfully parented for twelve whole years now, right?
Me:She knows not to leave the camp boundaries.
Me:I promise we’ll be fine.
Alexei:…
A note of music flutters on the wind, tickling a memory I can’t catch. Pocketing my phone, I walk farther down the trail and hear another note, followed by another that siphons the breath from my lungs.
Did Seren find the piano? Fuck, please let that be her playing.
I pick up my pace, and a large building comes into view around the next corner. The front door is propped open, but I walk around to the windows on the side so I don’t disturb her. Even if she only ever plays for herself, I want her to play—I need her to play again.
It’s been months since she’s touched the piano at home. Before the divorce, there wasn’t a day since she started taking lessons that she hadn’t played…something.
The piano stops and salty emotions clog my throat when I hear Seren sing. But as I peer through the window, my body tenses and my mind whirls with questions. She’s singing in front of that woman—no, she’s singing to her.
Seren won’t even hum in front of me, but she’s opened her soul to this stranger.
Blood wooshes in my ears when she finishes, and I miss what the woman said.
“So, you’re Rowan?” Seren’s words kick me in the chest, and suddenly I’m freefalling without a net to catch me.
Rowan. Peach. Fuck.
Spinning away from the window, I press my back into the wall of the cabin. Visions of a broken Rowan have haunted my dreams for years. It’s always made me feel like a fucking pervert, even if there was nothing sexual about those dreams. What grown-ass man dreams about a childhood friend from a moment in time twenty-five years ago?
“Don’t run.” I hold out my hands so I don’t scare the girl sitting beside the dock. I think she scares easily, like my neighbor’s puppy. “How old are you?”
Her little chin tilts to the sky. “Eight,” she says, folding her arms in front of her belly. She’s wearing aJames and the Giant PeachT-shirt but looks like thatJane of the Junglecartoon I watched with her wild blond hair that’s falling out of its braid.
“I’m ten,” I tell her proudly, and suddenly I’m pretty sure I’m the giant and it’s my job to protect her. “This is my grandparents’ camp. Is it your first time here?”
