Page 18 of Little Bird
I got to keep her for just long to feel like I had a family again.
And then she disappeared without any warning, and the pieces of my heart that she’d been putting together shattered again. I never forgave her for that. I want her like the flower wants the sun, the desperation bone deep and echoing through my body.
And yet I hate her for having left me in the first place.
Seeing her again—knowing that she came back without telling me she was going to—just makes it worse. And a part of me is terrified that she’ll only stay long enough to hurt me.
“Well?” I ask, frustrated that my father still hasn’t answered me.
He sighs again, like the weight of the world is sitting on his shoulders. Which is fucking rich. “She was in trouble and needed help, and it was the middle of the night. I didn’t want to wake you. I don’t know how long she’s staying. I don’t know what her plans are.”
I stride toward him and pound my fist on the desk, making the pens and paper jump. “She was in trouble, and she called you?”
He looks up at me, his gaze level and cold. “She didn’t want to call her mother. And I guess I was the next best option.”
I back off, heart in my throat and my head buzzing.
Because his words rip a hole right through me, and for good reason.
If he was the next best option, it means she never even considered me.
By the time we get home, it’s dinnertime and I’m starving. I’m used to blowing through the kitchen and grabbing whatever looks edible, just to avoid meals with my father, but when I walk into the house it smells like beef stew and fresh-baked bread, and the table is set for three.
Taryn is in the kitchen, bustling around like she fucking owns the place, and I can see that the bread has just come out of the oven and the stew is in a pot on the stove. She pauses to put her hair up in a knot on the top of her head, and the anger I felt becomes hazy and hard to remember. The tendrils against her neck are curly, just like they’ve always been, and the skin of her throat is pale and beautiful. Her cheeks, flushed with heat, are stretched wide as she smiles at the bread like it’s just made her day, and when she ducks down to test the stew, she looks like she belongs here.
A Hawke, cooking family dinner.
And before I can think about it, I’m moving toward her, my hands itching to feel her skin again, my mind on nothing but her. I want to know where she’s been and what she’s been doing. I want to know why she’s here again and how long she’s going to stay. And God, I want to take her in my arms and hold her for hours. Tell her how much I missed her and how long the nights were without her laughter to keep me company. The nightmares I had when I realized she was gone.
The way I cried for her at night, when no one was watching.
Before I can get to her, though, my father appears between us, scowling like Taryn’s just insulted him, and I stop, my thoughts melting away more quickly than the thin crust of ice on the ground when the sun hits it in the morning.
My heart is crying out for Taryn, my body yearning for her with a warmth I haven’t felt in four years. But I can’t let my father see that. I don’t know what he’d do with it, and I’m not willing to give him anything he can use against me.
“You cooked?” he asks, sounding like he’s never seen anything more unlikely.
Taryn looks at him and raises one perfect eyebrow. “No, I paid someone else to come do it and then put on the apron so I could pretend it was me. Take credit for someone else’s hard work. Yes, I cooked. You guys were gone all day. I assumed you’d come home hungry.”
He and I exchange one long, loaded look, both of us no doubt trying to figure out how to tell her what we’re thinking.
“We don’t usually have family dinners,” I say bluntly, deciding it doesn’t make sense to beat around the bush.
Taryn’s face turns to me, and now both brows are lifted high. “You don’t have family dinners?” she asks slowly. “You don’t... eat together anymore?”
This time it’s my father who answers. “No.”
She doesn’t look away from me, but does narrow her eyes as if she’s trying to read my mind, and I close my expression and stare back at her, waiting for her to figure out that she can’t do that anymore.
I’ve gotten a lot better at hiding my thoughts since she left.
She sees me shutting down and cocks her head, looking exactly like a bird, and that nearly breaks me. It’s been so long since anyone tried to read me. So long since anyone cared enough to bother with what I might be thinking or feeling. And the fact that she’s here, and she’s already trying to stare me down, hits me in a place I thought was dead.
I feel my mouth twitch and stop it immediately, but it’s too late.
She saw it, and a sneaky grin spreads across her own lips in response.
Shit. I thought I was better at hiding my thoughts than that.
