Page 65 of The Woman with the Target on her Back (Grassi Family)

I drank it in silence.

“Let’s go to bed,” I said, walking toward the bedroom, brushing my teeth, then climbing into bed.

“Baby…” August said when he was under the covers with me, clearly wanting to try to broach my mood again.

“No talking,” I said, sliding over him, my hair curtaining our heads, then sealing my lips to his.

We were slow and soft then, hands exploring without the usual urgency, stoking slowly spreading wildfires through us.

I ran my hands and lips over his face, neck, chest, stomach, then back up again, trying to memorize the feel of every inch of him.

My lips were on his as I took him inside, inch by inch, before moving backward and riding him.

Slowly, as his hands moved over me, as he told me how beautiful I was.

We came together a long time later, bodies spent and warm.

As I curled up at his side, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were never going to do that again.

That this, for all intents and purposes, was goodbye.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

August

I had a sister, girl cousins, a mom, aunts, and nieces.

I knew what a girl looked like the morning after crying over something.

The red eyes, the swollen lids, the splotchy cheeks.

That was exactly how Traveler looked as she moved out of the bedroom after getting dressed for the day.

The problem was, Aurelio was there, and I didn’t want to put her on the spot in front of him.

I could tell from one look at him, though, that he came to the same conclusion about Traveler.

“What did you bring?” Traveler asked, putting a little too much pep into her voice, making it sound extra false.

“I found a bakery that had some cool shit,” Aurelio said. “Chocolate croissants, cinnamon rolls as big as my palm…”

He didn’t even get to finish explaining before Traveler was reaching into the box, grabbing one of each of those, and taking big bites.

And when she was done with those, she reached for a coffee roll as well.

“I, ah, I picked up some parfaits too, for something healthy,” Aurelio said, pulling three out of the bags. He might as well not even have said it as Traveler devoured her coffee roll, then looked at what was left, trying to decide her next target.

Before she could, though, her phone was ringing, and her whole body was tensing.

With a small sigh, she wiped her hands, and reached for her phone, squinting at the number before answering.

“Hello?” she answered. “Dad? What number… oh. What? Did the doctors… that’s probably not a good… of course you did,” she sighed, shoulders slumping. “I, ah, yeah. We’re at a hotel,” she said, rattling off the name.

That explained it.

Her dad signed himself out of the hospital.

“No, I have your wallet,” she said. “Yeah, okay. Ah, sure. Yeah the presidential suite,” she said. “Okay. Yeah.”

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