The thought makes me feel sick.
He’s listed as the father on Orlando’s birth certificate, but I don’t think he could just waltz in and claim custody without talking to a judge. He couldn’t, right? Shit. I finish my glass of wine and then pour another. The words on the page in front of me aren’t making any sort of sense, and I realize that I’m fooling myself if I think I’m going to be able to read this book tonight.
I head to bed and lay there for a really, really long time. My thoughts are jumbled and confused, and I miss the days when Cage and I were close. Those days may have been just a few years ago, but they suddenly feel much further away. I lay in bed for what feels like forever, but sleep eludes me.
Eventually, I get up and go back to the living room. The house feels colder than it did earlier, so I adjust the thermostat. Should I make a fire? Maybe I should make a fire. I should probably make a fire. I don’t want to, though. The idea of doing anything at all, even making a little decision, seems just overwhelmingly difficult.
I slump over on the couch and look out the window. In the darkness, I can see snow swirling around outside. My porch light is on like a little beacon, and I can see the snowflakes whirling. Tomorrow, we’re going to have enough snow that I might not be able to go to work. That doesn’t seem so bad, though. The idea of just hiding away from the world with my kid seems kind of...nice.
But then there’s a knock at the door, and I realize that I got my hopes up much too easily. Even before I push myself up off the couch and walk over to peer through my peephole, I know who it’s going to be. Who else could it be? Who else would brave a fucking snowstorm to come bother me?
Sure enough, it’s Cage.
He seems completely unbothered by the cold. I guess I wouldn’t be bothered, either, if I were a shifter.
I open the door and step aside, but I don’t say anything at all. What would I say? It’s not like I’m going to tell him to leave. The storm is awful and the roads are definitely icy. Ex-lover or not, I’m not going to shove him outside in t
he cold. He might be warm because he’s a bear, but he’s in his human form now, and Cage doesn’t deserve to be caught in a snowstorm.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” he says, stepping inside. He stomps his boots a few times and snow flakes off of them and onto the mat. He closes the door behind him and bends over to unlace his boot. He pulls them off one-at-a-time and sets them by the door. I’ll never understand how he has the balance to move like that. It completely eludes me.
“I’m not.”
“Why aren’t you surprised to see me?”
“I was surprised to see you earlier today. I’m not surprised now.”
“It’s been a long time. Maybe you think I forgot how to find you.”
“Considering it took you five years to find me, I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.”
I stare at him.
I might have let him into my home, but I’m not about to make this easy for him. Whether he’s here to ask about Orlando or his mom or me, I don’t know. I really haven’t got the faintest idea. What I do know s that no matter what he wants, he’s bear enough to ask, and he can ask without any gentle prodding or pushing from me.
He looks around my house, analyzing it. I watch him, wondering what he’s thinking. He better not judge me. My house might be a little shabby and minimally furnished, but I’m a single mom on a single income. Yeah, I have the money Betty left us, but I’m not touching that. That’s for Orlando, when he’s older. I’m not about to dip my fingers into my kid’s inheritance just because I could use a new couch or better curtains.
That’s not my style.
He looks at everything from the pictures on the walls to the little kitchen. My home is a quaint little cabin in the woods, but it’s bigger than I probably need. There’s a single bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, along with a kitchen and a living room. The first floor is very open. There’s nothing dividing the kitchen from the living room at all. The bedroom and bathroom are at the back of the cabin, and they aren’t connected. You have to leave the bedroom to go into the bathroom because there’s only one. Then there’s a little loft, and I sleep up there. I decided long enough to let Orlando have the bedroom.
“What do you want, Cage?”
He pulls his eyes away from my home, almost like he forgot I was here.
Weird.
“Do I have to have a reason to want to see you?”
“After five years? Yes.”
I cross my arms over my chest and when his eyes drop to my breasts and quickly back up to my face, I realize that not only am I not wearing a bra, but that I’m cold as hell and my nipples are probably hard.
Whatever.
Let him look.
It’s not like he’ll ever be tasting them again.