Or maybe she’s the one I expect to see.
And the fact I expect to see her tells you just how fucked I am. Not only because it means I don’t expect Emma anymore, that I’ve given up on that illusion—but because Octavia won’t be here always.
Or even for much longer. A girl like her, she’ll find a boyfriend her age, get married and have kids—or go to college. She only works for me, and yeah, we fucked twice, but that doesn’t mean anything.
Can’t mean anything, not to a pretty girl like her. So young. I know for some people twelve years aren’t that big of an age difference, but on days like this… yeah, tonight those twelve years that separate us feel like a century.
I guess tonight I just feel way too old for my twenty-nine years. Hey, I’ll be thirty soon.
Practically an old man.
“Matt?” She’s still leaning over me, and damn, I completely spaced out.
“Yeah,” I grind out. “M’good.”
She puts her hand on my forehead, and it’s cool and smooth, and my eyes close from the gentleness of the gesture. It hits me straight in the chest.
Yeah, she’s gonna break me right through.
Something’s nagging at me, though. I frown and open my eyes to look at her. “You didn’t go home tonight.”
“I’m staying.”
And fuck me for the hope that lights up inside me, reading her words in the way I want to read them.
So I do what I always do: I break the moment. Get a hit in before life kicks the shit out of me.
“Go home,” I mutter, and then drive the nail deeper. “I don’t need a fucking nanny. It’s my kids I’m paying you for.”
She flinches, and a sick pain travels through my head, my chest.
Because this is Octavia, and it’s just wrong. “Tay…”
“Don’t worry,” she whispers and turns away. She walks to the window, looking out. “This night’s on me. Call it a gift. If you know the meaning of the word.”
Fuck. You piece of shit, Matt. “Hey, listen…”
She doesn’t turn around. “I read the message you found on the door.”
Holy fuck, I forgot about it. “You will lose what she has lost,” I whisper.
“I called the police, told them about it.”
Good thinking, girl.
“They were asking if you know what it means.”
“I don’t.”
Is it about Emma? She lost… her life.
We lost her.
No, this makes no sense.
“Tay, come here.”
She hesitates.