He picked at a few of my highlighted pages and laughed at them like I was naïve. “You don’t need to know where I come from, little girl.”
Cade had resorted to sitting down at my desk and fiddling on his phone, but he lifted an eyebrow at that. “Ignore him. He lives near us, about an hour from here. It’s easier that way.”
“Easier for what?”
“For his dad and him to be around. Family’s everything, you know?” Cade replied.
Bastian walked over to tilt a photo on the wall. They hung from little clothing pins, and I’d strung lights around them to add joy to the memories. “You’re close to your dad, huh? You guys look like you’re always having fun.”
“Of course. Who isn’t close to their father?” I shrugged, baffled by the question.
They all looked at each other as if pained by my response.
“No brothers or sisters? No mother or friends?” He wiggled a picture between his forefinger and thumb as if I didn’t know my own photos I had hung up.
“No brothers or sisters. No mother either. As for friends . . . well, you know what Cade said.” I shoved a hand into my jean shorts’ pocket, and my other hand caught the gold necklace hanging from my neck. “Family’s everything.”
Bastian hummed low as he continued studying my wall of mementos, but Rome stepped closer to me and squinted at my neck. His scrutiny had my body tightening, tingling, aching in a way I’d never quite experienced before.
“Cleopatra,” he murmured as his hand shot out. His fingers touched the etchings on the front. “What a powerful being.”
My breath shuddered as we stared at each other. Sure, people had commented on my necklace before. “Oh, what a pretty woman she was,” they would say, or “The balls on that woman,” but never had they breathed her name with such awe, like he felt what I felt about her, like he knew that whether she was a man or woman was irrelevant.
A powerful being.
I soaked up his words, his enamored stare at this woman, and thought for the first time ever that I wanted a man to look at me like that. I wanted a dark man, full of secrets and depth, to look at me just like Rome looked at my necklace.
“She’s a reminder of what someone, even someone like me, can strive to be even when the odds are against them,” I said.
“Or maybe of what you already are,” he whispered, and his hand didn’t leave my neck. It rubbed my collarbone like he knew me, like we’d met in another life and he was sure we’d be connected in this one.
We heard a loud bang from downstairs, and he yanked back his hand. I felt the loss of his skin on mine immediately but was too concerned about my father to mourn it.
I rushed to the stairs. Bastian and Cade followed. Rome showed up a minute later, like he took his time with everything in life.
We huddled at the top, quiet because we knew our fathers hadn’t called us back, that they didn’t want us privy to their conversation.
“Dougie, you know you can’t go on like this much longer,” Mario pleaded with him. “Your girl needs a dad, and she needs help. You going to let her take care of you all alone?”
Hearing the truth out loud sometimes hurts more than keeping it bottled up inside. My daddy was dying, and everyone here knew it. This disease ate at the brain and didn’t give it a way out. The only dream I had now was that someone would make him more comfortable than I could. I leaned closer to the staircase, suddenly more hopeful than I had been in months.
“I don’t want her involved ever,” my dad responded in the soft voice he’d adopted since the disease took over. “I told you this. You respect that. You respect the one thing I got.”
“I’ve always respected that,” Mario shot back. “I’m trying to help.”
“You’re trying to control. You don’t control my life. We made that deal long ago.”
I heard a deep sigh and a string of curses before he responded again. “She’ll end up in foster care. And that’s a recipe for sex trafficking. I used to have deals with half the families around here.”
“I’ll make plans with someone.” My father’s voice cracked.
I hung my head and fisted one of my hands.
Rome’s shoulder bumped into mine. “Easy, Cleo,” he whispered. “Not time to fight yet.”
At that moment, I decided I would fight Rome forever. It wasn’t his right to tell me when to protect those I loved. “You all need to leave. This stress isn’t good for him. And we’re just fine here.” I almost choked on the words, knowing how much I’d bargained with any god in existence to save my father.
“I don’t doubt it,” Rome grumbled under his breath.