“He’s only nine months, but I needed to give him a safe space to grow up, surrounded by family and community. A place where everyone knowing your name or not being afraid to lock your doors at night isn’t just a lyric in a song or a pretty myth. My childhood may not have been the best or the most stable, but he deserves it.”
The silence thickens, dense and snarled with emotions that aren’t so clearly identifiable as anger, sadness, scorn, pain. They’re all of those. Maybe none of them. And they’re emanating from Lennon in a mess so tangible I could reach out and pull on a tangled strand.
“His name?” she asks, and the low, hoarse question is so low, I almost miss it.
No, I don’t. I couldn’t miss one fucking thing about her, I’m that damn attuned to her.
“Gunner.”
The overwhelming need to share every wondrous detail about my son propels the words to the back of my throat, to my tongue. I even open my mouth, but she turns her head and looks at me in the next moment. And the words curl in on themselves and die there.
Even the shadows can’t hide the stark pain that glitters in her dark eyes. It drives the air from my lungs, and I damn near stumble back, away from that agony like the fucking coward I called her. But it’s me who wants to run, to disappear. Because staring into those bottomless, beautiful eyes, I can’t escape from the inescapable.
Icaused the hurt turning her brown eyes nearly black.
I’mthe reason for the hard edge of bitterness in this woman who’d been nothing but soft lines and curves.
Another thing I have to own.
“Lennon,” I rasp.
“Welcome home, King,” she whispers and turns around, giving me her back. “Now stay the hell away from me.”
With that parting shot, she walks away from me, and in seconds, she disappears and I stare at the spot where she stood. Only the faint scent of violets and musk and the dull pounding of my heart and cock assure me she was here.
And that I’m well and truly fucked.
3
Lennon
Ineed a moment.
Closing my eyes, I inhale and hold the deep breath, then seconds later, release it. And wait.
Oh yes. A smile curls my lips as satisfaction glides through me.
Blessed quiet.
Don’t get me wrong. I love teaching the third grade. And I adore my students. Inquisitive, energetic, hilarious, super smart and terrifyingly blunt, they’re a joy to greet and educate. Even on those days when they work my nerves like there’s going to be a bonus check in their report cards. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing than teaching.
And yet… I savor the calm and quiet at the end of the day after they’ve all steamrolled down the hallway to their buses or car rides home.
“That right there is the face of someone who is giving thanks for 2:55 pm and the end-of-the-day bell.” An evil chuckle follows the pronouncement, and I squint at Lena Graves, the elementary school’s administrative assistant. “What happened? Daryl Rhodes tell you your breath stink again?”
I groan but ruin it with a loud snicker.
“You know he’s ruined tuna fish for me, right? Like forever. I’m thinking about moving his desk next to Holly Turner. She had tunawith onionsthe other day for lunch. That’d show him.”
Lena threw her head back with a loud cackle, her gorgeous, long dreads—died a deep blue this week—swing over her shoulder, revealing the other shaved side of her head.
“That is a whole level of petty, and I aspire to attain it.” She grins, still laughing as she moves farther into my classroom.
I arch an eyebrow as she props a hip against one of the bookcases.
“Uh, aren’t you supposed to be in the front office?”
“Nah, ol’ girl is in there. Since she seems to know everything, she can hold it down while I get a cup of coffee.” Lena holds up a white mug with the school’s red and white logo on it.