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“Yay!”
I already felt a sense of relief about the situation, and I’d given the kid something to look forward to. Hopefully, I could talk to the therapist one-on-one about how to better handle this.
I had Finley cover her eyes with the blanket as I changed into sweats. “You can sleep in my bed tonight,” I told her as I flipped off the light and slid into the bed next to her. Finley was smiling from ear to ear—she knew I usually didn’t allow this. She always ended up kicking me in the ribs or stealing the blanket. But tonight, I could deal with all of that.
Kendall was right. Finley was not okay.
That night, as she snored beside me, I stared up at the ceiling for what felt like an hour—maybe even longer. My daughter was monumentally traumatized by what her mother had done to her, and I’d spent the last couple of months pretending like everything was okay.
And that night, I’d watched my parents drag a crying Finley away from the festival grounds and simply brushed it off. Dismissed it. At the time, my brain could only focus on one thing: getting more time with Kendall. If I had just been paying closer attention, maybe I would have noticed how genuine her tears were.
The guilt kept me awake well into the early morning hours. As I watched Finley sleep, I stroked the side of her cheek, deciding I’d never again put my desires before her needs.
chapter twenty-six
kendall
On Sunday morning, I threw myself headfirst into a new hobby: baking.
Normally, I spent Sunday mornings curled under a blanket devouring smutty romance novels—often cover-to-cover. But that morning, I was so full of nervous energy, I felt the need to do something with my hands. So I baked some banana nut muffins from a mix I found in the pantry. Surely I could handle this.
As I whisked the mixture in the bowl, I closed my eyes and imagined Mason looking up at me, the whiskers on his chin glistening from my arousal. I felt him on top of me, inside of me. I smelled his cinnamon-y, musky scent mixing with the aroma of funnel cakes, which lingered in the air well after the festival was over. I heard the way he called me “princess” and the sounds his mouth made when he was licking me.
None of it could ever happen again. It shouldn’t have happened to begin with—why had I kissed him in the first place, knowing where it would lead? He’d practically spelled it out for me. If I had known just how good it could be, maybe I would have resisted. Now I knew what it felt like to be close to Mason Reed, and my mind and body were forever changed.
“So stupid,” I muttered to myself, sloppily pouring the banana-scented mixture into the muffin pan. I popped it into the oven before grabbing my book and a blanket, taking them to the porch as though a change of scenery might distract me.
And maybe it would have if my phone hadn’t lit up with a “good morning” text from Mason—immediately followed by a picture of him lying down with Finley’s feet next to his head, captioned “how I slept.”
It made me giddy. I covered my face with the blanket and screamed into it, realizing this made it two mornings in a row now that he’d texted me. Boyfriend behavior.
I thought carefully about how to reply, but I couldn’t hold myself back from responding to that photo with a bunch of heart emojis. Real subtle, Kendall.
We texted back and forth for five minutes, just talking about Finley and how her tiny body took up 90% of Mason’s bed. I only put my phone down when Jamie’s car pulled up to the curb at the end of her night shift at the pharmacy. She strolled up to the porch, pulled her vape out of her pocket, and sat next to me on the swing.
“How’d your book club thing go last night?”
She raised her eyebrows. “It was fun. We’re definitely going to make it a regular thing.” She zipped up her jacket with a shiver, so I draped the blanket over her back. Tugging the corner of it over her shoulder, she added, “Would’ve been a lot better if Daya hadn’t gone to her room an hour into it.”
“Oh, did something happen?”
“No. She just—” Jamie shook her head, sucking on her vape. “She just wasn’t vibing with my friends, I guess. It’s hard not to take it personal.”
“Well, Daya’s a little shy. Maybe it’s hard for her to socialize with a big group of people like that?”
“I know. You’re not wrong. But the thing is, I’m constantly giving up doing social things for the sake of her comfort. We stay home all the time now, and we don’t talk to people. I thought that by inviting people to us, into the comfort of our own home, it would make a difference. But I guess not. She couldn’t just make an effort for a few hours?”
I could see her point.
“We’re just so different,” Jamie said, sticking her vape into her jacket pocket. I nodded. Perhaps they were too different, I thought. “Anyway, how’d that festival go?”
I turned my head toward her, a grin creeping onto my lips.
Jamie squinted at me, sliding closer to me so the blanket could cover her better. “What? Why are you smiling like a weirdo?”
My smile grew until my cheeks hurt. “I don’t know,” I lied.
“Oh my god.” Her mouth fell open. “You had sex with that Hanson brother, didn’t you?”
