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My hand once again started to pound, and I went to say something to him but once again saw Charles out of the corner of my eye, standing awfully close.
I frowned.
“Let’s go,” I murmured.
We’d lose him in the crowd for sure.
And we did, kind of.
Which was when I decided to ask Slate my most important question.
“Slate, what are we doing?” I questioned.
Slate frowned down at me as we dodged a mother with a triple-wide stroller and three very pissed off triplets wailing away in their seats.
“Going to the hotel like you suggested?” he frowned.
“No,” I licked my dry lips, tasting salt and ice cream. “I mean, us. What are we doing?”
He pulled me behind him when a father and his son nearly took me out.
When he pulled me back in front of him, he said, “I think you and me both know exactly what’s going on here.”
I growled in frustration. “Slate.”
He sighed. “This, you and me, is something that I’m kind of afraid to define because the things I’m feeling, I’m not sure that there’s a definition for it just yet. Okay?”
“Like, you want to be a couple, though? You want this to continue when we get home?” I pushed.
He pulled me off to the side of the flow of traffic leaving the park, and then looked down into my eyes as he said, “This most definitely is going to continue once we get home.”
The certainty in his voice had a chill racing down my spine.
I looked over my shoulder, wondering if we were alone, only to see Charles’ pissed off face as he rushed toward us.
His family was practically running to keep up with him.
“Let’s go,” I urged. “I’m ready for a nap.”
Slate’s eyes went hot. “A nap?”
My lips twitched. “Um, yeah.”
His eyes twinkled as he took my hand into his and urged me forward. “I really wish we didn’t have a twenty-minute bus ride back to our hotel.”
Or a fifteen-minute wait for the bus to even arrive.
We’d literally walked up to the bus stop just as the hotel shuttle that ran every twenty minutes pulled away.
Perfect.
What was even more perfect was that Charles followed us to the same damn line.
It was only after we loaded the bus and finally took our seat that I asked what was on my mind.
“Who is that?” I whispered quietly so the man still behind us with his family wouldn’t hear.
They’d literally followed us all the way out of the park and onto the same bus.
“That’s Charles,” he whispered. “The baby daddy.”
The baby daddy.
Holy shit.
But that still didn’t explain his open hostility aimed in our direction.
“What did he have to say?” I asked curiously.
I mean, I’d been curious before, but now I was rabid for information.
From what little I knew of him, Charles hadn’t really been an enemy.
Had he?
If anybody had a right to be mad, it wasn’t Charles. It was Slate, yet I wasn’t getting any vibes off of Slate that told me he held any hostility when it came to the man.
“He said that he was here with his family,” Slate murmured, pulling me closer when the air conditioner on the bus started to make me shiver. “That he was having a good time until he saw me.”
I snorted. “What’s with the open hostility?” I questioned. “If anybody has a right to be mad, it’s definitely not him.”
He grunted out an agreeing sound.
“He’s been like that since I left for prison,” Slate shrugged, making my head bounce slightly. “Charles has always been an odd duck. What’s even weirder is that he came to see me right before the last day of my trial. Came by and started making all these weird comments about my house. How much Vanessa had hated it. How she’d hated the car that I’d gotten her, and even more how she hadn’t really loved me. A bunch of bullshit because when Vanessa realized that I had found out she’d slept with Charles, she’d been devastated. I could tell. Though I’d decided to leave her, she’d definitely not been too keen on it. She’d wanted to make it work.”
“So weird,” I murmured, allowing my eyes to click to Charles and his family. “They don’t even look like they like each other.”
Slate’s body shifted as he openly stared at Charles, who was looking forward as if he’d just had his plaything taken away from him. Like a spoiled child who was used to getting exactly what he wanted.
“They don’t,” Slate agreed. “What’s even weirder is that I’ve seen him here and there in town since I got out. Never in my life seen her before. Or those kids. Nobody mentioned him having a family, either. I’ve caught up with quite a few cop buddies since I got out, and he’s come up quite a few times. None of those times were any of them mentioned. Not a single one.”
