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I’ve seen him amused. I’ve watched him smile at students and colleagues. I know the slight curve of his mouth when someone surprises him with a good answer and the way his whole expression changes when he reads something he loves. I’ve never seen this.

His glasses are crooked. His head is tipped toward hers, and his mouth is open in a laugh I have never heard. Juney is pressed against his side as though she belongs there.

I tear the photograph between them.

Juney’s half falls onto the broken lamp. Oliver’s goes into my bag. He’s still laughing in what remains of the picture.

I’ll fix that when I get home.

I crush the bitch into the broken lamp with the heel of my shoe. Then I pull the dresser over.

CHAPTER 20

Jamie

The front door opens downstairs.

I sit up against the headboard and listen.

Something hits the floor a few seconds later. Oliver’s shit, probably. He must have had a lot of crap she liked. Like his voice and hands. She’s been gone too long. Long enough for the pills to wear off.

A cabinet shuts harder than it needs to. Then another.

What the fuck happened?

Heather crosses the kitchen, comes back, and starts upstairs.

I get off the bed and stand near the door.

Her footsteps reach the top of the stairs. For one stupid second, I expect them to stop at my door. She walks past my room.

It’s bullshit. Oliver has been here one fucking day, and apparently that means he requires around-the-clock service.

Her footsteps keep going.

“Heather.”

She doesn’t stop.

I put my hand against the door. “Heather.”

Not let me out. Not where were you. I don’t even give a shit where she was or what the fuck was so fascinating about his old place that it kept her all fucking evening.

Her footsteps stop right between my door and Oliver’s.

I smooth my hair. The lock turns. I step back before Heather opens the door.

She looks pissed. Her hair is slightly out of place, and there’s a bag hanging from one hand. She looks at me, then past me into the room.

I probably should have planned this part. “I heard you come home.”

“Yes.” Her eyes move over me.

I’m still wearing the skirt she put me in this morning. I could have changed hours ago. I thought about it twice and didn’t.

Her gaze drops to my bare legs. “What do you need, Jamie?”

Whatever happened while she was gone, she was heading straight for him. He gets the clothes and the room and the fucking field trip to the playroom on his first day, and now he gets whatever this is too.