AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I bit my lip.
This was a dangerous situation, and I needed to extricate myself before I admitted something awful. These feelings I had toward him—this possessiveness, the jealousy—they weren’t normal. I had been with him twice, and it was as if I’d forgotten the reason we were even together. He was blackmailing me, and I was his captive. I couldn’t develop feelings for him, especially when I knew he could never return them. Lucian was soft with me. He was even gentle at times. But it didn’t mean anything to him, and I would do well to remember that.
“You should go,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.”
He hesitated briefly and then left. I turned my focus to Nina as she offered me the pamphlet.
“Here you go,” she said. “Just give it a quick read and let me know if this seems manageable.”
“Thanks for helping out,” Luna said. “Arts and crafts can get kind of crazy.”
I looked around the room, which was, in fact, a madhouse. “What do we do?”
“Amber runs the class and gives the littles instructions,” Luna explained. “We just need to walk around and keep an eye on them. Make sure nobody glues their fingers together or anything like that.”
I smiled. “Sounds easy enough.”
“You might need to stop and help them too. Some of them are fairly shy and don’t speak up when they need help.”
I scanned over the group of what I guessed to be about fifteen children. “Are any of them yours?”
Luna laughed. “No way. I love kids, but the best thing about these is you can return them to their mothers when they’re done.”
“Sounds about right,” I agreed.
I tried to focus on the kids, but between the chaos, my eyes found their way to Lucian more than a few times. He was sitting at a table in the corner, just as he said, and there was a separate female chaperone present for each of his meetings. It made me feel a little better to know that everything was strictly professional, but Luna must have noticed my distraction because when I glanced back at her, she was looking at him too.
“Is that your boyfriend?” she asked.
I didn’t know what to say, but I was wearing my wedding band, so I figured I should at least give her a half-truth. “Husband.”
Her brows furrowed. “He’s been coming in here for a long time. I had no idea he was even married.”
“It’s recent,” I told her.
She smirked. “The honeymoon phase, huh?”
My cheeks heated as I thought of Lucian inside me. “Something like that.”
“I could only dream of finding a guy like that someday,” Luna sighed.
I wanted to know more about her story, but I wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. “How long have you been here?”
“In Vegas?”
“The shelter,” I clarified.
She wiggled her nose. “Oh, I don’t live here. I mean I did when I first came down here. But now I live with a community.”
“Oh.” I felt like an idiot for assuming. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. I had no idea there was a community here either.”
“Yeah.” She reached down to pick up a crayon that fell on the floor and set it back on the table. “There’s a big one. It’s cool. They don’t know about my past, and they don’t really care either. It’s more of a lost souls community. Not all of us are even gypsies. Just a bunch of outcasts living together in a group without the pressures of tradition, ya know?”
I didn’t know, and part of me hated that. I remembered my mom talking about her clan and how much they meant to her, and how sad she was when she said she could never go back. She explained that sometimes they shunned people, and I could only assume the same had happened to Luna for whatever reason.
“It’s good that you found a place you feel comfortable,” I said, and I meant it. I only wished my mom had better luck than ending up where she had.
“You should come check it out sometime if you want,” Luna offered. “I would love to hang out if you’re up for it. I don’t have many friends here yet.”
“Oh.” I blinked. “Sure, we could do that.”
“Cool.” She ripped a piece of paper out of a scratch pad and scribbled her phone number on it in purple crayon, handing it over to me. “Call me whenever. I’ll be around.”
“Okay.”
“The class is almost over,” Luna said. “If you want, you can help me clean up and then get snacks ready for the littles.”
I trailed along behind her to the storage bins. “Sure, I can do that.”
After all the crayons and paper and glitter pots were sorted and put into their rightful places, the desks were cleaned, and the kids were given juice and a veggie pack. I was grateful I didn’t have to cook anything and risk the chance of embarrassing myself again, and the kids were happy over such a simple gift that it seemed like there was more I should be doing.
