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Pulling up outside Sly’s house, Sally smiled. After weeks of flip-flopping from her apartment to his beach house every night, and her stubbornly refusing to keep even a single item of clothing in his room, she’d finally agreed to take a key to his place. Her reasoning had been shit; she’d been scared that once he kicked her to the curb, she needed a quick out, and leaving her stuff at his place made quick retreats messy. That wasn’t the case now, though. Not after she’d spilled her guts, he’d held her together, and she’d realized just how deep she’d fallen.
Now, she didn’t have to wait for him to come home when she wanted to go over, and she liked that. She liked being able to pop over, prepare dinner for him, and wait for her man to get home.
Home.
Not an entirely new concept to her, but one that had a different meaning than it did to most. From the time she’d been old enough to understand what home meant to the time she’d finally escaped the Maison, she’d been surviving in a warzone rather than thriving in a place of comfort and safety. It was until she moved to be with AJ, and they’d gotten a place together, that she’d learned what home was supposed to feel like. Then, when she’d saved up enough to get her own place—with a bit of help from her Fairy Grandfather, Louis Dupree—she was overwhelmed with the simple thought that she could build a home of her own. Her own place. Her sanctuary from the world where he would never taint what she created.
Now…home was wherever Sly was. And that was a terrifying and exhilarating thought.
Her cellphone rang. She checked the name on the screen.
It’s like he knows I thought about him….
“Papa,” she answered, grinning at the tongue click and then heavy sigh on the other side of the line.
“Mon amour! Tu m’as tellement manqué, je pense que je suis faible à cause de ça. Dis-moi, qu’est-ce que tu as fait qui t’empêche de m’appeler?”
She laughed, her heart warming up at the familiarity of her grandfather’s high-energy greeting.
“Papa, you know you’re supposed to speak to me in English,” she said, forcing fake censure into her voice.
“Bah, little one,” he huffed. “Speaking English is like stuffing filthy cotton socks into my mouth and chewing on them like a dog.”
Sally chuckled, picturing what he’d just said. Her grandfather sticking anything but expensive silk into his mouth would be a shock.
“I appreciate the language lesson, Papa, but I appreciate more that you took time out of your busy schedule to call me,” Sally sassed.
“You haven’t called me this month, mon tresor. Gregory and I are headed to Milan next week, and I wanted to check in with you and your brother before we got caught up in all the mess and mayhem of Fashion Week.”
It wasn’t even the end of spring yet.
“Come, tell your fairy grandfather what you’ve been up to this month,” he demanded, using the nickname he’d coined when he’d shown up on her doorstep years ago with an arm full of packages from Saks and a fistful of pink and gold helium balloons.
Rolling her eyes despite the massive grin on her face, she replied, “There isn’t much to tell you, Papa. Work, hanging out with Anna—”
“And what about this beau I heard about? Hm. What about him?”
Busted. AJ—the tattle-tale—must’ve said something to their grandpa about Sly.
“Well…I met him several months back, we hooked up, but it didn’t work out then. We reconnected a few weeks ago and now…well….” What could she tell him that wouldn’t make her sound like a lovesick idiot?
Why not? You are!
“Hmm…I can tell from your hesitancy you aren’t ready to tell Papa everything, but that’s alright, mon tresor. I can wait.”
She chuckled, knowing full well her grandfather would find a way to peel the truth from her if she didn’t eventually divulge all.
“I’ll tell you when I know for myself, Papa,” she offered. “But you and Gregory have fun in Milan and shop until you drop, then you can call and tell me all about it when you get back.” God, she loved her grandfather—he’d been one of the few who’d actually sought her and her brother out after she’d shed her previous life from her skin like a butterfly does its battered cocoon. Once he’d heard she’d left Savannah, he was on the first flight from Montreal to meet her and AJ in Miami, where he’d spent two months with them, offering them comfort, guidance, money, and the simple pleasures of having a grandfather. Something their father had denied them for years because her grandfather chose to finally shed his own lies and live his truth. With Gregory. And her father, his own son, despised him for it, cutting him off from his only grandchildren as punishment.
Now, though, her grandfather was making up for it in spades.
“Fine,” he said, pouting. “I will call once we return, but I want to hear all about this mystery man when I get back.”
“Papa,” she began.
“Don’t Papa me, Sallina. Your brother had never told me of your other beau’s before, so I know this one must be special.”
Thoughts of Sly, spending time with him, their days of laughter, their nights of pleasure…he’d quickly become one of the most influential people in her life.
