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He reached over and turned the stereo off.
His mother went unresistingly back to the nurses. She did everything unresistingly, she thought. Everything except love him. One of the nurses looked at him with pity, but there was a covetous edge that suggested it was more than just that.
“How was the funeral, Mr. Nicastro? Did she take it okay?”
“What do you think?” he asked. “You’ve seen her chart.”
Color pinkened her cheeks. Her mouth became pinched. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said primly, adjusting her blouse. “See you next month.”
The pristine grounds made him angry for some reason and his glare hardened as he walked past the fountain, sliding his sunglasses down. With his mother gone, there was nothing to stop him from blasting his music in the car, which he did. It wasn’t until he was an hour out from Riachuelo that it hit him that he hadn’t had anything to eat all day. The motel didn’t offer breakfast and he’d needed to take his mother back before he could make it to the wake. Not that the food had looked particularly appealing.
He stopped at an In-N-Out, turning the stereo down so he could order. Portland had embraced a crunchy granola mindset that he’d learned to endure out of necessity, but nothing satisfied that base, primal hunger quite like a burger dripping with grease. He devoured it one-handed in the parking lot, eating so quickly he barely tasted it. When he leaned back, he let out a rough sigh.
He still remembered the morning he’d been kicked out; it had been carved into his mind with the hard salience of cold marble. Donni had been sitting at the breakfast nook with damp curls and a buttoned-up blouse, looking like a prim little nun. It was such a stark contrast from the silky nightgown he had peeled back from her body the night before that it felt almost surreal.
And then his father had railed on him, saying he was spending too much time around the house, spouting some nonsense about drugs. Donni wouldn’t look at him while this was going on. She sat there in silence, staring at her bowl of fruit, and he had known then that this was her doing.
What he didn’t know was why she had lied to his father, complaining about his idleness and apparent drug habits instead of finding him in her bed. At first, he had wanted to believe she was protecting him. But it was far more likely that she had been protecting herself, and her standing as the pretty young wife who could do no wrong.
He had forced her to choose, and she had made her choice. He had not been the choice.
It had filled him with anger, but in the end, it had really been for the best. During his nights, he pounded out his fury on an old typewriter from the second-floor studio apartment built over a dress shop. Days, he spent at a temp job where he filled out spreadsheets. When that job ended, he’d gotten another, and another. Anything to pad out the meager allotments from his trust, which he was already using for college.
After one-hundred and two rejections over a period of four years, he’d finally sold his first book for a mid-five-figure sum. The second book had netted a mid-six-figures and gotten a space on the NYT best sellers’ list. After that, the movie rights had gone, too, and the advance he’d gotten for the third had nearly been as high as what he’d been paid in full for the second, and his agent had hinted that his books might finally hit the screen.
All thanks to Donni Blake.
Rafe toyed with his phone thoughtfully, wondering if he should call her to ask how the wake and reception went before heading back to the motel. It was his father being lowered into the ground and she hadn’t exactly consulted with him before making the arrangements. But after the way she had looked at him at the funeral, he suspected she wouldn’t be happy to hear from him.
I bet she hasn’t even eaten yet. She never took care of herself when she was upset. It was like she just shut down and frosted over. Not the way his mother did. No, Donni would still move and talk and speak, but she’d be cold while she did it. A little wind-up toy made of ice.
When the key stopped winding, she collapsed.
Rafe liked her best when she was all lit up with passion. Vivacious. Electric. He’d seen it in her eyes, the one time she’d taken him to LA. Every glance had been filled with a radiant glitter. Since then, she’d been dulled; a hot sparkler replaced by cold blue neon. But he could work with cold. Even ice could melt. And so, he suspected, could Donni.
He found a Vietnamese restaurant one town over that had good reviews. He placed an order and told them where he wanted it delivered, and how, before hanging up the phone.
Back in his motel room, he stripped off his shirt and blazer in defiance of the subarctic AC before collapsing on the bed in his dress pants. He scrolled through IMDB until he foundSleepover Fiends.A seventeen-year-old Donni was wearing the locket over a chunky ‘90s sweater with her hair tied into braids.
Rafe slid his hand into his pocket, until his fingers closed around the thin gold chain of the necklace he had found outside the window of Donni’s dressing room.
When he opened it, there wasn’t a picture inside. Just a mirror and a scrap of thin white lace speckled with small brown stains that looked suspiciously like blood.
BOOK REVIEW: Incubus (Madison Hawthorne, #1)
WHY did nobody tell me that this series was so HOT. Holy fuck, where can I order me one Nikolai Makarov? The things he did with his knife left me feeling so dirty in all the right ways. I bought this book because I saw it being recommended on BookTok and people were saying it went all out on the SPICE. And it didn’t disappoint. TBH, I barely read the serial killer plot at all lol, I just kept skipping to all the sex scenes. Madison Hawthorne is a lucky, lucky woman. 5 stars!
Posted by DariaWithNoGlasses
12 Comments:
Brandywine99:I TOLD YOU. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me instead of TikTok <3
DariaWithNoGlasses:I’m SORRY. Jeez lol. But look, I finally read it, I’m so good
Neva232:Have you seen the author on Instagram tho lol
Brandywine99:What? No lol. Why?
