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Her eyes rounded with a message, and I was receiving it loud and clear. Shewas scared ofwhat would happen if I went back there, and—dare I say it—she was probably worried about us being seen together.
But whatever she was afraid of, I wouldn’t let it intimidate me. I wanted to meet her family. I wanted this to feel like the real deal—the realest deal of all—and if that meant rolling into my old stomping grounds with a bigfuck yousign taped to my forehead for anyone who had a problem with me to see, then so be it.
I was living my life now, and I wouldn’t allow the past to control me. Not anymore.
***
Stormy was as inconspicuously beautiful as her sister, but while Ray radiated sunshine, her sister was the physical embodiment of her name with hair blacker than night and a wardrobe to match. Her exterior was that of stone, adorned with black-and-gray tattoos and more piercings than I could count, and her eyes watched me with hardened skepticism. Honestly, I couldn't blame her one bit—even if their parents both seemed to accept me with open arms.
“So, Soldier,” Stormy began, folding her arms against the table and ignoring the pizza on her plate, “how long exactlywereyou locked up?”
“Just a little less than ten years,” I answered without hesitation before taking a bite full of pepperoni, sauce, and cheese.
Her thin, tattooed brows lowered with suspicion and guarded curiosity. “You were behind bars for afreakin'thirdof your life? How does that not royally screw someone up?”
“Oh my God, Stormy!” Ray exclaimed from beside me, turning her attention to her older sister. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Stormy shrugged. “And I'm over here, wondering how you've never considered you could be sleeping with a psychopath.”
Noah was quick to come to my defense witha,“Soldier isnota friggin’ psychopath,” as his mother and grandparents all gawked at the big-mouthed goth sitting across from me.
But I didn't react in the way I knew she was looking for. If she was trying to shake me, I wasn't going to let her.
Chris, their father, who had only just met me that morning, let his hand fall to the table with a resoundingthunk. “Stormy, knock it off right now. Soldier is a guest in this—”
“It's fine, sir,” I cut him off, holding up a palm to stop him from continuing to scold his daughter, who I felt had every right to come to her sister's defense. I turned to Stormy with the same stern glare that she heldonme, but instead of cold and bitter, mine was—I hoped—warm and assuring. “I promise I've passed my psych evaluations. So, no, I’m not a psychopath.”
She slowly lifted the slice of pizza from off the plate, never taking her eyes off me. “Right. That's exactly what a psychopath would say.”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed with a resigned nod. “But would a psychopath offer to show you those records? Because I could get my hands on them, if you—”
“Oh my God!” Ray swatted my arm with the back of her hand. “You’re not showing her anything. She’s just being stupid.”
Before anyone else could say anything, Barbara, Ray's mother, put a cork in the conversation by asking her daughters how work was going in their respective fields. Stormy worked at a tattoo shop up in Salem as the resident body piercer, and I snagged the opportunity to warm her up by asking if she could get me any kind of discount.
She snorted at the question and gestured toward the old, faded tattoos on my arms. “Why? Youwannacover some of that crap up? Or do you just need someone to put some new holes into your body?”
I laughed. “Both.”
She pursed her lips, continuing to study me with that ice-cold stare, before nodding. “We could probably work something out, if you wanted to take the trip up to Massachusetts.”
Ray smiled at her sister's hesitant turn toward more friendly territory. “Maybe we could take a long weekend up there soon.” She curled her arm around my bicep. “I mean, if you can get the time off work …”
“Yeah, I'm sure Howard wouldn't mind giving me a weekend off. I haven't called out of work since I started.”
Stormy was slow to smile, but there it was, daring to peek through her rock-solid exterior. “Let me know, and I'll talk to the artists at my shop. I'm sure Blake or Cee could squeeze you in somewhere if you give me enough of a heads-up.”
The mood was lightened then when it was determined that the three of us would take a little road trip up north to visit Stormy—something Ray had apparently never done in the years since her sister had moved away from Connecticut. I assumed it had something to do with her being a single mother needing to work a full-time job with little downtime to do things like take vacations and visit her big sister—until I walked out of the house after dinner to stare out toward the cemetery across the street.
Stormy followed. “Hey.”
I turned to look down at her, startled by how short sheactually waswhen her toughened demeanor had the ability to look me straight dead in the eye.
“Oh, hey.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against one of the wooden posts holding the roof over our heads. “Look, I'm sorry for being such a bitch.”
“It's cool.”
