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I lick at my dry lips as I stand, needing a little distance.
When I look back over my shoulder, I see his eyes locked on my ass.
If I don’t get my libido under control, I know we’re going to end up naked together. I want that as much as he clearly does, but I’m not the same girl who knocked on his door that night. A quick roll between the sheets isn’t all I’m after. I need more than just physical relief right now. If the other things aren’t part of the consideration, then I’d much rather keep a few degrees of separation between us.
“I showered last night,” I tell him as I scoop Sutton up from her crib before carrying her into the bathroom with me.
When I was a girl, I went to summer camp once. One of the women at Mom’s church talked her into letting us go. Janet was in a different part of the camp because she was older, and it was my very first taste of freedom.
The kitchen this morning in the Cerberus clubhouse is very reminiscent of that experience. People are bustling all over the place, each with a different task, all with smiles on their faces.
The coffee machine on the counter is an industrial size and the very first thing most people head to when they enter the room.
“You got too much, didn’t you?” I ask Jace as he stares down at his plate of food.
He shakes his head. “I just don’t know where to start.”
Several of the guys sitting at a nearby table chuckle.
“You’ll have to work out with us in the gym later,” one of the guys says. I understand now why Kincaid mentioned them wearing those vests with their names on them yesterday because I have no clue what his name is now that he’s in the kitchen in nothing but sweats and a thin t-shirt. “Can’t have you getting soggy in the middle.”
“You’ll have to work these off too,” Oracle, one of the guys I do recognize, says as he drops off another plate in front of each boy.
“What’s that?” Luca asks, pointing to the design on the pancake.
“It’s a smiley face,” Oracle answers, tilting his head a little.
Luca tilts his head too but the child still looks confused.
“Now that you mention it,” Oracle says. “Let’s call it a constellation.”
“I don’t know what that is but it tastes delicious,” Luca says, jamming a bite of chocolate chip pancakes into his mouth.
Jace pulls his napkin from the table and wipes at Luca’s cheek, whispering something so softly to him that I can’t hear it over the din in the room.
Anger at my sister flares inside of me at the sight. It isn’t Jace’s job to look after Luca the way he’s been doing. I don’t know if it was Janet’s expectation or if it’s learned behavior.
It hits me that maybe she taught Jace to act this way so Luca always had someone, in case, for some reason, she couldn’t be there for her children.
Sadness washes over me.
It doesn’t matter now how they got involved with Keres and the drugs. I know it was done either out of necessity, because they saw no other way, or they were forced into it. Neither Janet nor Carlen were the types of people who would ever endanger their children if they could help it. I need to stop being mad at them for just trying to survive. Something they failed at. What I won’t do is fail their children.
“Does Sutton have any allergies?”
I look up and smile at a woman I was introduced to as Misty while at the pool yesterday. She’s married to Shadow, who if I’m not mistaken is the Cerberus vice president.
“No,” I tell her. “As far as I know, none of the kids have food allergies.”
She hands me a bowl of sliced fruit, the cartoon princesses on the edges feeling a little out of place in a room filled with so many muscles.
“I can make her breakfast,” I say, frowning down at the fruit despite Sutton’s excitement to begin shoveling it into her mouth.
“We don’t mind.”
“I want to be able to help.”
In all the talk of coming to New Mexico, nothing has been mentioned about me working or helping pay bills. I can’t stay here and not contribute something.
