AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Was he here to check up on me? Had Murphy sent him? No, that was impossible. He hated Murphy.
‘Hey, Earth to Mariana,’ John said, stepping forward and clicking his fingers in front of my face. I blinked, pushing my suspicions away as I glanced at Juliette, who was currently sprawled in one of my dining chairs, her blonde hair fanned out around her head on the glass table top.
‘She can’t hear a damn thing with that iPod in her ears,’ John said, taking a swig of coffee. He made a face, set the coffee down, and opened the pantry, searching. ‘You got sugar in here?’
He pulled a canister out and set it down on the counter.
The fucking flour canister. Where I hid my phone. I mean, I knew he’d been the one to give me the phone, but did that mean I could trust him? It had been eight-and-a-half years since we’d had that conversation. To be honest, I was very surprised the phone still worked after almost nine years. I guess because I barely used it.
I reached over and grabbed the canister just as he was going to open it. ‘That’s flour,’ I said quickly, holding the canister to my chest. ‘The sugar is in the smaller one. And since when do you take sugar?’
He was perceptive. He studied me and the flour canister for a few seconds, before shrugging and returning to the pantry shelf. He grabbed the sugar and dumped several heaped spoonfuls of the stuff into his mug.
‘I need the extra energy today. You want some?’ he asked, holding the sugar out to me.
I shook my head. ‘I’m sweet enough.’
He chuckled, returning the sugar and closing the pantry, the flour seemingly forgotten. ‘What does that make me, bitter?’
I smiled. ‘Something like that. But seriously . . .’ I glanced at Juliette again, who seemed to be in a world of her own. I envied the casual way she could be so happily absorbed in the soundtrack on her iPod, the only thing she needed to entertain herself. ‘. . . what are you doing here?’ I asked.
John downed the rest of his coffee and rinsed his empty mug out, setting it on the drainer. ‘Taking you two out. It’s a holiday. We should take advantage of it while we can.’ He looked beyond me to Juliette. ‘And Dornan called me and asked me to.’
‘Oh.’ I deflated a little. Of course. My knight in shining armour was with his wife and kids and his reprehensible fucking father at Mass. Dornan had just placed a call to his bestie to occupy me so I didn’t get up to anything risky while I was left to my own devices for one whole day.
‘I take it that’s not the response you were looking for?’ John enquired.
Damn, he was perceptive. I had practised my poker face to perfection, but there was something about him, something magnetic that made it feel like he could crack my head open and unravel every lie I’d ever told. Maybe it was because I saw him as an actual human being, instead of the monsters I normally encountered. Donning my poker face with Emilio wasn’t a choice, it was a matter of survival.
Either way, I could count on one hand the times I’d seen John act so casually. Usually it was within the confines of the tiny office where he’d do money drops, when his mask would occasionally slip and he’d flash me one of those grins. But over the years those smiles had become less and less common. He always seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders these days.
I shrugged. ‘No, it’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting company.’
He nodded, running his tongue over his perfect teeth as he looked me up and down. ‘I know.’
‘Screw you, asshole,’ I joked. ‘On my days off, I am the queen of sweatpants and bird’s-nest hair.’
He tipped his head back and laughed. The sound was almost startling. It had been years since I’d heard John Portland laugh. It made his eyes sparkle, something about the way the light bounced off his baby blues. There was always some other biker club to worry about, some transaction to officiate, some police heat to deal with. He. Never. Laughed.
I swallowed thickly, my cheeks suddenly pooling with blood. ‘I’ll go get ready,’ I muttered, hightailing it to my bedroom.
I chose something pretty, a blue spaghetti-strap dress – the exact colour of John’s eyes – that fell to just above my knees. It was only later that I realised I’d chosen it because of the colour match and that made me feel kind of jittery. I shouldn’t be looking at a married man’s eyes long enough to notice what colour they were, let alone get lost in them. Because I had Dornan, and he loved me, and he had always done right by me. Dornan adored me. He worshipped me. He’d risked everything to make sure I wasn’t sold to the highest bidder as a slave nine years ago. If my heart belonged to anyone, it belonged to Dornan. More importantly, it belonged to my son.
But the heart is a fickle thing, and my heart was lonely. In John Portland’s blue eyes I saw something I hadn’t seen in a very long time.
Kindness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JOHN
The boardwalk on Santa Monica Beach was teeming with people when they arrived. John parked in a tow zone. He didn’t have to worry about things like that. This was his town, and he took what he could get in the way of favours like free parking and generous discounts. He was less keen on the other perks offered to him on a daily basis, like free hookers and every kind of drug under the sun, even the ones the Il Sangue Cartel weren’t involved in.
The ice-cream parlour was packed, but it didn’t matter. John’s booth was always available. It had a permanent ‘reserved’ sign on it. The irony of having a booth in an ice-cream store didn’t escape him, but it sure came in handy when he needed to take his little girl out.
Only his little girl was getting older, and sweet, frozen dairy products and shiny plastic booths had lost some of the lustre they’d once had. Now she remained quiet when he took her out, barely touched her ice cream, and sulked for eighty percent of the visit.
He didn’t take it personally. He remembered being fourteen. Fourteen sucked.
