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If that sounds like I’m planning for forever, maybe it’s because I am. I’m falling for her and there isn’t anything I can do to stop it. I wouldn’t even if I could.
Eventually, she stands and we walk back to the SUV. She’s silent on the drive and until we walk inside the house. “Are you hungry?” I ask.
When she shakes her head and walks past the kitchen to the stairs, her steps are small and slow. I think again how much I hate seeing her this way. Her regular energy is absent.
I close the refrigerator door and walk behind her upstairs. When we get to the bedroom, I lay a hand on her shoulder. Her skin is warm and she feels to me like the same woman she is every other day of the year, but I know what grief and sadness can do to a person.
“Let me run you a bath.”
She shrugs, which I take as a yes, so I walk past her into the bathroom with the big clawfoot tub. After I’ve poured in the scented oils, I help her undress and slide into the steaming water. I sit on the stool beside her and stroke her foot as she lets her eyes flutter closed.
We’re quiet for a while. It’s a quiet day, it seems. More about what’s not said, what happens in the moments between words. Those are the important spaces.
I only look up when I feel her gaze on me.
“Thank you, Beck,” she murmurs.
“For what?”
She traces her hand across the surface of the water so that it ripples. “For not saying the things about my dad that I already know are true.”
I snort. “My old man is nothing to be proud of. After my mom passed, he didn’t care if I went to school or I took a bath or got hit by a fucking bus.”
I feel her sympathy like a physical presence in the room with us. “Who took care of you?”
“I had a couple of aunts around. My uncles all worked for my old man, but my aunts cooked and bought me school shoes, paid for all the shit my old man wouldn’t or didn’t.” I squeeze her feet between my hands. “I’m never going to let that happen to our kid. I promise you, Sloan, that I’ll be there. No matter what happens.”
She nods, her lip trembling yet again. “I know. I know you’re not like him.” She doesn’t say his name anymore, not ever. Doesn’t call him “the Bloodhound” or Bobby. Justhim.“As alone as I feel sometimes, I know you’re here.”
I wish that there was something I could do, some foe to wrangle and destroy, some enemy to check into the boards and slice apart beneath my skates.
But grief is invisible. The only thing I can do is hold onto Sloan as I let her fall apart.
42
SLOAN
It’s funny that life looks its most beautiful on the far side of grief. There’s a real “night is darkest before the dawn” kind of feel to mourning a dead parent. You cry and it hurts and you think it’s never going to stop.
And then, before you know it, you’re the happiest you’ve ever been.
The realization comes as I’m sitting in traffic on the way to the arena to pick Beck up. I made it through the anniversary because ofhim.Because he held me and kissed me and told me sweet things when I needed to hear them and said nothing when I needed silence. I don’t know what I did to deserve that, to deserve him.
But I’m glad I have him all the same.
When I check my rearview mirror, though, that gratitude withers on the vine. Because I notice a black SUV behind me. It has dark windows tinted several shades past legal, so I can’t see who’s driving beyond the vague, impersonal outlines of their shape.
My heart starts racing. “It’s fine,” I mutter under my breath. “Plenty of people drive black SUVs. With tinted windows. Wearing sunglasses. And a hat. And a hood.”
But when I take a side street, the SUV turns behind me.
When I wind through a narrow alley, so does the SUV.
I clear my throat. “Call Beck.” The car dials for me. It takes a couple rings before he answers. “I’m being followed, Beck.”
I hear him curse. “Alright, angel. Stay on the line. I’ll call Spencer.” His phone connects and he calls Spencer. “Where are you, Sloan?”
I give him the exact location, and then Spencer’s voice fills the car. “I can see you on my screen, Sloan. Here’s what I want you to do.” He gives me directions to try to outmaneuver them until one of his guys can get to where I am.
