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Was.
My mom was too. Shewasa lot of things.
And now she’s gone. He’ll never let her come back. I’ve accepted it. But fuck if it doesn’t still hurt. I understand his hurt. I feel his hurt.
I take my time strolling along the nearest wall and taking in each image that Rowan holds close to his heart. The back wall holds images that are smaller than the poster-size frames, but there are more of them. So many more. These pictures aren’t professional. There’s a grain to some of the images. Memories caught on film by old cell phones and quick-moving parents that had to stay on their toes to follow around the most adorable blue-eyed baby boy.
His father is younger here. His body is leaner, and his happiness seems freer. He holds Rowan in one arm, and as I stare at the two of them, I can almost hear the laughter through their enormous smiles. Images from beaches and schools and hockey rinks and even a small black dog at a dog park are everywhere across this wall.
But his mother isn’t.
Perhaps this room isn’t about her. Maybe this is a space for Rowan to remember the man who raised him. The man who possibly could have made Rowan into a hockey legend if life had played out differently.
I almost believe all that too. Until the wall art ends and a bookcase lines the side wall. It spans the length of the room with old books that seem like collector's editions to some modern publications that give me pause when I come across names like Gaiman and Elllis.
It’s not the books that really pull me in. It’s the decor that lines the shelves. Two bookends shaped like hockey sticks press the novels together in one section. That little black dog has a spot in the upper right-hand corner where his frame looks down on me, and his shining dark eyes are bright with mischief.
And there, slipped in between a sleek black set of encyclopedias... is a picture hidden away.
I feel him watching me. His gaze heats my neck, and I know he’s now fixated on the exact same thing I am.
“You can look at it,” he says on a low rumbling voice.
I bite my lip with a smile. It feels like he’s giving me the chance to pick him apart in the same manner he has picked me apart for the last several years. I’m exploring who Rowan Stone is on the deepest level. This is a gift, one very few have the pleasure of receiving.
I could ask him about his pets. His childhood. His likes and dislikes. I could ask him about his scars. But seeing them, taking them in slowly: it feels invasive and intimate all at the same time.
The photo slides from between the two clothbound books, spilling several others out behind it. They fall to the gray carpet, and my breath catches when I see my own face looking back up at me. I kneel down and shuffle through the worn images of myself. The edges are bent and creased. I flip through the first few of me in my apartment. It’s a close-up picture that I swear is taken frominsidethe apartment. Some are of me studying... and some... are of me in bed, head thrown back with my breasts naked to the cold air. In mid orgasm.
My face heats fast and hot, and I try not to think about how wet my own photos just made me. It’s not the photos. Not really. It’s the idea that he saw me like this, and he...
Flashing ideas of him stroking himself and the low vibrations of his groans sounding through a dark room. Because of me.
His hands push down my arms, and the warm sensation sends goose bumps all through my body as his chest aligns with my back. He wraps me up in the most consuming hug anyone has ever given me. I want to die in his arms just like this. That rumbling groan I’d imagined is against my ear as he whispers.
“Do you want to see the best part, Little Bird?”
The breath in my throat catches, and I shift against his big body, wanting so fucking bad to see the best part.
His hand lifts from the dominating place where he was holding it against my stomach to the perfectly lined row of encyclopedias. With a hard push, the bookshelf rolls back. It opens. Like a door.
I swallow hard as we face the darkness of the open doorway.
“I need you to see this part of me too. I need you to know what I really am.”
I don’t move. I stand in the safety of his arms, and my feet don’t take a single step. Maybe it’s the eeriness of the hidden space or the heaviness in his tone, but something bad is in there. Something...
Sinister.
Twenty-Three
Atlas
Without a word, he commands me forward. He pushes me with a small press of his palm against my lower back, and despite every nerve in my body screaming to not go into that room, I obey his unspoken command.
The floor is hard beneath my feet, and the room is cold with chilling ventilation. My hand lingers on the smooth wood of the bookshelf behind me, but it slips away in the darkness. Warmth seeps into my back as he shifts against me. The silence is so heavy, all I hear is the slamming of my own heart.
And then with a lift of his hand, bright white lighting flickers on across the space. The flat white colors of the room flood my vision in a way that’s entirely foreign in comparison to the rest of the house.Home.This is his home.
