Текст книги "Thick Love"

Автор книги: Eden Butler

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

21

Ransom wasn’t an easy man to love but God help me, I did.

Which made my little addendum to our, whatever we were, that much more difficult to bear.

“What do you mean you don’t want to have sex with me?” he’d asked just a week or so after he’d finally told me about the day Emily died. If I hadn’t been so sure about my conviction and wanting to make sure it was just the two of us in this—well, this—then I would have laughed at the frozen frown on his face. “But we’ve had sex twice. Really hot sex.”

“It was good, wi?” I’d only meant it to be flippant, just a comment on how compatible we were together. I wasn’t teasing, or taunting, but Ransom must have thought I was.

“Yeah, it was good and now, what? Now you don’t want to do it again?” He’d gotten me against the wall, something he liked to do so that I couldn’t find in me to complain about. “You want me, who has gone ages with anything resembling sex, to have a little nibble and then nothing again?”

“Nibble? Cheri, that was a gourmet meal.”

“Uh huh,” he’d said, leaning right against me and he had my mouth again, tongue and passion and working need all at once before I pushed him back, laughing at his growl. “Aw, baby, I’m hungry again.”

“I’m sure.” I pushed away from him, left him leaning against the wall while I dressed. “I just wanna make sure you call out the right chef’s name next time.”

He didn’t complain after that.

It had been nice, actually, despite the lack of being together, that we still talked every day, we still hung out at my place, sometimes on campus, though not at the team house. I minded Keira’s warning about that place.

Keira and Kona welcomed me back and Koa hung onto my leg, followed me everywhere as soon as I walked through the door the next Sunday morning. I’d expected a lecture, but I thought both Keira and Kona were so happy I’d come back that neither of them said anything to me. Sarah didn’t even mind that I’d come back. She had found Koa to be somewhat… overwhelming.

Being back with them, listening to Keira sing while Ransom played the guitar, watching after Koa, smiling at him and Ransom reading together or playing football, it all made me feel like something was happening. Something I’d never expected to get out of life. It started to feel like a family.

But with family came annoyances and worry, especially when the person you might consider building something permanent with still kept to himself when life started to bog him down.

Like two days ago when Ransom picked me up from the diner. He’d wrapped up practice, was readying for the game and as soon as I slipped into the car, I caught on quickly that he’d had a rough day.

“What happened?” I’d asked, turning toward him.

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

He did that a lot, down playing things, and it was equal parts stupid and frustrating. I wanted him open, for there to be nothing between us. I thought he wanted the same thing, but Ransom was an island with only one bridge open for crossing. That bridge was a little frayed, the ropes holding it together, a little worn and you had be damn careful that you didn’t break it trying to cross. And he too easily drew up the drawbridge when the going got tough.

He’d get this weird wrinkle between his eyebrows any time Emily was invading his mind. I’d caught on to this quickly, watching him as he slept, when something from his day wouldn’t let him relax.

He’d worn that same wrinkle as we drove through the city, heading toward I-10. “Ransom, what’s wrong?” I tried again, ignoring the non-committal grunt he released when I touched his arm. “Is it...is Emily in your head again?”

“What?” The question came out loud, shocked, and was followed by his foot on the brake and his gaze snapping at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I heard you,” I told him, not cowering from that quick scowl or his temper. “In the shower the other night, you were talking to her. And you’ve told me she was in your head.” He jerked away when I tried to touch his face and the small gestured pissed me off. “Whatever. Can we just go?”

“I’m not crazy,” he tried, voice lower, softer then.

Again I tried to touch him, but Ransom frowned, leaned against his door and I got that he didn’t want me touching him. Fine. He didn’t want my comfort, I wouldn’t give it to him. “Non, you’re not. But you can be a moody asshole sometimes.”

“Yeah?” He whipped his head toward me, his question coming out sharp. “Well you can be…”

“You know what? Maybe you should keep your damn mouth shut before you say something that really pisses me off.”

The door was open and I shrugged my bag over my shoulder before I slammed it closed. I didn’t bother to respond when he called after me. I wouldn’t do this. Ransom had a mother, a good one who loved him. He didn’t need another one and I left the Mustang behind before the fight could escalate.

The bus stop was only a block ahead and that’s where I waited, even though Ransom had parked his car right there, not talking to me but watching over me. He’d have never left me alone in the city that late at night. And that was us, how we had begun to settle things in the weeks we were…whatever.

He had a temper, something that seemed to rise often now when I asked him to talk to me about his shit. He’d held everything inside for so long that my prying had become like trying to bend steel. So yes, there had been arguments. There had been irritation, all of which was riled by the distinct lack of sex.

I was an idiot.

And I missed him. That night after bailing out of the Mustang, despite the vague I’m sorry texts, I decided to let him cool off. I didn’t call back. I didn’t return his text and I turned down Leann’s offer for a ride to CPU’s game at Texas A&M on Saturday because I also needed a cooling off period.

But that didn’t keep me from clinging to the extra pillow on my bed, the one that smelled like his cologne. It didn’t stop me from itching to call him just to hear his voice.

Ransom was a hard man to love, but I did it anyway.

That’s what I was thinking about—loving the things I shouldn’t, wanting the things that were probably bad for me, definitely not what I needed—when I heard that soft tap on my door.

I didn’t have to open it to know it was him. No one else would come to my door at two a.m. No one else would come to my door at any time really.

One jerk of the knob and I could let Ransom have it. Tell him he was impossible and stubborn and so was I and we were a disaster and we should probably just stay clear of each other for a while. That was the plan, at least.

Then I opened the door.

“Modi,” I muttered, already giving up my fight.

Those black eyes looked right through me, shining like he had a fever. He wore his fitted leather jacket over his CPU hoodie and a charcoal beanie. He looked delicious, but even that was secondary when I took in the split on the side of his thick bottom lip and the shadow bruising all around his left eye.

That didn’t look like a football injury and I doubted getting tackled would put that haunted, lost look in his eyes.

There were two sides of my brain: Logic and Love. Logic would have had me slamming the door in his face. We drove each other crazy. He couldn’t keep his hands off of me and I wouldn’t touch him for fear it wasn’t me he was thinking about when he kissed me. We were both stubborn assholes sometimes. All of this Logic was excuse enough to shut that door.

Then there was Love. It reminded me that Ransom softened my frigid heart when he threatened my father, when he had been the only person outside of my grann to stick up for me against the old man. Love reminded me that if it hadn’t been for Ransom I would have never met Koa or Keira and Kona and I wouldn’t have them in life. Love told me that Ransom was still lost, still drifting but sometimes he let me pull him closer toward the shore. Love reminded me that things were possible.

Love was louder than Logic.

I opened my mouth, was going to tell him to come in, but then Ransom stepped over the threshold, immediately wrapping his big hands around my waist. He didn’t grip me like he was desperate, like he needed me just to breath. He didn’t explain who had bloodied his mouth or why.

Ransom just stood in front of me looking down, giving me that same, relieved expression he’d offer whenever he greeted me. It said “hello” and “thank you” all in one glance. Then he touched my face, traced my lips with his finger and rested against my forehead.

“Dance with me.”

It was all he needed to say. “I’m sorry” and “Forgive me” in three small words that didn’t require a response. There was no music, no slow beat that seeped inside us, moved us to sway against each other. There was Ransom and me and nothing else but that aching need to be together, to feel and touch, and silence the world around us.

He led, I followed.

His chest, those arms wrapped tightly around me, were safety, promises of protection and I leaned my face against his chest, rubbing my cheek against the fabric of his jacket. It was cold from the November chill. And while I touched him, moved against him, Ransom kissed the top of my head, held me like he needed to, like he would never be free of that need.

I knew I wouldn’t be either.

“Trent Marshall told me he remembered you from Summerland’s.” When I looked up at him, Ransom shrugged as though he didn’t care what his teammate thought. “He asked if I’d loan you out for parties.” I felt sick then, embarrassed that the asshole I’d seen that day in Ransom’s car was the same drunk idiot that had groped me after I danced for Ransom.

“Ransom…”

“I don’t care what he thinks,” he said, holding my chin up. “I bloodied his nose anyway so it’s over.” He kissed me, soft, quick and then pushed my head back to his chest, not stopping our dance once.

I said it before I lost my nerve. I said it knowing it would breach the quiet around us.

“I love you, Ransom.” And when he stilled, when I could hear the speed of his heart thumping against my ear, I looked up at him and smiled. Then I settled my cheek back on his chest so I didn’t pressure him into anything by looking into his eyes. “It won’t break me if you don’t love me back.” I snuggled into him.

It wouldn’t. I didn’t need that yet. I would one day, but not just yet. I’d once told him I didn’t know love, that I didn’t want to know it at all. That had changed with a kiss, with those dances and the haunted, broken look in his eyes. It had changed when he touched me, when he looked through me like no one ever had before.

I meant the words even though I’d never intended to.

Since I wanted to, since there was no better time to say everything I was thinking, I looked back up at him and smiled, and let him have it all. “It’s like I’ve spent an entire lifetime only seeing the world in black and white.”

“And now you don’t?” His voice was low, sounded a little awed.

“Now there is you. Even the you that pisses me off and has me ignoring your texts.” I breathed easier when he grinned. “Now there is light and sparkle and the most beautiful colors. It’s all right there in front of me and I see every time you kiss me, every damn time you smile at me.” I flicked my gaze down and played with his collar. “Don’t you dare ask me to go back to being colorblind.”

Ransom pulled my face up again so I would look at him as though he needed to say something, but whatever it was I knew would be some excuse to stop feeling the way I did. I wouldn’t listen to that. His face had gone flush and the frown hardening his mouth made him look older. I kissed that frown away, relaxing when he kissed me back. “It’s okay to let someone love you.”

Ransom pressed his lips together, like he had to force something back, maybe words that would do more than break me. “I don’t deserve it.”

And because I meant it, because I typically did whatever the hell I wanted—and what I wanted was him—I smiled. “I’m still gonna love you anyway.”

Tremé was the oldest African American neighborhood in the country. The tourism bureau could offer a history lesson about the hat maker, Claude Tremé, who came to the city from France when America was a baby nation, and all the property he owned in the area, how Free Peoples of Color or those who bought or bargained for their freedom settled the neighborhood. There was always a Second Line—that happy, loud crowd following the bright brass instruments of a band, our own Jazz funeral without a body—in Tremé, always music and spice and the welcoming vibe of community in the area.

But the tourism folks couldn’t tell you about that small Creole cottage with the powder blue siding and yellow shutters right off of North Rampart. They wouldn’t tell you that my father’s people had lived in that place for four generations. They didn’t know that the original hardwood carried a stain near the stove where I dropped a pan of hot grease at nine because the cast iron pot was too heavy for me to lift. They didn’t know that my father made me scrub the floor for five hours a night for a week, until my knuckles bled. They wouldn’t know that there were two porches and a veranda, gas fireplaces and that any time I wanted to avoid my father, I’d run to the back bedroom on the second floor because the ceiling was sloped and he didn’t like bending over when he called me a worthless, stupid whore. They wouldn’t tell you that when I left that cottage almost two years ago, I did it without looking over my shoulder once.

Today I did.

Even with Ransom on my left and Kona on the far right next to a slow-walking Keira, I kept glancing over my shoulder as we passed that house. It was Creole Gumbo Festival day in Tremé and Keira had begged Kona to take her despite her pregnancy, then demanded that Ransom and I come along because a weird bout of energy had struck her and she was sick of looking at the slow moving waves outside her patio or the perfectly painted walls inside her home.

This neighborhood had been my home until I was seventeen and walking through it, with the people who had whispered some small promise of family, felt more comfortable to me than that small cottage behind me ever had.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Keira said, smiling so wide, looking so beautiful that for a second I forgot where I was or that the likelihood of running into my father was high.

“It is,” I told her, grinning back at her when she slipped her arm around my shoulder.

“You think I should chance some spicy gumbo? I got my TUMs.”

There was a twinkle in her eyes that I loved, something I’d only ever seen from Keira when she was laughing hard or when Kona said something that warmed her heart. Keira was fearless about everything. I wanted to be just like her. “You’re almost nine months pregnant, Keira, I’d have to say you can do whatever the hell you want.”

“Aly Cat, don’t encourage her,” Kona said, but I caught the tease in his eyes when Keira glared at him.

“Aly Rillieux!” The voice was old, but I recognized it immediately. I turned around, with the Hale-Rileys pausing behind me. “Bonjou! Sak pase?”

Millie Dade didn’t give me a chance to respond before she wrapped her arms around me and kissed both of my cheeks.

“M ap viv. Et ou? She waved off my inquiry about her health and patted my face. It was the first time I’d seen the old woman since I left Tremé. She was small, with curly white hair that looked blue in the sunlight and she had faint age spots along her forehead and dotted over her thin fingers. Likely pushing eighty, Millie had been grann’s oldest friend. She was also just as messy and nosy as my grandmother had been, a fact that came back to me when she looked over my shoulder straight at Ransom, and that familiar smile of hers beamed.

There was no avoiding it. The old woman would grin and gawk until I was forced into an introduction. “Millie, this is my…um, this is Ransom,” I told her, nodding for him to greet her.

She actually blushed when he kissed her hand and that blush got deeper when Kona stepped to her side and laid on his best Hale charm.

“And this is Ransom’s folks Keira and Kona.”

“Sekonsa! I heard about them,” she said, pulling Kona down to kiss his cheek even before he offered it. “Oh! Li ansent! Bien!” she said, waving a hand over Keira’s large stomach, her eyes sparkling.

“Millie, pinga ou fè sa!” I told her, narrowing my eyes at her when she looked a little too eager to touch Keira’s belly. Keira had complained often enough about hating how even total strangers felt entitled to patting her stomach, often without even asking first.

The old woman stopped smiling, but brushed off the small reprimand by shrugging and pulling on my wrist. “You see your papa today?”

“Non,” I told her, warning her with a glare. “And I’m not going to.”

“Aly…”

“Mind your own business, old woman.” My tone was teasing, but firm.

Millie was good natured, but a little too aggressive when it came to what she thought was giving out good advice to broken up families. And my family was as broken as one could ever be.

“Well, then, cheri, you be well.” She finally caught my hint and nodded to us with a brief “se te on plezi” to Ransom and his parents—I doubted she’d really enjoyed meeting them, especially when she couldn’t get any dirt on me or them or what I was doing with Ransom—before Ransom ushered me down the side walk. Still, there was that Hale charm…

Ransom’s smile was ridiculous and when he kept throwing it my way, I jabbed him in the rib. “What?”

I shook my head when he pulled me to his side with his arm around my shoulder. “You’re full of surprises.”

I shrugged. “You know I speak the language.” I squinted, mocking a frown. “Did you think I was cursing in Spanish or something all those times Koa tried my patience, or… um, whenever?”

“I guessed Creole,” Kona interrupted, smiling at Keira like he’d won a bet.

“He did,” she started, pulling me free of Ransom’s large arm. “And now he’s going to be all superior.” Keira looped her arm in my elbow and ignored her smug-looking husband. “Kona spent time in Tremé before I came around because he had a crush on the barmaid at the Candlelight,” she whispered to me conspiratorially.

“Oh?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the man in question. He couldn’t hear us, I knew. “You think he’s gonna go check if she’s still there?”

“Nah,” Keira said through a laugh. “Luka told me once that the girl’s brother chased Kona out with a shotgun in his hand.”

“What’s so funny?” Kona asked when our laughter pulled his attention away from whatever animated story Ransom was telling his father.

Keira was cool, and merely gave out a sing-songy whistle and glance towards the sky in an “I’ll never tell” tease.

The woman was legendary.

“This your place?” Keira asked after leveling a saucy wink at her husband.

I knew she meant the neighborhood. Ransom and Kona often asked me about my people, my childhood, but Keira wasn’t one to pry. Her curiosity about my neighborhood surprised me, and I liked her wanting to know more about me.

“Yeah. I grew up here before Leann let me take the loft.”

Keira stopped, glancing back to where Millie had disappeared as though something had just occurred to her. “We can leave if you’re worried about running into your father.”

“No, Keira.” It was a sweet suggestion, but the day was too beautiful and I felt comfortable with Ransom and his family. “I’m not gonna let anyone spoil the day, especially not that mean old man,” I told Keira, patting Ransom’s hand when he came up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

The smell of gumbo was thick in the air, with its aroma of Cayenne pepper, garlic and bell peppers so heavy that my mouth watered. I quietly pulled Ransom behind me as Keira walked toward a long line queuing for bowls of that delicious concoction.

It had been a relaxing day, laughing with Ransom and his family, forgetting about the struggles I’d endured in Tremé, and Ransom not once looking away from me. He stood in front of me, those dark eyes roaming my features, and I thought that nothing but his look and the slow smile he gave me could make the moment more perfect.

“I didn’t know you could speak Creole,” he teased, stepping closer as we waited in line, ignoring everyone around us.

“Just a few things my grann taught me. I can get by.”

“You know,” he said, “I have some language skills.” I cocked an eyebrow at him and Ransom glanced at his parents. “Other than those…”

“Jesus,” Keira cried, disgusted.

“Don’t let him fool you, Aly,” Kona said.

“Who’s fooling?” Ransom glared at his father but I knew the look was forced. “I can speak my language.”

“Says the boy raised in Nashville.”

He waved off his parents’ teasing, moving his attention back to me and licked his lips. “Pihaʻū oʻu mokukauaheahe i nā puhi,” Ransom said, all proud, as though he liked how big my eyes widened. It was an impressive mouthful, but then Kona laughed, and I spotted the way Keira rolled her eyes.

“What?” I asked them, then looked back up at Ransom when they didn’t answer me. “What does that mean?” I asked Ransom.

“Something very sweet and romantic,” he said, kissing me quick.

“Oh lord,” Keira complained.

Then Kona, as only Kona could, deflated the sweet moment. “How the hell is ‘My hovercraft is full of eels’ sweet and romantic?”

We laughed at his expense and Ransom took it, immediately mouthing lines from Monty Python to connect the dots of that insane translation for me. His smile was easy and bright, and I held his hand to my mouth as the line moved. “You look happy today, sugar.”

There was a hint of surprise in his expression then, as though he had only realized he was happy, then Ransom settled my hand on his chest. “Why wouldn’t I be? I got a beautiful lady on my arm and am about to devour the best gumbo in the world.” He moved closer, biting that lip again, because he knew every time he did it my breath caught somewhere in my throat. “But I really would rather devour the lady,” he whispered.

“I bet you would.”

He kissed me soft, slow and if I hadn’t heard Kona clearing his throat I probably would have let him continue on.

“You’re holding up the line, brah.”

“Sorry,” I tried but Ransom just shrugged.

Around us the crowd separated, Rebirth Brass Band cracking the noise of the crowd with the ring of a trumpet. And then, the crowd turned and walked toward the music as the Second Line started up. There was nothing like it, nothing like this brass band and the Pied Piper way everyone followed. Funeral, wedding or just Carnival time, the music took the city, the traffic stopped, the chaos of any given day all paused and for just a few minutes as that music passed and the spirit of the city took over.

“Perfect day,” I heard Kona say, holding Keira close. Like Ransom and me, he and Keira watched the crowd, and his smile, Keira’s soft expression, told me they were thinking the same thing I was—that nowhere else in the world was as magical as New Orleans.

“Very,” she said.

Behind me Ransom’s hold tightened on my waist and I moved back, my hips swaying as though I had no control over them. It often happened when a beat hit my ear. My body moved on its own, wiggled and shook like some old, ancestral part of me. Not thinking about how I moved, how I looked doing it, I danced where I stood, eyes closed as I let that rhythm climb inside my limbs.

I’d only shaken my hips a little, shimmied as we watched the band pass by, but before they reached the bridge, Ransom let his hands rest on my hips as I moved.

“You keep moving those hips like that and we’re gonna go find an empty alley.” Ransom’s voice was low, right against my ear, but his meaning clear.

“I’m sorry,” I said, not really sorry at all. “I don’t even realize when I do it.”

“I bet.” I stood still, as much as I could, only shaking my shoulders before I heard Ransom sigh. “Well don’t stop, baby.” He came closer, kissing my neck. “I like watching you move.”

“I remember.” And I did, vividly, licking my lips when a quick flash of him on top of me, inside me shot into my mind.

“You’re a fucking tease.”

“Just a little bit.”

“What was that ‘this is my…um…Ransom’ shit anyway?” There was a glint in his eyes I didn’t see often. It made him look as though nothing bothered him.

“Well, what could I say? If I’d have called you my boyfriend that nosy old woman would have asked you a million questions and we’d still be listening to her yammer.” When Ransom’s mouth got a little tight I shook my head, laughing at that frown. “What?”

“You didn’t explain what’s going on with us.”

That surprised me. Ransom was the one that said he couldn’t promise me anything. I’d spent weeks just sticking to the rules. “Maybe because we haven’t discussed that.”

“Do you want to?”

My eyebrows went up simply because I couldn’t believe he’d brought any of this up. “I…I don’t need a label.”

“You sure? None at all?”

“Do you?”

Ransom’s smile was subtle but it shifted and stretched the longer he watched my expression. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He hugged me tight, slipping his arms around my waist. “Let’s say we’re Fred.”

“Fred?” I asked, unable to hold back my laugh. “Why Fred?”

“It’s as good a name as any.” He kissed me, let his tongue brush about my lip. “You’re my Fred.”

“And you’re mine, you insane bata.”

He looked happy, eyes bright, smile easy and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him this open in months. My stomach fluttered when I thought it might be me that had made that happen.

We stared at each other then and I was going to tell him I missed him, missed all of him. My resolve was running thin and I thought I might be ready to test the waters a little, get my feet, other eager body parts, wet. Then, Ransom glanced behind me and suddenly, all the color left his face.

“What is it baby?”

“I…”

I turned around and saw a man near the crowd. He didn’t look like he fit in. He didn’t look at all like a Tremé local. He looked, in fact, like he belonged further Uptown in the Historic District where the “homes” were really “mansions” and the residents had gardeners and maids to keep their places up and drivers to get them around the city. This man had to be in his fifties, with pale skin, orangey red hair and long limbs. His cheeks were red, his eyes fiery and crystal blue and that hard rage in his gaze was centered on Ransom.

When the man took a step toward us, Ransom pushed me behind him, with one hand still protectively wrapped around my hip. The gawking, angry man saw the motion, and my hand that had flown up to Ransom’s shoulder, and his thin upper lip curled into a snarl. He shook his head like seeing us together made him sick, like he wanted to pull us apart and keep us that way.

“Ransom…who is that?” I whispered over his shoulder.

I could guess, but Ransom didn’t answer and I could feel the hard tension pulsing through his body as Kona stepped in front of the man and blocked our view of him.

“I have to go,” Ransom said, jerking out of Keira’s touch when she reached us. He didn’t look back as she grabbed for him.

“Ransom, wait,” I said, following after him when Kona returned to Keira’s side. But Ransom didn’t wait, he barely paused when I grabbed his elbow. “Please.”

“Go back with my parents, Aly,” he said, brushing off my touch with his gaze straight ahead. “They’ll take you home.”

“What the hell is going on?” I glanced over my shoulder toward Kona who called after us. “Who is that man?”

Ransom watched his father glaring at the man as he wove in the crowd, then looked away before he stepped back and toward the sidewalk.

“Please tell me what’s going on…”

“What are you doing with me?” Ransom asked, finally giving me a look. “Huh, Aly? What the hell do you want with me?”

I frowned, a little stricken but didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”

The play of emotions on his face told me so much. That instantaneous flash of pleasure at my honest answer, and then the fear, the disappointment took over. Like he thought anything he wanted, anything I wanted with him was hopeless. “That’s not…” He worked his jaw tight, the tension in his muscles moving over his face. Behind me, I felt Keira come up behind me, her fingers grasping my arm but Ransom didn’t bother to look at her. He kept his voice sharp and his words cruel. “I destroy every fucking thing I touch. You might as well get that into your head right now.” Then, he was gone without a backward glance at me or his mother, before his father could catch up with us.

Kona approached, took a few steps onto the sidewalk to follow Ransom before he stopped and turned to stare back at Keira. “Wildcat, let’s go.”

“Aly…” she started, holding my arm tighter, but I wouldn’t go with them to chase after Ransom. If he refused to take what I offered, then I wouldn’t chase after him. I did have some pride. But it hurt so damned bad.

“No, go after him,” I told Keira, nodding when Kona held out his hand to her. She hesitated and then the big man narrowed his eyes, looking at me like he expected me to follow them. “No, it’s fine, Kona. Go ahead.” But Kona was, at the very least, a protector. I could tell by his frown and that concerned dip of his eyebrows that he didn’t like leaving me here. He didn’t need to worry. I was around my folk and I’d always looked after myself even when they didn’t.

“Ransom…doesn’t want me with you all right now and you can’t leave Keira. Go. I’ll be okay.” Kona’s mouth tightened but I shook my head. “Kona, I grew up here. I know people. I’ll get back to Metairie tonight, don’t worry.”

Finally, the man’s mouth relaxed a little. “I don’t like this. You call when you get back, Aly, you hear me?”

“Yeah,” I said, touched that he was worried about me, that he spoke to me like I was their daughter and not just the sitter. “I hear you.”

“Baby, come on,” he told Keira. “Let’s go get him.”

Keira kissed my cheek, brushing off her husband’s hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t mean it, sweetie. He’s a little…lost.”

I nodded, but needed to satisfy my curiosity before they left. “Before you go, tell me. Who was that?” I asked Keira, glancing back toward the crowd where the angry man had disappeared.

She sighed, her breath moving the hair off my shoulder. “Patrick Warren. Emily’s father.”