by Hawk, Maya
An unfamiliar black Subaru rested in the driveway with college plates that read PROF773 on the back.
“Mom’s home early.” Jordana pulls behind the Subaru, shifting into park and turning off her engine. “She’s really excited to meet you.”
Right. I bet.
We head up the paved driveway, my fingers brushing against one of my mother’s prized rose bushes. The pale pink petals brush against my fingertips before a thorn slices through my flesh. I bring it to my mouth and suck at the cut until the bleeding subsides.
“Mom!” Jordana calls when we walk in.
It doesn’t smell like home anymore.
It smells like when you go to a friend’s house. It smells like someone else’s home. Not mine. There’s a hint of cinnamon and fabric softener in the air, and the unfamiliar aroma of someone else’s cooking.
Comfort to someone else, sure, but not me.
My blood boils and thickens, chugging through my veins as my body heats. All those nights, lying awake in bed and dreaming about home…
Never in a million years did I imagine coming home wouldn’t feel like…coming home.
The home I’d once known and loved was gone.
Forever.
Replaced and filled by strangers.
A woman with short dark hair, a cocoa complexion, and high cheekbones floats around the corner at the top of the sweeping staircase. A knitted shrug wraps her shoulders as she glides down one stair at a time with a mile-wide smile across her mouth.
“Titan,” she says, stepping toward me. She’s petite, and her eyes are knowing. Her smile matches Jordana’s tooth for tooth. “I’m Laticia. So wonderful to meet you. Your father has told me so much about you.”
Mm, hm.
“I’ve got a roast in the Crock Pot,” she says, placing her palm on my bicep. “If you’ll just excuse me, I need to go check on that.”
She tip toes around me, flashing her daughter a kind smile, and disappears around the corner and into my mother’s kitchen.
I’m not sure whether to head up to my room or walk around the house and inspect the place for changes. I’m quite sure the latter would piss me the fuck off.
Jordana stands there awkwardly, and I catch her eyes tracing the outline of my shoulders. I should probably find a decent shirt to put on, though I’m positive none of my old stuff will fit. I’d probably break through it all Hulk-style.
“Thanks for the lift.” I give her a salute capped off with a smartass smirk. “Unless you want to show me to my room. Pretty sure I remember how to get there, unless I’ve been relocated, and in that case-”
“About that,” she says, pulling in a long sigh. “I’m in your old room.”
“Fucking serious?”
She cringes. “You had the en suite bathroom. It just made more sense. I didn’t know, when I picked that room, that you’d be coming home so soon. I wouldn’t have picked it. It was either that one or your sister’s old room or the small guest room with the hall bath. I didn’t want to take your sister’s room and-”
“It’s fine.” I cut her off. It’s not fine, but it is what it is. Besides, I doubt I’ll be living here much longer. I’m twenty-six. I fully intend to not be living with my father until I’m thirty like so many others my age.
I hike up the stairs, feeling the slick familiarity of the wooden banister under my hand. The upstairs air is warm and thick and smells of unfamiliar perfume and hairspray and strangers.
When I turn down the hall, I pass Taylor’s old room, stopping in front of it and daring my hand to twist the knob.
A part of me is fully convinced that if I open it, she’ll be sitting on her bed with headphones in her ears doing her homework. I can even picture her cheesy grin as she stares up at me, and I can imagine the way her eyes twinkle just before she chucks a throw pillow at me and tells me to get out of her room.
But I don’t go in there.
Some things are better left tucked away as memories.
I head toward the end of the hall to the guest room, which sits next to my former bedroom. As the oldest Blackstone kid, I had the biggest and best room.
Apparently my father had no problem giving that away to Jordana.
Fuck, I don’t even know her last name. She’s a stranger, and yet she’s about to become my stepsister. Guess Pops was too busy to mention he planned to remarry just like he was too busy to keep in touch beyond a Christmas card during the years he’d remember.
I fling myself across the creaky guest bed. It’s just as uncomfortable as I remember it to be. My mom was cheap when she picked it out, thinking that if it’s too uncomfortable, it’ll deter guests from overstaying their welcome.
She would always say she was kidding, but we all knew better. When you have a big, fancy lake house, people always want a “free vacation” and my mother always had a hard time saying “no.”
That’s why the uncomfortable bed trick worked so well.
My mother was equal parts sweet and passive-aggressive. She couldn’t help herself.
A puff of dust flies up around me, flickering into the stream of light that trails in through the window that overlooks Blue Pond. My father’s speedboat, Katherine the Great, named for my mother, rests in the slip next to the dock.
I wonder when he’s going to buy a new boat and name it for Laticia?
Only a matter of time, I’m sure.
A small rap on the door precedes Jordana’s entrance. This girl must think she’s my personal keeper, and it’s really starting to irritate me.
Now if she weren’t my soon-to-be “stepsister” and someone I could potentially fuck, I wouldn’t mind it, but since she’s off limits, she serves me no purpose.
She’s a mild annoyance. A flea on a tick on the back of a dog.
A fucking hot as hell flea, but still.
“Yes, Jordana?” I sigh loudly, drawing her name out and making no bones about the fact that her sunshine-y presence annoys the ever-loving fuck out of me.
Her dark brows arch and then furrow. “Dinner’s ready. Your dad just pulled in. Mom asked me to come get you.”
My hand rakes across my face, disguising my smile. I feel like a fucking high schooler and this insta-family shit’s going to get old quick.
I stare up at the ceiling. “Happen to know where my old clothes are? You know, since you stole my room?”
She prances across the room, tugging at the closet doors and revealing my former wardrobe, color coded and divided by season.
Who the hell has time for this shit?
“You do this?” I rise up, pointing to where she stands.
She nods. “I had some extra time when I was home on spring break, so…”
I charge toward my clothes, rifling through the shirts and pulling out an aqua polo before tugging it over my head. The sleeves are tight around my arms and the fabric stretches across my back and shoulders.
It’s going to have to do until I can shop for new stuff.
“Don’t touch my shit again.” I comb my hair back into place.
She swallows loudly, shaking her head and tearing her gaze off me. She totally checked me out. Good to know I still got it, even if I can’t tap that ass.
“Anyway,” she says, heading out. “You coming?”
CHAPTER TWO – TITAN
By the time we get to the dining room, my father is seated at the head of the table, his face buried in his iPad.
“Lewis.” Laticia draws his attention to the doorway where I stand. He lowers his device to the table, fighting the struggle to stop reading his article.
Damn those things have gotten smaller since I last saw them. Thinner too.
He squints at me from across the room, like it’s finally dawning on him that he hasn’t seen me in five years. Dad rises. He looks shorter now. His face is little rounder, as is his belly. His dark hair has thinned out, fading to gray at the temples. He grabs his glasses and pulls them off, studying me intensely before he makes his way across the room.
After dead silence, he extends his hand to me, which is a relief because I’m not a person who particularly enjoys hugs these days.
“Titan. Good to see you.” He says it with minimal conviction, as if I’m a burden and this is a formality. Judging by the fact that he can’t be bothered to stand up and offer any kind of formal salutation tells me he’s not exactly excited to have me home.
Laticia and Jordana take their seats as my father returns to his, and evidently my future stepmother has already taken the liberty to dish up our meals as if we’re helpless saps.
It smells delicious. I’ll give her that. Much better than prison food.
I hunch over my plate, elbows on the table, and shovel the meat and potatoes mixture into my mouth. I inhale this meal like it’s my last, and damn if it isn’t the best one I’ve had in a long time.
“Your father tells me you were studying engineering,” Laticia says, neglecting to add, “Before you beat up the drunk driver who killed your mother and sister and before you were shipped off to prison for assault with willful injury.”
It’s okay.
She doesn’t have to say it.
We all know.
“Civil engineering. Yes.” I inhale another bite of tender, savory roast dripping with brown gravy.
“Do you intend on finishing your studies?” she asks sweetly.
Bless her little heart.
I chew and swallow. “That’s the plan.”
She turns to my father. “You’ll help him, Lewis, won’t you?”
My father doesn’t answer. He takes a bite off his plate and then reaches for his wine glass, taking his sweet as time mulling it over as if he hasn’t already thought about t his.
I know he has.
“It’s something Titan and I will have to discuss.” He doesn’t meet Laticia’s gaze. She shoots an uncomfortable smile my way. Try as I may not to like this woman, she might be the only advocate I have here. The woman barely knows me and yet she’s already in my corner.
I like that.
And I hate that.
I want to hate Laticia.
I want to hate her for sliding in and assuming my mother’s rightful place as the woman of the house.
But I can’t.
She’s too damn sweet.
But her Mary-fucking-sunshine daughter over here, she’s a whole ‘nother story.
I could easily hate the shit out of her bubblegum nail polish and her ear-bleed music.
I could also fuck the shit out of her too, hate-fuck style. A guy could take great pleasure in replacing those picture perfect smiles of hers with lip-biting orgasmic screams.
I shake my head.
I need to get my mind out of the gutter and get fucking laid. It’s been way too long.
“So what’s the plan, son?” Dad asks, plating his fork. He leans back in his seat, dabbing the corners of his mouth on a white linen napkin.
“The plan?”
His steady surgeon hand balls into a fist, resting on the table next to his place setting. “You going to look for work?”
“Of course I’m going to look for work.” I spit my words slowly. “I’ve been out all of a couple of hours. And it’s a Sunday.”
“You can stay here thirty days,” he says. His hand rises, slicing through the air to emphasis his point. “No more. You’re to find work and get a place of your own.”
He makes no bones about his distaste for me. Ever since I beat the fuck out of that drunk driver, he made it perfectly clear that I disappointed him.
But it was never about me.
It was about his image.
He became the surgeon with the tarnished reputation – the one the nurses gossiped about at work. The one the people in town whispered about when he drove by in his white Mercedes. The once revered and admired doctor had fallen from grace, losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident and left all alone when his only son got shipped off to the state penitentiary.
Never mind that I was avenging his wife and daughter’s deaths.
I made him look bad, and for that, I lost his love and respect.
A small price to pay in my book.
“Thirty days?” Laticia chimes in. “That’s not a lot of time to get on someone’s feet.”
My father shoots her a quick look, silencing her commentary. I peer over toward Jordana, who’s pushing her carrots around on her plate and avoiding all forms of eye contact.
“I’ll be out in less.” I stand up, gripping the white ceramic plate in my clenched hand. “Don’t worry about me, Pop.”
Jordana whips her face my direction, watching as I leave the dining room.
Jordana and Laticia and my father aren’t my family.
As far as I’m concerned, I have no family. My family died five years ago.
Fuck those people.
CHAPTER THREE – JORDANA
“Jordana Perry,” I say, clenching the leather strap of my purse as I report for the first day of my internship. There’s a glass wall between me and the office and a little round cut out to speak through. Signs are plastered all over, forbidding people from using their cell phones and bringing food and water into the waiting area. “I’m interning with Parole Officer Kent Sorensen.”
The receptionist picks up her phone and dials an extension, muttering into the receiver and hanging up. “He’ll be out to get you shortly. You can have a seat over there.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” I find a spot next to a guy my age, dressed in business casual clothes with a fresh haircut and polished dress shoes. He carries a portfolio with him and a laptop case.
Four years studying criminal justice would tell me not to judge a book by its cover, but he clearly doesn’t look like a typical offender.
“You an intern too?” He breaks the silence with a warm smile and a smooth cadence in his voice.
I nod. “Jordana Perry.”
“Thad McHenry.” He shakes my hand, his mouth arching up in the corner and showing off a deep dimple centered in his cheek. The starched collar of his button down shirt peeks out from a navy cashmere sweater. This guy walked off the page of a J. Crew catalog and decided he wanted to work with criminals. “I’m interning with Gabriela Mercado.”
“I’ll be working with Kent Sorensen,” I say.
Thad’s face winces with a smile. “You’re lucky. He was my first pick. I’ve heard everyone who works with him is offered a job. He’s well connected. Makes things happen.”
“I’m sure Gabriela is just as good.”
Thad shakes his head, his lips holding a hard line. “She’s new. You’ll be set with Kent. He’ll have a job lined up for you before you graduate.”
“We’ll see.” I pick at my nails, listening to the echo of the clock above us as each second ticks by.
The big iron door next to the reception area clicks and buzzes before flinging open and revealing a man who’s as wide as he is tall.
“Jordana Perry.” He says my name as if he’s calling out for a client. His beady eyes squint under the glare of the industrial fluorescent lighting. Our eyes meet, and he motions for me to follow him.
“Nice to meet you, sir.” I extend my hand as I walk toward him. He towers over me, pausing before he shakes mine. Nothing about Kent is warm or fuzzy or gives me any kind of inkling that this semester is going to be smooth sailing.
But they say he’s good. I’ve heard from several sources that if Kent loves you, you’re as good as hired after graduation.
I can do this.
Kent motions for me to follow him again as he turns and leads us down a long, gray hallway.
It smells of nothing. Sterile. Bland.
He stops short halfway down, leaning in to an employee break room and grabbing a stale cherry donut from an open box before shoving half of it in his mouth, crumbs sticking into the prickly hairs of his mustached mouth.
He’s shaped like an upside down pear, his upper half neatly tucked into and spilling over his khakis. There’s a slight g
imp in his stride, like he’s got a bad knee, but he stops abruptly again in the doorway of an office where another man types mindlessly into a computer.
“Morning, John,” Kent says, leaning in the doorway like he’s got all the time in the world.
The other man glances up, scooting away from his computer and leaning back in his seat. “Kent. How was your weekend? You ever get out of going to that wedding?”
“Ah, you know how the wife is,” Kent says with a condescending laugh. “Didn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell.”
“Open bar at least?” the other guy asks, wearing a smile and clinging onto Kent’s every word.
I really don’t get it.
“You know it.” Kent shoots the guy a wink and turns to head out, waving into every office we pass by. Everyone smiles and waves back, as if they’re honored he took the time to acknowledge him.
Again.
I don’t get it.
His office is the last one on the left, easily twice as large as the others I’ve seen. Two picture windows cover the far wall and the back of his desk is covered in various awards and plaques bearing his name.
Either he kisses a lot of ass or he’s been here a really long time.
Probably both.
Kent rakes his hand across the top of his smooth, bald head as he scrutinizes me. “You attend Southern State, right?”
“Sure do.”
“That’s my alma mater.” He points to two college degrees framed and matted on the wall behind me. “Go Bob Cats.”
I smile. “It’s a great school, sir. I’ll miss it when I’m done.”
“Not going to go back for your master’s degree?”
“Not quite sure yet, sir.”
“Aw, hell, don’t call me ‘sir.’ You can call me Kent, just like everyone else.” He doesn’t smile or soften his delivery. I get the feeling he’s still trying to decide if he likes me yet or not, which isn’t exactly fair since we’ve only just met.
