Page 100 of Wild Blades

“You good?” Kali asks. Eyes busy, she looks everywhere but at me.

“I don’t love her anymore, if that’s really what you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t.” Sounding sulky and nothing like her usual confident self, she stands up straighter, her nose pointing to the ceiling.

“Kali, look at me.”

When her eyes hit mine, I’m honest when I say quietly so only she can hear, “How I feel about you is new to me, and unlike anything I’ve felt before. Our connection…” I splay my hands, making them look like fireworks exploding between us. “Mind blowing.” I close the distance between us, lean in, and whisper, “Nothing and no one compares to you. You are who I want.”

A subtle twist of her head has our mouths almost touching. “For a man who used grunts and scoffs to communicate with me in the beginning, you sure have a way with words, Mr. Collins.”

“I hope that’s a good thing.” I restrain myself from kissing her.

“I’ve liked you since the first day I met you.”

“I thought you found me annoying.”

“That too,” she says, smiling. “I like your grumpy ass.”

“I like your ass better.”

“Good evening, Wade.” A sharp voice like razor blades cuts the air, breaking our moment, which is probably just as well, or, if we haven’t already, we’ll have everyone in the room speculating about our relationship status. “It’s lovely to see you.”

It’s lovely to see you?

Oh, hell to the fucking no.

I move to Kali’s side, needing her combination of strength and calmness to help me get through this interaction. “What do you want, Miranda?” I address the woman who gave birth to me, yet didn’t have an ounce of motherly genes in her to raise me. She looks less intimidating than the woman I remember as a kid. Got to give it to her, though. She hasn’t aged a bit, which I hate her for. I swear her witchy heart doesn’t match her looks.

“Wade, please don’t be like that. Not here.” Her eyes flit left and right, checking to see who is standing around her.She wouldn’t want anyone thinking she’s a bitch now, would she?

That would never do.

“What were you expecting, exactly? A beautiful family reunion where we’d all kiss and share friendship bracelets. I’m sorry.” I place my hand on my chest, feigning shock. “Do you not want everyone to know what a shitty mother you were, and we don’t speak because of that? Because if you did, I didn’t get the memo.” I point around the room. “Or should we tell everyone the story of the day you told me I was a bastard?”

Kali gasps. I don’t blame her. Those words cut deep. Brutal.

“Why don’t you pull up some chairs and ask everyone to gather round.” This is the first time I’ve seen my mother face to face in several years and I’m mad. Fuck that, I’m angrier than a bull seeing red.

Molten hot rage runs through my veins, because she’s standing there looking all innocent, in her sparkling dress, like butter wouldn’t melt, when, in fact, there is a vicious tongueinside that mouth, and she wants me to pretend everything is fine.

It’s far from fine.

We’re a mess.

“I was ten years old the day you told me I was a bastard.” I remember I ran to Ezra’s that day. And I also remember crying all the way there. All my friends had a dad. Even my friends whose parents were divorced had dads. They picked them up on the weekends, did fun things like going to the movies, and bowling. I dreamed about doing those things with a man I could callDad. I dreamed of his hugs and wished he came to my hockey games and told me how proud he was of me. That never happened.

I get everything off my chest I've been holding in, releasing it, and letting it all go. “Gretchen was more of a mother to me than you. She raised me and made me the man I am today, and you didn’t even have the decency to show up to her funeral. To show your respects. To be there for me. Nothing. Although I don’t know what I was expecting when you couldn’t even show up for my hockey games or parents’ evenings. You left that to Gretchen, too. She loved me in a way your black heart could never understand because the only person you love is yourself. I wish I could say it’s lovely to see you, but that would be a lie. Please go back under the stone you crawled out from under.” I turn my back on her and take a deep breath, my chest heaving in and out. I don’t care who’s watching or if they heard everything.

“You’re okay. Just breathe, Wade,” Kali soothes me.

As if the moon has been lifted off my shoulders, and it’s finally shining down on me instead of me carrying it about. I feel stronger, lighter, and so much brighter.

“Am I interrupting something?” Zane’s sarcastic tone arrives on the scene.

“Tonight’s the gift that keeps on giving,” I say before facing the man who took an instant dislike to me the first day we met, relieved to find my mother is now nowhere to be seen.

“Evening, fuckface.” Zane grins wider than the Grand Canyon, trying to provoke me by calling me names.

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