Page 31 of Judge
A rustling sound has me peeking through my fingers toward him, following his movements as he sits on the coffee table in front of me. He softly lifts my hands from my face.
“Why did you run away?” he asks quietly, his eyes flicking between mine.
I move to sit up, my feet on the floor between Leo’s big boots. “When I came home from seeing you with-”
“Yup, no need to mention her name,” Leo cringes.
“-them, anyway I was so upset I had to tell Dad what was going on. He gathered me up into his arms, and hugged me until I stopped crying. Then he broke it to me that Aunt Daisy - remember her? Well, she’d had a stroke and needed help. We packed up that night and drove the seven hours to her place. We nursed her until she passed away and by then the twins were so close to being due we just settled down there. Lived in Florida until we came to Rose Grove six months ago.”
Leo runs a hand down his beard, nodding. He’s quiet, which isn’t anything unusual for him I guess. He’s a lot like his dad, likes to process things in his mind before using his words. Icould wait all night for him to speak, but there are things I want to know. Things I need to know.
“Why did you never return my messages? It wasn’t just email, it was text too?” His green eyes meet mine, full of regret.
He sighs. “I lost my phone that day. It went into the river, along with all my contacts. I waited a couple of days for your temper to settle down, but when I went to find you to apologize, you’d already left.”
“Why do we suck so much?”
He huffs out a laugh. “No idea, babe.”
We sit in silence for a beat, before Leo’s eyes find mine. “So is your dad still in Florida?”
“No, he ah, he passed away. Six years ago.”
Chapter 9
Judge
Fuck. She’s been doing this on her own for the past six years? I don’t know what to say, so I just stare at her, hoping that she can read everything I want to say to her but just can’t find the words. She has a dark look on her face, and it’s not the first time I’ve noticed. I know I should ask, but it won’t be just after I find out that her only parent passed away. She sniffs, pulling herself back together before giving me a tight smile. She’s good at pretending, my woman, but not good enough. I want the whole story, but I can wait.
“Anyway, we decided it was time for a fresh start, so we came here. Close to where I grew up, but bigger, you know?” I nod. I do know. Rose Grove is larger and nicer than our little podunk town. “Um, while you’re here, do you want to look at some pictures of the kids when they were little? I guess you have only seen the one I emailed you that time.” She brushes everything off, and I’m thankful for it.
“Yeah, course,” I say, trying to play it cool. Inside I crave seeing the twins, the life they’ve led, every little facet that I’ve imagined.
She grins at me and then bounces up off the couch, headed for the dining room. Her ass in those tiny shorts is visible under the hem of her oversized t-shirt and I try to not gape at her as it jiggles away from me. Clearly I don’t try very hard, because my cock starts to thicken in my jeans. Kaia was always fucking hot, but now, with a little bit of softness and weight on her, she’s stunning.
“Here it is!” She waves a laptop in the air.
All that does is cause her braless tits to jiggle under her shirt, pulling a groan out of me.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah, just need to stretch, I, ah, spent a bit of time on the road today.” Raising my arms above my head I swivel my hips so she can’t see my wood. Fucking hell, it’s like I’m a teenager again. Using my teenage tricks I hook my stiff cock into the waistband of my jeans, hoping that by angling it up it’ll be less noticeable.
She plops herself down on the couch, patting the seat next to her awkwardly. “It’ll be easier to see from here.”
I nod, taking a seat next to her. She has one leg tucked up under her lush behind, her brown skin glistening in the warm lighting of her living room. I try not to sit too close, but she scoots closer, her knee touching mine, laptop placed between us.
“Um, I think this is the folder,” she murmurs.
She clicks into it and immediately a picture of the kids smiling at the beach, arms around each other fills the screen. They look so happy and sunkissed, missing teeth and all. She flicks through to the next, then the next, pausing on each one, telling me what was happening that day or what she can remember. I laugh along with her, while all the time my stomach clenches knowing that I could have been there.
She comes to the last photo in the album, and it’s a picture of her, lying on a hospital bed, IV drip in one arm, lookingexhausted. There’s a curtain cutting off the bottom part of her body, and a nurse stands on one side, holding one baby, her father on the other, holding the other twin. Frowning, I lean closer for a better look, realizing that she’s in an operating theatre with the way everyone is dressed. Gloves, masks, those weird hats.
“What the fuck? Are you insurgeryor something?” My eyes dart to hers in shock.
Her face screws up as she tries not to laugh in my face. And she better not, this shit isn’t funny.
“Leo, I carriedtwins. Big ones because they took after their Daddy,” my heart skips at her use of the word Daddy. “I had to wear slippers all day everyday because my feet were so swollen. Yes, I had a c-section to remove them. They knew fairly early on that I was too small to birth them naturally. They were born perfectly fine, and I was well and safe the whole time.” She smiles at me gently, as if talking to one of the kids, but that still doesn’t make me feel any better.
