Page 59 of Missed Sunrise
“Oka—” I started, briefly trying for a real response before realizing he’d already hung up, making me two for two today.
Nice.
My phone pinged with a text a few moments later, so at least he hadn’t forgotten that, though as soon as I opened it, I almost wished he had.
Then maybe I would’ve just driven back to Bay Springs.
This address wasn’t all that far away, but it was in an entirely different zip code that you had to cross the fucking river to reach. Starting the truck, I pulled enough pieces of myself together to follow my phone’s directions out of the quiet Baton Rouge, Louisiana, suburbs and into the city itself.
The rain finally let up as I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River. It should have felt like coming home, or at least vaguely familiar. Instead, I was assaulted by memories that hadn’t come to the forefront of my mind in a long-ass time.
For the first several years of my formal education, I’d attended a prestigious private school in Baton Rouge. I’d hated just about every second of it, but I used to at least enjoy the ride into town. Mom would always have to go into the hospital really early, so she drove me each morning and would spend the entire car ride on the phone, issuing commands to her staff and making all kinds of appointments for herself, leaving me to my own devices.
Then she’d drop me off at the front steps and would try to make a big scene of telling me goodbye—always with someoneimportant listening on the other end of the phone or watching from the school—and telling me to try my best and to not be foolish. I’d rush off and find a quiet step to sit on, almost always arriving more than two hours before the first class.
If I were lucky, the groundskeeper would have left a side door unlocked, and I could sneak inside and scavenge for food in the cafeteria.
Sooner than I’d have liked, I reached my destination and paid twenty-five dollars for parking—as if I needed more insult to my long-standing mommy-issues injuries—and was standing in front of a supremely unimpressed lobby doorman.
“I’m here for Alexandra Cormier.”
He eyed me with suspicion. “Is Dr. Cormier expecting you?”
I chuckled, but there was no real amusement in it. “Unlikely.”
The modern elevators that didn’t really fit the aesthetic of the historic building dinged before opening, and a man in a nice suit with salt-and-pepper hair stepped out, followed by my mother. The pair chatted animatedly as they breezed right to the exit without sparing a glance at the doorman’s stand.
This was awkward as fuck.
I was the kitten left on the street inOliver & Company, just less cute and more feral. In my heart of hearts, I didn’t really want to be picked up, to be sheltered by this woman.
Yet I continued to beg for scraps.
The doorman smiled at me as if he’d won something and then cleared his throat loudly before calling out, “Dr. Cormier, ma’am!”
Mom was halfway out the door that the man she was with was holding open when she turned our way briefly. “Hmmm? Yes, Richard?” She glanced back at her companion and gave him a placid smile, her gaze having darted right over me.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am, but this young man says he’s here to see you,” he announced with a wave of his hand toward me.
An excruciatingly long silence followed, and for whatever reason, I kept my gaze fixed on Dick the doorman and his impressive mustache as he waited for my mother’s response.
Heels clicked across the floor, and the doorman broke his marble façade and frowned, puffing out his chest as he asked, “Do you know this young man, Dr. Cormier?”
Bless all our hearts. Truly.
With a grip of my bicep, she turned me toward her and gasped. “What are you doing here?” she said quickly, quietly. There was a split second of hesitation and calculation before she pulled me in for a brief hug. The subtle scent of her jasmine perfume conjured the same amount of nostalgia as crossing the Mississippi River had.
Minimal.
Unfortunately, it was just as likely to pull me under and drown me.
Putting me at arm’s length, she dragged her dark-blue gaze over me and frowned deeply. I scrutinized her right back.
She was a striking, beautiful woman. Always had been. Apple cheekbones, pin-straight blonde hair, a smirk that stopped men in their tracks, and enough charm to tame a rabid alligator.
My father had fallen for that charm for precisely one night while out on the town in New Orleans roughly twenty-three years ago, and who knew how many more had fallen since.
In any other world, she would have been my hero.
