Page 52 of Act Like You Don't Care
It didn’t.
“I just ruined the whole vibe, didn’t I?” I asked him.
He snorted softly. “Did we just take a trip back to the seventies? No, it’ll be fine.” He lifted his head and pulled my mouth down to his for a sweet brush of lips against lips. “I need to think some.” He put his head back down on my shoulder and, this time, he did relax. But that thumb of his kept moving until I gave up and let sleep overwhelm me.
Tam
We were three days in that house with nothing to do but watch television, talk, sleep, and fuck. Somewhere around the second day, I found myself telling Miles stories I hadn’t talked about for years, things I hadn’t eventhoughtabout for years. My father, my ex, the Vinists. I glossed over a lot, but I’d also known that he’d read between the lines, which oddly enough made it easier. I could talk about some of these experiences without actually having to say the words.
Like the time when I was nine and I hadn’t cooked an egg the exact way my father insisted it should be done, how he’d thrown everything on the floor—including me—and yelled at me for what felt like hours. Or the time when I was thirteen when my mother and I jumped in the car with only a couple of shopping bags of clothing and tried to disappear, how he’d found us in that dingy motel and dragged us both out by the hair to bring us home. I glossed over the beatings that came after in both of those situations because I’d never quite learned how to keep my mouth shut like a proper omega and my commentary had enraged my father, but I could tell by the look in Miles’s eyes that he knew what I was leaving out.
I slept in hard on the third morning, like my body was finally coming to grips with the idea that I was safe and it could afford to not have one eye open for lunatics. Bright sunlight peeked in around the curtains on the window, just enough to light the room, not enough to have woken me unless I was ready to be awake. I stretched against the comfortable mattress, the sheets still smelling of sex and alpha, though when I reached across the bed, the other side was empty. Disappointing.
After a sigh and another good stretch, I rolled over to stare up at the ceiling. My ass ached, but it was a good ache. The result of several very satisfying nights. And days.
Miles was spoiling me.
The smell of bacon drifted into the room through the gap underneath the door to tantalize me. I didn't often eat bacon—too much fat and salt—but it seemed to me that I’d worked off enough calories over the last couple of days to afford a few pieces of it.
I got up and pulled on some of the clean clothes that Miles’s oldest brother had dropped off to us on our first full day here. He’d also brought the news that Badness was almost as good as new, which took a weight off me I hadn’t even realized had still been weighing me down.
Miles was in the kitchen making a—I glanced at the clock—very late breakfast. His brother Jim was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee. I was momentarily annoyed to see him there because it forced me to curb the impulse to wrap myself around Miles from behind and nibble on things while I waited for the food.
Except Miles was quiet, even quieter than I would have expected with his brother in the room. “What happened?” I demanded.
Miles shrugged. “You want to tell him?” he asked Jim.
“All the same to me.” Jim sipped at his coffee and then put it down. “We found him. The stalker. The police have him in custody now.”
I’d expected to feel something. Some sense of relief, or excitement. Joy.
What I felt was nothing, except maybe the looming shadow of an ending I didn’t want to play out. “Who is it?” Maybe if I knew the name, I’d feel something more than this numb apprehension.
“Joshua Baker. Originally from Roseville, Indiana, now living in South LA.”
Joshua Baker. I searched my memory but came up with nothing. “I don’t know him.”
“Not at all?” Jim asked, sounding disappointed. “Nothing jogging your memory?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve even heard his name before.”
“He’s a Vinist,” Jim said doggedly, as if knowing that would suddenly pop his entire family history up in my brain like I was a contrary computer.
“Sorry,” I said, my words dripping with sarcasm. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Miles shot me a sharp look. I made a face and went for the coffee machine. Why did they think I knew all the Vinists in the country just because I’d dated one—and a lapsed one, at that—six or seven years ago? “So that means I can go home?”
“Tomorrow,” Miles said, his face stony.
The coffee burned like acid in my stomach and I shook my head at his silent offer of eggs and bacon.
I should have been relieved. Why wasn’t I relieved?
Stupid. You know why.
I abandoned my coffee on the counter by the sink and took a chair at the table. “So what do we do now?”
Jim shrugged. “Hang out while the cops confirm his identity and finish backtracking where he’s been and what he’s been doing. It’s a pretty done deal though—he confessed to everything. The one thing we can’t figure out is the connection, because he seems to think he’s met you in person. But he could just be crazy.”
