Page 90 of Sinful Promise
“He promised we would be happy together,” she sobs. The sound is soft and pitiful. Devastated and broken. “He lied to us, and I just got so… so…” She drops her head and cries. “I got so mad.”
EPILOGUE
Minka
Aubree has no clue that tension bubbles within our group. Tim, though aware something is up, is told nothing. And though Cato and Micah saw more than I’m comfortable with, they remain ignorant of the details too.
So I go to work like everything is normal, and Archer goes to the station and works his caseload alongside Fletch.
There are no jokes among friends. No silly banter. Tragically, Fletcher doesn’t flirt with me anymore. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t bring Mia around. And when Jada is officially released from rehab, he doesn’t invite us around to see her.
But Aubree does… because she’s oblivious.
So we’re all bundled into Tim’s Bar, though the place is closed to the public, and the alcohol, magically stored away for the evening.
The second the door opens, and a woman—too thin, and hard in the face—shuffles in with Fletch on her left, Mia sprints from Aubree’s side and dashes toward the woman like she has rockets in her feet.
“Mommy, you’re home!” She jumps when there are still three feet between them, and collides with Jada’s thin legs with a slam.
I guess she was expecting to be caught. To be swung into the air and part of a celebration for making their family whole again.
But Jada seems to ride some kind of fog, as, slowly, she glances down at the toddler she birthed a few short years ago.
Shaking herself off, Mia jumps to her feet again and hugs the woman’s legs.
She’s like an eager puppy. Unaware that those she pesters don’t actually want her near.
“Hey, Moo.” Sad, pathetic, Fletch’s expression changes from his ever-constant anger to something more melancholy as he picks his daughter up and sets her on his hip.
He ignores his crowd. The welcome-home banner that Aubree hung behind the bar. The balloons tied to a stool. And the small, pitiful plate of snacks she was able to conjure at the last minute. Turning with Mia in his arms, he brings her around so her and Jada can see each other, eye-to-eye.
My heart aches at the way Jada looks straight through her. At the way she’d rather study the Jack Daniels sign on the back wall, and the Budweiser sign hung over the pool tables.
“This is horrible.” I sit back at the bar with a soda in one hand and my shoulder tucked under Archer’s. We’re on the outside, not actually welcome inside this tragic family reunion. But Aubree insisted on our presence, and we’re not ready to throw our issues with Fletcher in her face just yet. “She doesn’t wanna be here,” I whisper.
“She’s not even looking at Moo,” he groans ever so softly. “And Moo’s so young, she doesn’t even realize it.”
“That’s her?” Seraphina sits on my other side, whispering just like us. “The mother of his child? The woman he once married.”
“Yep.” Archer brings his soda up and exhales a heady sigh. “She was cool back then.”
“She seems cruel now,” Seraphina murmurs. She wears jeans today, and her hair in a ponytail. Very ‘Tim’s Bar’ of her, as though she left Corporate Barbie back at the George Stanley. “No kid deserves to be looked through like that.” She shakes her head. “That’s how my mom looked at me.”
“It happens,” Arch rumbles behind the lip of his glass. He watches his best friend cradle his daughter, and he studies Jada as she wanders from the duo and peeks at each of us in turn.
For days now, Fletch has worn nothing but rage.
But today, he resembles that same kicked puppy that Mia does.
“I want to go home.” Done already, Jada turns back and speaks the first words I’ve ever heard her mutter. Her voice isn’t as weak as her stature might imply. Her eyes, not quite as faraway as they were a moment ago. “Charlie,” she starts back in his direction. “Please take me home.” She reaches out, warmer now, and takes Mia in her arms. “I want our family. Not a party.”
His eyes shoot our way. Maybe he wants our thoughts. Our opinions on his marriage, the way he would have asked for them a week or so ago. But he robs himself of that comfort and bites his lips shut instead.
Nodding, he goes back and opens the bar door. “Okay,” he sighs. “We can do that.”
“Can we have hotdogs on a stick for dinner, Daddy?” Mia wraps her arms around Jada’s neck and takes a long, deep whiff of the woman’s hair. Her eyes brim with emotion, and her little hands clutch to her mother tightly. “Please, Daddy? That would be the best welcome home dinner ever.”
“Sure, baby.” He holds the door for the girls to pass through, but before he releases it again, he glances back and locks on my eyes. His burn mine. The way they scour my face. The way they warm my skin.
