Return to Me (Breaking Free Book 2) Read online

  Trin hums under her breath briefly. “Part of it was I was still in withdrawal. Another part was all the crap with the label, and this next album. Getting surprised by that idiot Kane again didn’t help much either. Faith invited him, but she didn’t understand how that whole thing worked.”

  “Right.”

  “And seeing you again brought up some stuff. A big part was… I never dealt with having that abortion. I pushed off facing that for years.”

  Suddenly some of the things she said that night made a whole lot more sense. I swallow thickly. Studying her from the back, I realize she’s no longer whisking the cake ingredients together. She’s waiting for me to say something. “I never would’ve guessed. You were so… detached about it.”

  She is silent and still for a moment, then she resumes her mixing. “Well, I wasn’t. I still think it was the right thing to do, for me anyways. I so wasn’t ready at that point, but it’s not black or white, ya know? And all the stuff my mom said when she found out made me feel like… Ugh, that was a long time ago. Let’s just say, I was conflicted about it all, and I dealt with it in the worst way possible.”

  I was conflicted about it for a while too, but she’s right. That was a long time ago. I come up behind her, and wrap my arms around her middle. “I wish you had talked to me, Trin.”

  “I wish I had now too, but I don’t think I was emotionally mature enough to talk about it. I was an immature little bitch.”

  Trin turned to drugs, and I ran straight to another girl. From where I’m standing, neither one of us dealt with things very maturely. “You may have been a bit immature,” I say. “We both were, but you weren’t a bitch.”

  “Oh, I was. I was a mega bitch.”

  “And I was a mega pussy.”

  Trin laughs. “I used to call you that all the time. See, I really was a bitch.”

  “And I really was a pussy sometimes, but I considered mega pussy to be more like a… pet name.”

  “That’s how I meant it, as a term of endearment.” Trin turns around, and holds the spatula covered in cake batter up to my lips for me to have a taste.

  “Doesn’t that have raw eggs in it?”

  “Stop being a mega pussy. You’re not going to get food poisoning. See.” She took a big lick to prove her point.

  “I’ll stop being a mega pussy when you stop being a little bitch and telling me what to do,” I say in a light tone.

  Her mouth falls open into a big smile. She drags the tip of the spatula across my lips. When my tongue darts out for a taste, she leans in to help me lick it away.

  Chapter 19

  Trin

  “So how was your… date?” Faith asks.

  “It was amaaaazing,” I sing, snapping a tupperware lid on the remains of the cake I baked last night. I’m sending the leftovers home with my sister. I don’t need the temptation.

  Faith gives me a tight smile. Her hip is rested up against the kitchen island. She’s about to set her cup down, then she looks at the granite top and her upper lip curls slightly.

  “Oh, we didn’t have sex there.” I say quickly. “We did it upstairs in my bed. In the shower, and in front of the fire right at midnight to ring in the New Year.” I tick each location off on my fingers as I speak. “It was sooo romantic.”

  Faith tilts her head to the side, and scratches her scalp. “Sounds like a lovely first date.”

  “But it’s not a first date. We’ve known each other forever. It’s not like I just met him.”

  “I know, but… are those teeth marks?”

  My fingertips brush against that tender spot where my neck meets my shoulder. “It’s just a love bite. A looove bite.” I smack a big kiss in her direction, and smile wide. “He’s so different. He’s wild. Gabe really is all man now.”

  Faith bobs her head. “Okay, but maybe you can cover that up before Hope comes back downstairs. I’d rather not have to explain why her aunt is sporting a love bite.”

  I roll my eyes and smooth my hair down around my neck.

  Hope is upstairs with Charity, and I can hear the broken, stuttering stop and start of piano chords. My sisters and I took to music pretty well from an early age thanks to our dad, but so far Hope doesn’t show much aptitude for it, or much interest either. I’m not sure why my sister persists in making her take those lessons. You’d think I would be enough of a cautionary tale to keep her child far away from all things music related.

  “I called my assistant, and she’s gonna make arrangements to have that stuff cleared out of mom’s old place, and spruce it all up a bit for Charity.”

  Faith gives me a sharp look.

  “I told her she can live here,” I say. “But that’s where she wants to live.”

  “She can live with me.”

  “You’re welcome to extend the offer, but she seemed pretty sure.”

  My older sister shakes her head, and sighs.

  “She’s not a baby, Faith.”

  “I just worry about her.”

  “She’ll be within walking distance to you, and I think you’re worrying about nothing. I’ll make sure she doesn’t go without, and she can take care of herself. She’s twenty three years old now, but she can stay here with me for the time being. Let her adjust, then she can do whatever she wants.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right.” Faith takes a dainty sip from her cup, and holds it in her hand for warmth. “Speaking of babies, Hope is going to have a brother or sister, but keep that to yourself right now. It’s still really early.”

  I stare around the empty room. Who the hell does she think I’m going to tell? “It’s about damn time.”

  Faith nods vigorously.

  “Maybe you’ll end up filling that minivan up after all.”

  Her light, tinkling laugh fills the space. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  My sister’s first child was completely unplanned for and came at the worst time possible, not that you’d ever know it according to her. We both found ourselves in the exact same predicament, being pregnant and unwed. She made her choice, and I made mine. It all turned out okay.. eventually.

  The truth is I’ve never felt that maternal urge, or whatever the hell it is. I mean, kids are great. They’re fine, but none of it really appealed to me. The shitty diapers, and sleepless night. The tiny human that gets gradually less and less tiny, the one you have to make sure doesn’t accidentally kill itself as tiny humans tend to do without constant vigilance.

  I have these small moments occasionally where I wonder, but overall I think I would be a shitty mother. Not as shitty as my own mother. I would never do the shit she did to me to another.

  Even when I was a child, all those years she homeschooled us, trying to instill those traditional values, the idea never took hold in me. Or maybe I actively resisted it, because according to her the only thing any of us Sinclair sisters were good for was finding a man to take care of us, providing him with lots of babies, and a nice, clean house.

  It’s a stupid thing to worry about. I’m twenty five years old. I’ve still got time if and when I change my mind. I might be one of those women that gets baby fever right around when all my eggs start drying up. Maybe I’ll find my first grey hair, hopefully far into the future, and think - Shit, I better get while the gettin’s good. Perhaps I’ll find that first grey, and think - Shit, I better get my ass to the salon. I’m overdue for a touchup.

  It’s fucking weird to think about Gabe being a dad though. Well, maybe not that weird. He sort of reminds me of my dad, not the way he looks, or sounds. I guess he’s always been a little quiet and reserved, like my father.

  I’ve never really thought about it like that before, and I guess it’s not that difficult to imagine Gabe being a father. He talked about his little girl to me quite a bit last night, among other things. We talked for hours.

  He told me about Leah, which I still can’t wrap my head around. It doesn’t sound like something she’d do, but I haven’t known her for years. Be
sides, it’s hard for me to imagine any woman walking off from Gabe. Sure I did, but I was a huge dumbass.

  I told him a bit about the way things were with Kane, and the one before him, which followed a similar trajectory of crashing and burning. At least with Colin I was able to ditch him. I didn’t have to keep him around for appearances. I purposefully left out a few of the intermediaries, random drug fueled hook ups that I can barely recall.

  I also told him about my strong desire not to do another Sinful clone, but the current dilemma I find myself in. Now I have one more reason not to be stuck out on the road for a day longer than I have to.

  He told me about his strong desire not to confuse the shit out of his daughter any more than Leah already has. He hopes I understand if it’s a while before he introduces us, and I do. I understand perfectly, and hopefully I didn’t sound too relieved.

  Even around my niece Hope I have this weird nervousness around kids. I don’t know how to interact with them. I spend the whole time trying not to curse, or thinking about what I’m supposed to talk about. How the hell do I know what interests them? I had the most abnormal childhood imaginable. We didn’t even own a fucking TV, and we certainly didn’t do any of the the other normal shit kids do. I’m clueless.

  It’s obvious my sister Faith thinks we’re moving too fast, but she doesn’t have the faintest idea. It’s not like we were professing our undying love to one another or anything. Some foolish, reckless part of me might’ve wanted to, but I know better than that. The last thing I want to do is send him running for the hills or screw this up somehow.

  I gave him up once, and suffered years for it. There’s no way in hell I’m making that same mistake twice. I barely wanted to let him walk out the door this morning.

  Now I have to make it two whole days without him. He has Rose to look after, but I have songs to write, and suddenly I’m feeling inspired.

  When Faith departs with her daughter, and the remains of that cake, I also have her take along every sweet and indulgence in the place as well. Charity won’t touch that kind of stuff, and I don’t need it around.

  My younger sister wanders outside, and down the steep hillside. I can see her from the deck where I’ve posted up with my notebook and pen. I’m bundled up warm, with a woolen blanket beneath me, and another snugged around my shoulders.

  I watch Charity grip the slender, bare tree trunks to remain upright. The terrain is slippery with melting snow, and almost vertical at certain portions, but she is sure footed, and nimble. She moves confidently, but remains cautious of her surroundings.

  Is she really going to be okay on her own?

  Am I?

  Despite my determination to stay clean this time, I’m worried about how things will go on the road. It’s not even so much that I’ll be surrounded by temptation, it’s that I’ll be on stage acting like a skank just like I did for Sinful. Back then I badly wanted to be a star, before I knew how vapid that fulfilled wish would turn out to be, and I was at least moderately hazy for every single one of those performances.

  Even then it was often in the back of my head - Gee, I wonder if dear old dad is gonna see the video of me cupping my own breasts, biting my lip in the rehearsed way between refrains.

  When I used to stay in some state of intoxication for long stretches, I never worried about it much. When I started to worry, I took something to take the edge off, to dull the shame. That’s not an option for me any longer.

  I blame my mother for this. She drilled those values into us, just like all those bible verses, modesty, propriety, acting like a good, little godly girl.

  Sinful was just an act, a staged, choreographed performance. Anyone with half a brain understands that, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a woman expressing her sexuality, but I don’t want to be that woman anymore, especially if I have to do it sober.

  And I have to do it sober.

  Maybe I was feeling inspired, thanks to Gabe, but that inspiration is suddenly vanished.

  I stand up, and wrap the blanket around me tighter. Charity’s tan coat is barely visible far down the hillside. It’s not quite lunch time, but I’m starving, and I wander inside. I take one of the perfectly portioned three hundred calorie meals and pop it in the microwave.

  My eyes fall on that scrapbook. I haven’t opened the thing since Faith gave it to me. So far I haven’t felt a need, and I’m not needing a reason not to use. I don’t currently have the want to ingest a thing, not even this crap I’m about to gobble up just to put something in my gnawing belly.

  I flick it open, and roll my eyes to the ceiling when I catch sight of the stickers. There are carefully applied paper cutouts as well, and encouraging words scrawled in neat calligraphy around the edges of the handwritten letters protected behind thin sheets of plastic.

  It’s touching that she took this much trouble, but I can’t help but laugh quietly under my breath. Who makes a scrapbook of someone’s intervention? My older sister Faith, that’s who.

  I flick past most of those pages without ingesting the words. All these months later, and I can still recall them quite clearly and painfully. All except one. I rushed off before Faith could read what my mother had written.

  You have never let anyone control you. Not me. Not your Daddy. Even when you were a child, if I told you not to do something, you’d do it or die trying. So I’m not surprised that you would try drugs, but I am shocked that you are letting them control you. It breaks my heart to think of anything controlling you.

  Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

  There’s more, but I stop reading. Flicking my eyes down the page, I see the rest is just bible verses. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Pretty much exactly this. A pointing out of my flaws, a gentle rebuke, and scriptures.

  I close the scrapbook and stuff it back in it’s hiding spot above my microwave, trying to put it out of my mind. The rest of those words are there if I need them in the future, but right now I don’t need them.

  My lunch is whole wheat ravioli filled with spinach, or some kind of green vegetable mush. There’s this thin, white mucosy sauce covering all six ravioli’s. I get six bites of food. God, I want a cheeseburger. I’m not twelve hours into my diet, and I’m already fantasizing about fast food. I really do have no self control.

  Not long after I finish my less than satisfying lunch, Charity returns with something she’s found in the woods. When I get a good look at what, I can barely contain my disgust. “What the hell is that?”

  She holds it up closer for me to see clearly. “It’s a jaw bone.”

  “From what?”

  Charity shrugs. “A dog or a coyote I think.”

  I don’t bother asking her why she would drag it into my house, but I do fuss when she rinses it off in the sink, and uses one of my dish towels to dry it off. She spreads the towel down on the counter, and leaves the animal remains there to air dry thoroughly. I taste bile and regurgitated veggie ravioli at the back of my throat.

  “You wanna get out of here for a bit,” I say to my sister. “I’m kind of in the mood for a little road trip.”

  Chapter 20

  Gabe

  I set my alarm early enough to allow ample time to rush home, shower and change before I go to pick up Rose. I hate to rouse Trin, who is snuggled up, soft, warm, and completely bare beside me in that big bed. We kept each other up well past the start of the New Year, and she could probably sleep a few more hours, but I have no clue how to get out of this house without setting off the alarms. The place isn’t just gigantic, it’s locked down like Fort Knox.

  Trin follows me downstairs in nothing but that silk robe that hits mid thigh and slides against every curve with each step. Seeing her like that kinda makes me wish I’d set my phone alarm a little bit earlier. I’m not sure what it is about that robe that gets to be so bad. I think it’s the loose knot at her waist, just like that dress she had on last night. All
it would take is one gentle tug, and she’d be all mine again.

  Mine.

  So fucking stupid, Gabe.

  Trin is wild, untamable. She always was. I don’t know what’s going on between us, but I am keenly aware she’s only been back in my life for one measly day. I have no right to feel any kind of claim to her.

  “It’s easy,” Trin explains. “You just have to press this button for three seconds, then the code is… Well, it’s M-I-S-T-Y. It’s easier to remember than a number.”

  Like Misty Flats? Misty Lake? I don’t ask. “You trust me enough to give me your security code?”

  She lifts her eyebrows at me, and grins. “If you can’t trust a cop, who can you trust?”

  My palm presses light over that mark on her neck as I lean down to kiss her goodbye. I feel like a piece of shit for doing that to her. “Is it the same code for the gate?”

  Trin lets out a light, nervous laugh. “I can buzz you out from in here.”

  I kiss her one more time before I leave, a sweet, lingering kiss that hopefully conveys a little of what I’m feeling but can’t say quite yet.

  “Call me tonight, if you have time,” she says.

  “I’ll have time.”

  This is moving ridiculously fast. Too fast, but it doesn’t feel like the start of something. It’s more like we’re picking up right where we left off. I decide not to overthink it, let things happen as they will, but my thoughts are crowded with Trin as I rush home to get ready.

  My good mood that carried over from last night crumples at the sight of a familiar black Mercedes in Leah’s driveway. I’ve met Roger before. He’s not a bad guy, beyond the fact that he was cheating on his wife with a married woman. He doesn’t seem like a creep or a weirdo I wouldn’t want my kid around, but how fucking confusing is this going to be for Rose? He disappeared from her life with no warning, and now he’s popped back up again.

  When Leah answers the door, Rose isn’t ready and waiting, and Leah doesn’t invite me in. Instead she steps out onto the porch and pulls the door closed behind her. “I wanted to have a quick word.”