Fire Inside (Chaos #2)(53)

Afraid for a long time where my gut and heart might lead, I hadn’t listened to them for years. It was good to know, from Hop’s concern, I could trust them again.

“I’ll call.”

“Do that,” he murmured.

I grinned.

He touched his mouth to mine.

When he lifted his head, I whispered, “I better let you go.”

“Don’t ever do that.”

His words flowed through me in a way I couldn’t help but press close, angle my head and push my face in his neck.

“Are you real?” I asked his skin.

“Baby, you’re standing in my arms,” he answered.

“Please be real,” I whispered.

“Feel this.” He gave me a squeeze. “I’m real, Lanie.”

I drew in breath, drawing him in, then I pulled back and looked at him.

“Okay, then I won’t let you go but I will say good night.”

“That, I’ll accept,” he replied, his lips curving up.

I moved in to touch mine to his. He let me then shifted to kiss my forehead.

He let me go and I moved to the stairs. Hand on the railing, I looked back to where Hop stood in the doorway.

Hop was watching me and, for my troubles, he gave me a grin and a chin lift.

I returned the grin and raised it with a wave.

His grin turned into a smile.

I let his smile feed me as I skipped down the last few stairs and headed to the village.

It was late and, I hoped, late enough my mom would be passed out so my dad would have joined her.

I felt guilt that I’d left them to play Pictionary with Hop and his kids. But Mom was down for the night and Dad wasn’t a brilliant conversationalist, preferring to stare at a television set and let the screen mute the guilt he should feel at what his deception and disloyalty had manifested upstairs in his bed.

He didn’t need me around for that.

I slid inside the door to our condo, closing it quietly, feeling the house at rest and letting the tension that had grown during my walk ebb, knowing that I’d timed things right. I could just go to bed, look forward to checking in with Hop tomorrow and endure the best part of my parents’ visit. The end of it.

Hand on the banister and foot lifted to walk up the stairs to my room, I stilled when my Dad’s voice hit me.

“I know what he is to you.”

I turned at the foot of the stairs to see him standing there, his fingers curled around a cut crystal glass of Scotch. He rarely drank. He let Mom do the drinking. His addiction was betrayal and he indulged in that liberally.

“Hey, Dad,” I said quietly, my mind reeling to find the right way to play this.

“You think you two are being clever but you didn’t hide it. Maybe your mother missed it and his kids are too young to understand, but I didn’t miss it,” Dad declared and I looked at him.

He was angry.

But I was thirty-nine and I didn’t need my father’s approval in regards to who I spent time with.

So I straightened my shoulders and declared, “Hop and I have known each other for a long time. Recently, we got together. His kids don’t know yet.”

He shook his head and took two steps toward me before he stopped and asked, “Lanie? Seriously?”

“Seriously what?” I asked back.

“Seriously, you didn’t learn a lesson that it was impossible to miss when your last choice got you in Critical Care for six days?”

That was a blow he meant to land viciously, and he succeeded brilliantly.

“Dad—”

“And this one, this… this… man is worse. By far. My God, when was the last time he cut his hair?”

“I’m not sure when Hop does or does not cut his hair is the measure of a man, Dad,” I replied.

“You would be very wrong, Lanie, and I’ll point out again, not for the first time,” Dad shot back.

Blow two. Direct hit.

“You don’t know him,” I returned.

“I don’t need to know him. One look at him and I know the kind of man he is.”

God, I hated that from anyone, but especially my father.

“Sorry, but unless you have clairvoyance, something like that is impossible,” I bit out.

“I don’t need clairvoyance when I have age and wisdom, Elaine Heron. The first of those are creeping up on you without you seeming to realize it, your life wasting away, and the second seems to have escaped you.”

“I’ve known Hopper for eight years and you’ve known him less than a day and you think you can stand there and tell me you know him better than me?” I asked.

“We can start with that. What kind of name is Hopper for what kind of man?”

I had to admit, unlike all the other guys, Hop didn’t have a nickname that the brothers used almost exclusively to refer to him and I’d always been curious about that. One of the many inconsequential (but I found fascinating) facts I’d learned about Hop before I was with him was that his name actually was Hopper Kincaid. Seeing as he already had a name that fit, the boys didn’t bother giving him another one.

And I liked it.

But I wondered at it.

“I don’t know,” I answered Dad. “The name his parents gave him?”

“That’s ridiculous,” he bit out.