Collared(90)

The woman leans into me when Torrin takes a seat as the choir breaks into a song about redemption. “Don’t you just love Father Costigan?”

I look at him and smile. Like he can feel it, his head turns. Probably no one else can tell he’s smiling, but I can. I’ve known Torrin Costigan for what feels like my entire life.

“Yes,” I answer her. “Yes, I do.”





I’M SPENDING THE rest of my birthday right here, sitting on an old beach blanket at Westport and watching the waves spool in. The sun’s falling, but there’s still plenty of good light. My family’s off somewhere inspecting tide pools with Maisy, and I’m just . . . living. The sand between my toes, the sticky breeze on my face, the sun bouncing off my skin. I feel it all. I’m no longer a voyeur going through life without a spectrum of senses to guide me.

Eleven years ago, I was taken. One year ago, I was found. Today, I have my life back.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jade, happy birthday to you.” Torrin’s walking toward me slowly, holding a cupcake and shielding a candle from the breeze. The flame is flickering, and when it starts to go out, he slows down and waits. When it fans back to life, he starts moving again.

He’s changed from his usual Sunday attire to jeans and that same Henley he wore the first night he spent the night at my apartment. It was the last night he stayed there too, and seeing it makes me remember the way it clung to him when I tugged it off, the way it felt between my fingers.

I clear my throat in an attempt to clear the image. I’m not successful. “I thought you had to attend a church potluck tonight since you’re kind of the leader of the church and all.”

He’s watching the flame intently, but his eyes dart my way for a moment. “I said I had an urgent family emergency to attend to and got out of it.”

I scoot over when he reaches the edge of the blanket. “So you lied?”

His brows come together. “You’re as much my family as my real one is.”

That makes me smile—I share the same sentiment. “If not in title, in experience.”

As he lowers onto his knees, his eyes flicker my way. He crawls closer, still shielding the candle from the breeze trying to blow it out. “Maybe one day in title too.” Before I can figure out how to reply, he holds out the cupcake. “Make a wish.”

“It already came true.” I grin at the cupcake because it’s my favorite kind. I used to love vanilla, but now I’m more of a lemon fan.

His brows come together.

I answer his unsaid question with a shrug. “You’re here.”

His smile erases the creases of confusion. “Then make another wish.”

I squeeze my eyes together and tip my head like I have to think really, really hard about it. But I already know what I’m going to wish for. It’s what I wish for every night.

When I get ready to blow the candle out, Torrin slides around so his whole body is shielding the candle from the breeze. Leaning forward, I blow like I’m trying to blow out a barn fire. The candle goes out.

For all of five seconds.

Then it makes some kind of spark and sizzle sound before coming back to life. I blow it out again. When I blow it out the third time, I give him a little glare.

He only laughs and moves aside so he’s not deflecting the wind anymore. This time, the forces of nature blow out the light.

It flickers back to life though.

“It just keeps coming back. Doesn’t matter how many times you blow it out, it comes back. It lights right back up.” He holds out the cupcake for me. “I thought you’d like it.”

I take the cupcake and set it down. The candle’s still burning bright. “I love it.”

He slides the hair whipping around my face behind my ear and sits beside me. “So how does it feel to be twenty-eight?”

I give a little groan at the thought of being closer to thirty than twenty. “The last birthday I had, I turned seventeen. I like the sound of eighteen a lot more than twenty-eight.”

Torrin laughs and slides closer. When he leans back, one of his arms goes behind my back. It doesn’t touch me, but I can feel it there.

“What are you working on over there?” He leans over to get a look. “Are those sketches of me?” His brows come together. “Really, really good sketches of me?”

I pick the board and drawings back up from the blanket and pull the pencil from behind my ear. Since he’s here, I might as well try to finish them. “I don’t know about really, really good, but yeah, they’re you. I drew them before . . .” I steal a look at him before lowering the pencil to the paper. “I never got a chance to finish them though, and one of the detectives returned them to me so I could.”

“They look finished to me.”

“No. Your eyes. I could never get them right. Didn’t matter how many times I tried or different ways I drew them, I couldn’t get them right.” I bite the eraser as I examine his eyes two feet away. No wonder I could never get them right.

“You got everything else right. Why don’t you think the eyes are?” Torrin leans in and studies the sketch at the top of the stack. The one I’m already starting to adjust.

“I wasn’t just trying to get the shape right. Or the lightness of them just perfect.” I shrug as my pencil flies across the paper. “I was trying to draw them the way they are when you look at me.”