One Bossy Offer (50)

It’s a hopeless battle, sure, like trying to keep a candle burning through a bone-stripping winter night.

And I have to shoulder this fight alone because Mother isn’t here anymore.

All because I let a stupid slip of passion tear her away from loving her fading husband just a little while longer. Because I couldn’t save her.

That’s why I have to get a fucking grip, no matter the cost.

That’s why I can never taste Jenn again.





The next day, I sit at my desk, using a wide brush to swipe blue streaks across a fresh canvas.

Gradually, I move on to shades of black, brown, grey.

No idea what I’m painting yet, I’m letting the scene decide what it wants to be.

Soon, an animal’s head starts to take shape. He has the body of a man.

Weird, but whatever.

I’ll roll with it.

A few hours later, I hover over a scene that leaves me ambivalent.

My work isn’t usually so erotic.

An Egyptian goddess with fiery streaks in her hair whose face is eerily familiar lays on a hammock made from palm leaves.

Her white dress flutters open in the wind, revealing a length of rosy skin up her thigh.

An Anubis-headed protector flanks her with the same rigid stance you always see in Egyptian art. When the hell did I start painting hieroglyphics? The beast is matched by another white-headed Anubis guard on the other side.

Too on the nose. I know.

It’s not hard to figure out where this came from.

I rake a hand through my hair, pissed that I can’t pry her out of my subconscious.

She’s showing up in my damn art now—the one refuge I have where nothing else bothers me—and it feels like something else is off.

The longer I stare at the scene, it’s not anything wrong with the dreamscape I’ve created from pure lust.

What’s off is me.

Snarling, I throw my brush down on my palette.

Is this what it feels like when a man slowly loses his mind?

When he flirts with losing everything?

Ridiculous.

I don’t know why, but it reminds me of another time in my life when my head was too screwed up to think.





Years Ago





“Miles, come down for breakfast. You’re going to be late again,” Dad says gently.

He’s such a tall man, this giant shadow in my doorway, and it hurts to see him worried as hell. Both my parents, really.

The panic attacks started not long after my grandmother died. Maybe it had something to do with my bully, too, that pig-faced little shit named Ralphie who wouldn’t let me live it down when I lost it, crying in the library after finishing the last book Grandmom ever gave me.

For three weeks, I took his crap while the other kids laughed.

For three weeks, he made squealing noises in my face, pushed me around in the hall, and did his damnedest to break me down into a teary mess again.

Children are cruel.

Rich boys at expensive academies are so much crueler.

One day, Ralphie overplayed his hand. When he whipped that dodgeball at my face and missed giving me a black eye by two inches, I had it.

Something snapped.

Something made of fists and bared teeth, boyish growls, and a grown-up rage.

By the time they pulled me off him, Ralphie needed immediate attention for his busted nose and I needed to wash his blood off my hands.

So much blood.

The other kids avoided me after that, though a few came creeping up with a quiet respect, telling me how Ralphie had it coming when he’d had a long reign of terror, insulting their fathers and ripping up their papers just for fun.

The attacks intensified—especially at night when I’d wake up stiff with nightmares—so much that I’d be drained by morning.

“Dad, no. Go away. I’m tired.” I pull the blankets up over my head.

“Miles, you’ve got school. You can’t stand too many absences. Get up.”

“I’m sick.” Not exactly a lie. But it’s my soul, not my body.

“Sick or tired?” Dad demands. “There’s a difference.”

Is there, though?

All I know is I’m boneless. Literally.

Why should I leave this warm bed for another day where half the teachers stare at me like I’m a hand grenade and the others try to be my best friend?

I don’t have the energy. The rest of the world sucks.

“I’m sick and tired,” I finally say.

“Is that what I should say when I call the school?”

“Sure.” I’m past caring, and no lecture about my future slipping away will bring me around.

With a heavy sigh, Dad drags himself across the room. I feel the bed sink with his weight as he sits.

“This is hard for me, too, little man. She was my mom. But I’m still going to work every day for you and your mother.”

“I’m not grown like you, Dad. I don’t have to run a whole company.”

“Someday, you will. And being a grown-up doesn’t make it hurt any less.” The edge in his voice surprises me.

“I miss her like hell. She used to drive me to school when I was your age,” he says with a wry smile.

“I know.” My throat tightens, filled with hot lead.