“I know.” She looks at me. “But I need to know where the locked doors are.”
Damn.
I understand that.
I hate that I understand it.
I turn and grip the edge of the sink. The metal is cold under my hands. Outside, thunder rolls somewhere far off, low over the hills.
“What do you want to know?”
She is quiet for long enough that I look back at her.
Her eyes are on my hands.
Not my face.
My hands.
The same hands that touched her waist in an alley and stopped.
“The kid,” she says.
I go still.
“August gets to you,” she says. “I see it. Everyone sees it. You act like he annoys you, but when he asks if doors lock, your face changes. When he talks about Jeremy, you look like you want to kill someone.”
“I usually do.”
“No.” Her eyes lift to mine. “Different.”
I let out a breath that feels like it has rust on it.
Of course she sees that.
Women with bruises know how to read a room. That is the part men like Jeremy never understand. They think fear makes women stupid. It doesn’t. It makes them observant as hell.
“I had a mom,” I say.
Amelia’s mouth curves faintly, confused. “Most people do.”
“Mine was pretty when she wanted to be. Mean when she was scared. Funny when she was sober. In love with love the way some women are in love with poison because at least poison pays attention while it kills you.”
Her expression shifts.
She sets her unopened beer down.
“She had men,” I say. “Always. Some stayed a week. Some stayed a year. Some bought me ice cream and stole from her purse. Some bought her flowers and put holes in the walls. Some were fine. Some weren’t. The bad ones all had the same smell.”
“What smell?”
“Too much cologne over rot.”
She swallows.
I ain’t looking at her anymore. I’m looking at the window over the sink, at the dark reflection of my own face. I look older in it. Meaner. Like the man those bastards probably thought I would become.
“There was one named Ray,” I say. “Big talker. Worked construction when he felt like it. Drank bourbon like rent was paid in empty bottles. He called me boy like it was an insult.”