I’d spent so many nights on the sofa in the spare room with Michael. It still looks like a hospital room. I haven't been able to step foot in it since he died. Honestly, I haven’t been able to do a lot of things I used to since he passed away.
The world had lost some of its color the day Michael left us. I’m merely going through the motions. I haven’t felt this lost since I’d run away when I’d only been sixteen.
“Did you and Michael ever share this room?” I stiffen.
Michael was a private man. It’s partly why I’m surprised he’d told Jericho about Asher. He kept most things from his family when it came to his personal life. I do know out of everyone, though, he favored Jericho. I don’t know why. He’s a jerk.
When I first met him, I thought he was so different. I’d been drawn to him in a way I’d never been to any man before. I’d been so wrong. I’d wasted my first kiss on a man who thinks women are only good for one thing. Or maybe it’s only me he thinks of that way.
“It’s a simple question, Sera.” Even in Michael’s death I don’t feel right telling anyone Michael’s business.
“No,” I answer honestly, knowing Jericho will probably push if I don’t. I’m not going to give him a reason to poke at me. I’m barely hanging on by a thin thread right now. I’m not sure I can bear him being rude to me at the moment. “I’ll leave you to it.” I turn to leave him in the bedroom but pause at the door. “Jericho.” I glance back over my shoulder at him. “You can think of me as a whore all you want, but please if you have any respect for Michael or love for Asher would you keep those comments to yourself in front of my son.”
“I—”
“There is a reason Michael kept Asher away from this family. But I know he didn’t think you’re like them. I’m sad to say he was wrong. You’re just as cruel as the rest of them.”
I don’t wait for him to respond. I slip from the room, closing the door behind me and go in search of my son.
5
JERICHO
She’s avoiding me. Its always empty chairs in the dining room and ghost quiet halls. I’m not a fan.
“What was the point of this, Michael?”
No one answers. There’s not even a whisper of sound in this antiseptic bedroom that Sera had turned into a hospital room. She hasn’t been in here since the reading of the will, and dust is starting to create a film on all the surfaces.
It smells like her, though. At least this sofa does. I stretch my fingers along the leather of the cushion and inhale, trying to capture the last, lingering essences of her.
“Did you know how I felt about her or did you give her to me because you believed I would be the only one to protect her and your kid?”
I kick the empty IV stand, and it rattles along the marble tiles until it strikes the end of the bed. The clang of metal against metal is the only answer I receive.
Michael’s motivations aren’t clear, but his intention is. I’m to raise his kid and make his widow happy. The latter is easily achieved by leaving. There’s no condition in the will that I live in this house or even be in the same zip code as Sera. Yet I moved in immediately. Took up residence in one of the rooms, hung my clothes in the closet, and ate at the dinner table—albeit by myself. Sera has locked herself on the third floor with Asher.
“You were never into girls or guys, Michael, so why Sera of all people? Did you feel sorry for her because she was young and poor?” I squeeze my forehead. “I despised you for taking her. She was eighteen! She hadn’t even begun to live, and you took her away, turned her into a mother before she was even out of her teen years herself. Then you left her. Damn you.”
I squeeze harder so that the pain drives away my grief. I don’t have any right to be angry. I kissed her when she was eighteen. I didn’t know she was that young at the time, but would I have stayed away if I’d known? Would I have allowed her to experience life on her own or would I have, like Michael, hidden her away in a castle and plowed her until my child was in her belly?
Probably the latter. With a curse, I stand. These moronic thoughts are leading me nowhere. The past is past. My friend is dead. The woman I want is his widow and the mother of his child. These are my cards, and I need to play the hand dealt to me.