I feel my phone pressing through my inside pocket, against my chest, as if reminding me it’s there. It’s difficult not to take it out, to check if my woman has messaged me again.
I’ve got my phone on silent out of respect for Mom – it’s not out of respect for him – but now I wish I’d set it to vibrate.
Fiona’s the only person who can make me feel like this, like a smitten teenager desperate to check his phone.
“You good?” Sebastian asks quietly, glancing over at me.
I try to keep my face like a mask as it usually is. But Fiona has broken down the walls around me. I never truly believed anybody could, but this is proof.
I can’t keep everything contained inside anymore. I can’t pretend, not now that I've met the woman of my dreams.
I need to tell her. I don’t know what about Dad’s grave makes this so clear. Maybe it’s the finality.
Fiona is going to rescue me.
“Felix?” Sebastian says.
“I’m fine,” I reply. “I just don’t understand why she needs to honor this man. He was never any good to us. He only ever hurt us. But now that she’s dying, she wants to pretend he’s some sort of hero.”
“You know it’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
He sighs. “She doesn’t want to take any grudges to the…when she passes. She doesn’t want that weight.”
“The weight’s mine,” I snap. “It always has been.”
Fuck it. I take out my phone and go to mine and Fiona’s text thread, hovering my thumb over the message box. Last night went wrong in so many ways, and all because of this, because I couldn’t be honest.
I need to tell her about Dad. All the need, all the hunger for the future, maybe that’ll come later.
Mom walks over to us, leaning on her walking stick.
“Are we done here, Mom?” I say.
She frowns, looking at me for a long moment. Then she nods. I know there are lots she’d like to say or that she’s thinking of, but she’s holding it back. She rarely likes to talk about what happened, and I can’t blame her. It’s best left buried.
Except for the woman of my dreams, my texting mystery girl needs to know we will be together. I need to explain why I couldn’t meet today…Mom wants us to honor this day.
But maybe I’ll find my woman later, grab her and tell her that she will be my wild thing in bed and my wife. Of course, she’s going to whimper as I fuck our future into her.
In the car, Mom looks across at me.
“Who were you texting?” she asks.
I smirk. “I remember when you called it a fad. You said people wouldn’t want to waste their time writing out messages on their phones. They’d rather talk.”
Mom runs a hand over her head, smoothing it over her hat. It’s something she’s been doing a lot since the hair loss, as though she’s checking if it’s still there. The gesture makes my throat close up. Life’s damn unfair sometimes.
“I remember that. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“I wasn’t texting. I was checking it.”
“Oh, I see. What an important difference. Were you checking for anybody in particular?”
“Yes. The girl from before. The one I told you about.”
My voice grows husky just mentioning her. My primal protective impulses make my tone deeper, growling, feral. I want to destroy every single thing that would ever harm her. I’m roaring with the need for her every second.
I can’t believe I let her leave last night.
“Do you like her?” Mom asks, barely containing the hope in her voice.
“Yeah. I like her. I like her a whole lot.”
“So, what’s the issue?” My mother is virtually bobbing up and down on the spot, her grin making her look younger, like this illness never chose her. Her eyes are bright. “If you like her… go for it.”
“She works for me, at the company, for one.”
She waves a hand. “So what? You have hundreds of employees in that office alone. You didn’t know she worked for you beforehand, did you?”
I shrug, chuckling despite the darkness touching me. “It seems like you’re rooting for one side to win.”
“Did you?” she presses.
“Not when we first started texting.” I look out the window at the city passing, the water opening behind two tower blocks, long and shiny in the midday sun. “I didn’t know anything about her. Except that there was a… a spark there.”
My mother claps her hands together, showing far more energy than she has in weeks. “A spark. I can’t believe my son just said spark. Can you, Sebastian?”
Sebastian looks in the rear-view, his hands on the steering wheel. “I know better than to eavesdrop, Lucy.”
Mom laughs. “He knows, Felix. He knows how significant this is. So what other invented problems are there?”
I chuckle at her phrasing, but the laughter quickly dies. “I told her I couldn’t meet today, but I couldn’t tell her why. I couldn’t tell her about Dad. I couldn’t explain all of that.”