Shannon startled for a moment at hearing that name. They were all so used to being Sloans now.
“I meant the Sloan men,” her grandmother quickly corrected.
Just like that, Shannon’s mind latched onto another Paige man. The one who was long gone. Try as she might, the past was never far away. Little things slammed her back in time. Like her old name. Like driving, of all things.
Her father’s final moments had been in a car, driving home from work late one night, pulling into the driveway of his home. The one place where he should always have been safe from harm.
She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip, holding her emotions in as she turned into her grandmother’s driveway.
It was only a driveway. A mundane, ordinary slick of concrete. Her grandmother didn’t even live anywhere near the home where her dad had been shot. But as she cut the engine and looked at her father’s mother, she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Victoria was thinking the same thing. That she, too, had been jolted out of a festive moment of party planning and pretend matchmaking and hurtled back in time to eighteen years ago. She saw it in her grandma’s eyes—the same sadness she felt was reflected back at her.
“Sometimes it’s hard just turning in the driveway,” Shannon said softly. “Makes me think of my dad.”
Her grandmother clasped her hand. “I know. Every day, I think about him.”
Shannon looked down at their hands. “I miss him.”
“I do too, sweetie.”
After she walked her grandmother inside and said goodbye, she returned to her car. She scanned the surrounding area, as always, alert for anything amiss. Listening for that footstep crunching on the grass. Seeking the shadow of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.
The hair on her neck stood on end, and for a second, she wished she carried her gun with her. But that weapon was locked away at her home.
Shannon’s eyes roamed the sidewalk, the house, and the garage before she unlocked the car door. This hyper-alertness fried her nerves. No one was there. It was morning. She was safe, and Victoria was fine, and she had to refuse to live in fear. She had to kick the damn specter of hidden guns, and gangs, and shooters, and plots for murder far out of her daily agenda.
She took a deep breath, letting it spread through her body, coaxing it to ease away the stranglehold of the past. Good thing she was seeing Brent that afternoon. He was her antidote. He’d wash away the cruel memories.
But by the time lunch rolled around, she no longer wanted to rely on her old habits with Brent. He’d always been her magic bullet to extradite the pain. Maybe to truly change, she needed to give instead of to take.
Over salad and pasta at an Italian restaurant inside Caesars Shops, she asked him more about work, peppering him with questions about his clubs, the expansion, his vision for Edge, reminding herself the whole time not to be jealous. She listened intently, because she didn’t want to feel an ounce of resentment for his choices, including the one to ditch the very industry that had once been so important to him.
“And Edge will keep on growing,” she said.
“That’s the goal,” he said with a wide smile. He truly seemed happy with his new path. That was his special talent. He knew how to find the happiness in everything. Someone like him never seemed to need much, while she often felt she required far too much. That was exactly why she’d picked up the gift at the party store. He loved the little things in life.
“Close your eyes,” she said, after the waiter cleared their plates and she joined him on his side of the table.
“You gonna blindfold me? I’m game,” he joked as he followed her order.
She reached into her purse, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and dipped a cloth napkin in a water glass.
“Go ahead. Undress me here. I don’t mind,” he continued.
“I know you don’t, you dirty man.”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”
“You’re right,” she whispered as she positioned the square of paper on his arm, then pressed the wet napkin on top of it and counted to thirty. When she peeled the backing paper off, she told him to open his eyes.
“Tada!” She showed him the mark she’d left on his arm, and his big, deep laugh rumbled across the restaurant.
He nodded approvingly at the pink and purple temporary tattoo of a little horse she’d fixed to his bicep. “A pony. You got me a pony. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“It’s not quite a badass flying Pegasus, but if you’re a good boy, I’ll get you a winged one next,” she said.
“Or a unicorn maybe?”
“That could be arranged.”
After they left the restaurant, they wandered past the designer shops of Caesars, with luxuries from the likes of Gucci and Louboutin. She peered in the windows of her favorites, admiring a pair of black shoes and a dove gray bag.
“Thank you for taking time out of your day for me,” she said as they continued their stroll.
“Nothing I’d rather do.”
“Will you have to work late to make up for playing hooky?”
“Maybe, but it’s worth it.”
A flash of color caught her eye. In the midst of all the black and silver high-end items, she spotted an old-fashioned photo booth down a quiet hallway that led to the restrooms. Painted bright red and white, the booth boasted a sign advertising Four photos for $1.
“That’s a bargain,” she said, then grabbed his hand and tugged him to the booth. “Let’s get a picture to go with your cool new ink. Show it to your brother. Let him know how wild and crazy you can be.”
“We can even put on disguises and shoot cool selfies,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Please let there be a fake mustache. Please, pretty please.” He held up his hand and crossed his fingers.
She swatted him and grinned. In the past, contact with him had blotted out the bad. But this was better. This was about laughter, and talking, and her giving something to him. Something silly, but then, she knew he liked those gifts best of all.
Strange as it sounded, she knew he would cherish a ridiculous photo of the two of them. She pulled him inside and yanked the curtain closed.
“Damn,” she said, snapping her fingers when she saw the Broken sign slung across the viewfinder. “No wonder no one was down this hallway.”
“We can make our own photo booth picture. You must have something in your purse.”
“Right. Of course. Let me just get out my purple wig. And the fake nose I keep in there,” she said, deadpan.
“Now you’re talking.”
Instead, she grabbed her sunglasses, and slid them to the bridge of her nose, puckering her lips. He bared his teeth in an exaggerated grin and flexed his bicep, showing off his new pink and purple pony ink. She snapped a picture on her phone and showed it to him.
“We are so hot together,” he said, with over-the-top admiration. He patted his thighs. “Climb up. Take another picture.”
“You’re just trying to get me to sit on your lap.”
“Yes. I am.”
She straddled him, the soft cotton of her black dress flaring across his jeans, then held out the phone. “Smile,” she instructed.
But instead of smiling, he wrapped his arms around her, planting a soft, wisp of a kiss on her neck.
Her eyes floated closed as her thumb slid aimlessly across the screen, capturing them. She didn’t stop to look this time, because he was brushing his lips along her neck, buzzing a path to her ear. She let the phone fall to the bench along with her sunglasses, and turned to meet his lips. The goofiness vanished. The silliness evaporated as the moment folded and unfolded into something else, shifting from temporary tattoos and selfies to a hot, wet, deep kiss that swamped her body with desire.
She moaned his name as if he were all she wanted, and he was. “Brent.”