My father clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Now, now, Son. You are living in our house.”
“I’ll move out tomorrow.”
My mother laughed, the sound nothing like when Bliss laughed. When Mother laughed it was like nails down a chalkboard. “And go where? You’re a creature of habit, Vincent. New places make you uncomfortable. Which is why you’re still hanging around here, despite the police manhunt focused on you.”
“There’s no hunt. I’ve scoured the newspapers and police scanners. The prison covered it up.”
“Maybe so, but it would only take one little phone call from a concerned citizen…”
I ground my teeth. I couldn’t go back to prison. I had friends who needed watching over. I’d met Mae, Heath, Liam, and Rowe while I was in jail. Their boy, Ripley, had become my friend after I’d escaped. They needed me, and I needed them, especially now that Mae was pregnant with a baby. I was laying low at the moment, watching from afar because I suspected the police were watching them in the hopes I’d turn up. And now there was Bliss…she needed watching as well. Even more than they did. They had each other. Bliss was all alone.
“You know I could just kill you at any time, Mother.”
My father rolled his eyes.
Mother stepped up and cupped my cheek. “But you wouldn’t. Because your Achilles’ heel has always been people you love. Foolish as that is, since it makes you easy to manipulate.”
She was right. It didn’t matter that she was the master manipulator, the one who twisted everything into a threat. Even during the months and years when Scythe had controlled my body, he’d never laid a finger on my mother. Because we both loved her. It was ingrained. Built into our hardwiring. She was the one who’d put dinner in front of me every night. Who’d tucked me into bed and brushed my hair back off my face lovingly when other kids had been mean because I wasn’t like them. She was the one who’d helped me escape the psych ward at the prison.
I didn’t want to love her. It would have been a whole lot easier not to.
Because then I could have just snapped her goddamn neck and been done with it.
Her thumb smoothed over my skin. “Look. If you aren’t ready to introduce us, then we’ll leave.”
She’d given up too easily.
My mother never gave up. Which meant that she hadn’t really come here with the intention of meeting Bliss. She’d merely come to remind me that she owned me. Because I did have soft spots.
And Bliss had rapidly become one.
21
BLISS
Vincent sat down, his cheeks pink. “I’m very sorry about that. It was my parents. We need to talk about boundaries. Clearly.”
I smiled, because from Vincent, that was almost a joke. “No problem at all. You could have invited them in. I wouldn’t have minded.”
“No.”
He said it so sharply it was almost a bark. Okay then. I wasn’t about to jump in the middle of their family squabbles.
Vincent peered around the outdoor area, squinting into the darkness and then tilting his head back to inspect the roof of the undercover area.
“What are you looking for?”
“A camera.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like, a security camera?”
“Something like that.”
He was visibly agitated. He’d gone from sweet and relaxed to stiff and awkward. I was certain it wasn’t something I’d done. Clearly, he’d had words with his parents and now he was lost in whatever had gone down with them. If this had been any other first date, I probably would have bailed.
But Vincent was different. He hadn’t run away when my thing with Caleb had blown up in front of him.
He’d been a friend. I wanted to return the favor.
I put my fork down. “Can you take me somewhere?”
“Anywhere.”
“Get your keys.”
The drive was quick and quiet, Vincent still lost to whatever was going on with his parents. But when we pulled up at our destination, a smile flickered over his features. “I love ice cream.”
“Have you been here before?”
“Not for a really long time.”
“It’s changed owners in the last few years, and it’s even better than it was.” I opened my car door. “Come on. Chocolate fixes everything. Even parent problems.”
Vincent held the door open for me, and together we made our way to the counter where there were at least thirty different flavors of ice cream lined up behind a glass screen. There were a lot of other people around, which was unsurprising since it was a Friday night, so we joined the line, waiting for our turn to order.