Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
You can’t do much else.
I know.
Just like I’m painfully aware I’ve fallen into a self-baited trap, trying to fix a man who has to fix himself.
But right now, space feels like total isolation.
It’s bigger and colder than the gulf between stars.
18
HOUSE DIVIDED (KANE)
The night is a window to a dark ocean called eternity.
There’s barely a cloud obscuring the stars, blinking lighthouses on shores we’ll never see.
Out here with the kids, my worries should be just as distant, even though they’re really just a few feet away.
I can’t dwell on that.
Not with Sophie peering through her telescope, mapping what she can with her stargazing app.
Dan has his drum pad outside, tapping out an old Van Halen song with his headphones on. The kid’s got good taste, all thanks to yours truly.
It should be peaceful. Quiet. Clear.
And I really am trying my damnedest to be present and listen to my fatherly instincts.
“Hey, Dad? You awake?” Sophie snaps her fingers in front of my face.
“Huh?” I grunt.
Shit, so maybe I’m not listening well.
“What planet is this? Do you think it’s right?”
I take the phone from her hands and look at the screen. It shows us an overview of the night sky overhead with nice labels. You can narrow down any section, easily zooming in and searching the names of the major stars and planets named to track with the sky.
There’s more on constellations, too, which Soph has spent a long time working on. She wants to know them all by heart one day.
“Which one do you mean, honey?” I ask.
“Look here. I don’t know if it matches.” She drags me under the telescope, and I look through the lens.
It’s too faint to be Jupiter, but the telescope captures the faintest fuzzy rings. Definitely Saturn.
“Should be there on the app. Bet you five bucks you can’t find it.”
“Daaad,” she whines, but she’s smiling. “I wanted you to get it for me.”
“Where’s the fun in that, baby girl? And how will you learn if you don’t do it yourself? Look harder, then you tell me what that is.”
“Not fair,” she hisses as she takes the phone and dips her face back under the telescope.
My mind goes back to what Margot said.
About running.
About how I mouthed off, calling it a mistake.
A heat of the moment slip. Almost inevitable when I was pissed off and frustrated and she tried to reason our way out of a bad situation.
If something goes to shit, just say so.
I can handle the truth.
Now, our names are linked in public, and the ugly all-seeing eye makes everything more complicated.
The truth is, I can’t fold her life into mine. It’s too complicated and we’re too incompatible.
That woman deserves better than more rumors breathing down her neck.
And I didn’t mean she was a mistake.
I don’t regret our time together.
The thing I regret isn’t Margot Blackthorn—it’s how this fuckery could hurt her while she’s boiling over our stalker stress.
I damn sure regret having no idea how I’m going to make it better.
“Saturn! Found it!” Sophie says triumphantly.
I beam her a smile. I hope it doesn’t look too absent.
“Great job, Soph.” I mean it, though.
Dan looks up from drumming, his little face tense with focus as he pulls off his headphones.
Sophie goes back to stargazing with her phone in one hand and her face pushed to the telescope, but Dan watches me with a seriousness that seems older than his nine years.
Normally, I’d laugh.
Tonight, I just wonder if he knows his old man royally fucked up.
That makes me ache, thinking he could have that awareness.
They’re both growing up so fast and I can’t keep up.
Every time I think I’m used to the stage of life they’re in, they grow a little more and time skips forward.
These kids are turning into well-rounded people. I feel like I’m meeting them for the first time every few years.
“Dad,” Dan says, leaving his drums and coming to sit beside me.
“What is it, Bud?”
“Something’s wrong,” he says, regurgitating a phrase I use on them all the time. “Why are you worried?”
Damn.
Of course, I’ve told them the media hounds know we’re here. Not to scare them, but because I don’t like keeping too many secrets.
I want them to trust me, and I need them to feel safe.
They’re too young and thankfully too innocent to understand the scummy dark side of fame and money, but they do know not to ever speak to reporters.
“Is it because people know you’re here?” His forehead pinches. “So what? Why should we care what they say?”
“Not that simple, little man,” I say gently. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just us, but we’re complicating Margot’s life, too. And that’s on top of the intruder crap.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that why…” He trails off, glancing up in the direction of her room, his face clearing.
“Yeah. It’s a big deal,” I tell him.