My footsteps quickened to the pace of the raindrops hitting the ground in sharp spatters. 

Other students around me scurried by and ducked under awnings, unfolding umbrellas and spraying water in their wake, but I merely pulled the hood of my raincoat up and added more speed to my steps, not willing to let him get away.

Memories of the last time I'd confronted Kalen Rush threatened to resurface in my mind but I tamped them down quickly, my eyes focused on his form that stretched above the rest of the crowd like a lone towering tree in a field of tall grass.

He was headed for the parking lot, a lanyard with his keys on it dangling from the pocket of his sweatpants, and I had to stop for a moment to decide whether or not this was actually worth doing. 

Was following and confronting Kalen about what he'd said about my mother even worth it at all?  Was he going to come away with another pound of flesh and a personal record of how many times one person had ever made me cry in the span of a week?

Franny had pressed for the details when I'd told her the gist of what had happened, how Kalen had told me all about who his father really was, and while she'd been prepared to go to war in my defense, I'd refused to tell Colby a thing. 

From the fire in his gaze the next day that we'd met up for his impromptu tutoring with Franny, it was obvious that she'd told her brother what I'd told her, but I couldn't really fault her for that one. 

Pangs of arguments that I wanted to have with Kalen flashed through my mind, snippets of things I should've said a week ago that had gotten stuck in my throat that wanted to come flying out suddenly shook me with their force and I had to edge my way through a friend group sharing something on their phone in order to keep up with Kalen. 

He'd just made it to a car that had pulled up when a man slinked out, wearing a black suit and tie with a ridiculously expensive looking umbrella perched over his head. 

I mean, come on.  Who spends hundreds—or thousands—of dollars on a designer umbrella?

Only a few feet away from them but covered slightly from the foggy rain, I held back, intruding on their conversation but yet still unable to walk back the way I'd come. 

Because that was his father standing in front of me.

I recognized the man instantly, even if there was anger clouding those time-worn features of his that I could hardly discern through the steaming hiss of fog coming up off the asphalt.

"—you sure?  Because that's not what it sounded like on the phone."

"No, I told you that I wasn't quitting the team this year, and that as long as I'm in school, I'll be playing."

"You know, your manager called me today.  Told me quite a few interesting things about you.  I didn't even know you had a manager, Kalen."

Even his voice was familiar, like a stagnant ghost from my memories where the bad guy turned out to be some cartoonish caricature of a cliche businessman—and my mother.

Because I couldn't forget her in that equation, no.  She was the villain, too. 

Maybe even more than the man berating his own son in front of me about his basketball dream.

"You should have consulted me, Kalen.  You never know with these people, they'll do just about anything to get an 'in' with us.  I've told you this time and time again, and yet you still don't seem to understand.  This ends, now.  No more manager, you'll be cutting your practices in half and with the new free time you'll have, you will commit yourself to the business."

"No."

There was lethal ice in Kalen's tone. 

I knew I shouldn't have been there invading on their personal moment, but standing there by the tree where he'd berated me not even a full week earlier about how this man had killed his mother when he ran off with mine had my feet superglued to the damp ground.

Kalen's back had turned rigid from where it was turned from me, so while I had no insight as to the expression on his face, the one on his father's was enough of a clue as to what he looked like in that moment. 

Probably as fierce as he had in the moment where he told me that the son of the man who had destroyed my family was standing right in front of me.

"No?  That's funny, son.  I don't think I remember you having a say in these things.  Especially not after what you did—"

"You're not allowed to use that against me, not after what you did."

"I—you know, I don't think we should really be discussing this, now that we have such an interested listener."

Caught in the snare of the eyes of two predators, I was suddenly transported back to when I was a little girl as tears dripped down my cheeks like the raindrops cascading down my face. 

I was tiny and frail, caught in the headlights of a car that cost more than my house, shivering and begging and crying out for her to stay while that man...

...he approached me slowly, like trying not to scare away a deer or a squirrel.

His eyes were kind, but there was a hard set to his jaw, like he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was in that moment, like this was all beneath him and he had much better things to do than console the child of the woman he was hardly in a relationship with. 

But there was still some humanity behind those silvery-grey eyes that had their hold on me the moment his stare locked onto mine, like I was trapped in a laser beam and I'd only get out once he allowed it. 

"You're Gracie, right?"

My sobs subsided long enough for me to squeak out that yes, I was Gracie.

"It's nice to meet you, Gracie.  I'm a friend of your mom's.  She's just going to go somewhere with me and my son for a little while, but I promise we'll bring her back.  Is that alright?"

Sniffling and shivering in the rain, I wondered where the man's umbrella was, and why he was bothering with me while kneeling on the pavement while I clung to my mom's leg. 

"Oh this is ridiculous.  Come on sweetie, go back inside with your dad."

"But dad's not in there!  He left already, I don't want to be home alone!"

Not again.  Anything but being home alone, again. 

"He's on his way, honey.  Now, let go!"

She shook me from her leg like I was some kind of mangy dog on the side of the road that she didn't want ruining her outfit. 

Sobs threatened to shake my body even harder, but I kept them in because that man was looking at me again.  I found the strength to look away and found another pair of interesting eyes in the car behind them. 

His son, he'd said.  

He was staring at me curiously, but with some hidden wariness that I was too young to understand in the moment. 

In a flash, my mother had strode toward the car. 

"Why don't you get back inside the house, and your mother will see you in the morning, alright?"

I nodded, if only because I couldn't trust my own voice. 

"Atta girl," he said, rising to pat my soggy head and squelch back to his car in the puddles that surely soaked his expensive looking shoes. 

The sleek black lines of the car evaporated into the mist and the rain as I trudged back into the front door of the house and locked it, but kept the back unlocked just in case dad came home soon, but it was always morning light by the time someone dropped him off. 

Lightning soared across the sky as I pulled my blanket into my parent's closet, my favorite stuffed bunny whose ear was falling off tucked under my arm. 

Thunder boomed in the night as the transformers blew and the power went out as I shivered the whole way to sleep, dreaming of grey eyes and my mother's cold, bitter face twisting up into a loving smile as she held me in her arms, singing a lullaby...

"I'm sorry—do I know you?  You look very familiar."

His voice hadn't changed a bit from my memories. 

"You used to be a...friend of my mother's."

My voice sliced through the air speckled with the rain that was tapering off ever so slowly, only the slight patter of mist still peppering the space between father and son. 

Kalen's father's eyes scrunched up in confusion, but as the clouds began to part and a stray jet of sunlight fell upon us, his eyes so like his son's widened in recognition. 

Folding his umbrella, he turned to look at his son with a question in his gaze that I wasn't even sure he could answer.  He had no idea why I had followed him, and ended up taking part in eavesdropping on his conversation with his father. 

"Jennifer's daughter, then.  How nice to see you again, and it's great that you're going to the same school as Kalen, here.  I was...sorry to hear about what happened with your father."

Kalen's eyes snapped to mine at his father's words while I narrowed my own at the man with salt-and-pepper greying hair. 

"Thank you for your concern.  It was nice seeing you again, as well."

The words were stilted and tasted like ash in my mouth, but it was better than letting Kalen in on what had happened in the past—better than him showing his disgust or, god forbid, pity about what had happened because of the affair my mother had had with his father.

It was bad enough coming from the man who'd caused all that hurt in the first place, but seeing it reflected back at me in his son, too? 

That would've been the icing on the cake. 

Surely the man must've felt the weight of the vehemence I was placing upon him with my stare, the hate beheld in my gaze that should've been able to burn him to the ground but yet bounced harmlessly off of him as if it had never even touched him at all. 

He was still as handsome and charming as ever with perfectly straight white teeth and slender cheekbones, a strong jaw and prominent nose. 

It was clear that Kalen would grow up into his father's likeness even as he towered over the man with his height. 

Kalen's storm cloud eyes flashed to mine as stray lightning bounced across the sky in a sailing arc, threatening thunder following behind shortly in its wake. 

His gaze held me rooted to the spot even as he said goodbye to his father, who glanced warily between the two of us before complying and telling his son they weren't done with their conversation. 

And then the car peeled away on the slick asphalt and Kalen was stalking up the few feet of distance between us, not stopping, growing closer and closer until—

"You enjoy the show, stalker?"

His voice came out a teasing caress, a lilt to his full mouth in a pulled up smirk.

My neck bent at an unnatural angle trying to meet his eyes. 

"I am not a stalker.  I was trying to talk to you, but—"

"But what?  You decided to intrude on a personal conversation instead?"

Sandalwood cologne and storm water rolled off of him as navy specks came to life in his eyes, sparking stronger than the electricity in the atmosphere. 

"I was just caught off guard, I didn't mean to listen in on your conversation."

"Oh, you didn't mean to, did you?"

There was a mocking lilt to his voice, teasing me even as he cocked his head to the side and his dark hair fell across his eyes that were frigid in their assessment of me. 

He raked his gaze up and down my body in a way that should've felt lecherous but instead heated me up to a boiling point where I should've been shivering from the cold rain clinging my clothes to my body. 

"Tell me, Gracie.  Did you mean to follow me to yell at me some more?  Get in my face about something else I did to you?  Because this is already getting old."

"I—I didn't..."

The words were getting all tangled up and knotted inside of me, like they were too warped and twisted to even come out properly. 

"What's wrong?  Cat got your tongue?"

His nose was pressed up against mine, a lone raindrop collected on the tip as it dangled precariously between the two of us, his skin steaming and so velvety smooth as he came nearer, closer and closer until—

"Let's hope you can find a better use of that tongue of yours soon, then."

He pulled away just as quickly as he arrived, and then I was left staring at the spot on the ground where he had been, the imprints of his shoes in the mud the only reminder that he was ever there at all.

***

Author's Note:

What did you think of this chapter?

What do you think will happen next?

What do you want to happen next?

Until next time my lovely readers,

Kristen :)