Her face will never be bruised again.
I’ve played out the fantasy a hundred times this week. It’s gotten more vivid each time. I can see the kitchen window. I can see her standing in the sun pouring through the glass, belly rounded out, smiling at me like an angel.
It’s an unforgivable thing, for a man like me to want a thing like that.
I didn’t know I was capable of it. I’ve always thought the wanting parts of me had been cauterized at fifteen, when Afon dragged me bleeding out of an alley and my father wasn’t dragged out at all. I made myself into a man who didn’t need s**t.
Suits. Whiskey. Women I forgot by morning. That’s all it took to sustain me.
Then a wild filly walked into Khaza and everything got flipped upside down.
I shake my head and focus as I park the car, step out, an
