Death of Cupids (The Blood of Cupids MC) Read Free Page B

could hear the anger in
his voice.
     
    His mother stood up.  “Sean brought me here.”
    “Where is he?”  Ryan didn’t even look at us, just made
a B line toward the door.
    “Ryan, stop.”  I followed closely behind.
    “No, Grace.”  He turned around to me, placing his hands
on my shoulders.  “If Sean is here, then I will end this right now.”
    Anne Marie made a small noise before she spoke.  “You
can’t.  Please.  If he doesn’t make it back, I don’t get my children;
he promised me that.”
     
    Of course.  Sean had ensured his survival by making
himself a necessary piece of the puzzle.  He was smart; we couldn’t deny
that.
     
    Ryan took his hand off the doorknob and turned to her. 
“Fine.”  His breath calmed him.  “Fine.  You have my word that
Grace and I will go to Philadelphia, as he has asked.  You can go home and
wait for your children.”
    “I’m going to Philadelphia too.”  She quietly
countered.
    “No.  You’ll just get in the way.  We don’t need
you.”  Ryan was putting his foot down.  He obviously wanted no
relationship with this woman.    
    “But that’s where I live.  I never left Philadelphia.”
     
    I saw the hurt spread across his face.  I saw clearly
the pain of his entire childhood.  His mother had been there the whole
time.   Twenty years in the same city as him, but never once had she
tried to reach out.  Never until now: now that her other children were in
danger.

 
     

    Ryan
     
     
    “But that’s where I live.  I never left
Philadelphia.”
     
    She might as well had just told me that I was the sole
reason she left in the first place, that she took one look at me and thought I
could do better.  When Grace had left me alone with my thoughts in our
bedroom, I truly believed I was going to lose my mind.  After all this
time, was she really here?  This time, would she stay?  Even after I
had given up hope that my mother would return, I never stopped imagining our
reunion.
     
    I imagined running into her at my track meet in middle
school.  She was riddled with guilt for leaving and admitted that she
would sneak into all my sporting events just to watch me win.  I imagined
seeing her at the movies where my girlfriend, Jessica, and I would go every Friday
night when we were eleven just to sit in the last row and make out.  She
would pull me aside, point her finger in my face, and tell me that was no way
to treat a lady.  Then I’d roll my eyes as I was given the birds and
the bees talk.  I imagined looking up in the stands at graduation and
seeing her smiling face among the crowd.  She was so proud of me and so
disappointed in herself for missing so many years with her son.  We’d then
sneak off to a diner and catch up over milkshakes and apple pie.  By the
end of the night, it would be as though she had never left.
     
    But she did leave.  And she never came back.  Pops
was at all my track meets, cheering me on and taking me out for celebratory
sundaes afterwards.  Pops was the one who warned me that girls like
Jessica were fun in high school, but there was something so much better out
there, and I should never stop looking for her.  Pops taught me about sex,
but he also taught me about love.  Pops was the one sitting in the stands
at graduation and the one who then took me out for milkshakes and apple pie
while we stared in awe at my diploma.  Pops had always been there for me,
and now, with my long lost mother sitting in my living room, I realized how
much I really missed him.  I wished it were he sitting in my living room
instead of this woman I barely even recognized.  I had just found out I
was going to be a father.  I wanted Pops to take me out to celebrate.
     
    I didn’t want anything to do with her.
     
    “I hadn’t realized you stayed in Philadelphia.  My apologies.”
    She stared at me, and I could see my own hurt in her
eyes.  “Grace, would you mind giving Ryan and I a few minutes