Page 4 of The Rut in the Road

He laughed, and his hands slid under the fabric of my t-shirt, the heat of his palms warm against my already-heated skin. “Well, that’s convenient, because?—”

His phone rang, and I might have let out an extremely rude noise.

He growled.

“Parikh,” he all-but-snapped into the phone.

I could hear a voice on the other end, but couldn’t tell whose it was or what they said—but I could see Raj’s free hand clenching into a fist at his side.

“Are you fuckingshittingme?” he ground out between angry teeth. “Goddamn it, Hart, it’s supposed to be my dayoff.” I watched him draw in a slow breath. “No, I know it wasn’t your call. Fuck.” A heavy sigh. “I’ll be there in about thirty, but tell him not to expect me to be dressed appropriately.” He thumbed the button, and the phone beeped as he hung up. “Fuck,” he said again.

“You have to go to work,” I said, entirely unnecessarily.

He grunted. “Apparently,” he snapped, then sighed again and ran a hand over his dark waves. “I’m sorry. I really wanted?—”

“I know,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure what, exactly he’d wanted. It didn’t seem to matter at that precise moment, although there were plenty of things I wanted just then, too, and all of them involved Raj not having to go to work.

He’d set his phone down on the counter and was buttoning his shirt back up. I wasn’t going to be particularly useful with that task, but I could make sure he went with coffee. I had several insulated water bottles that would work for hot or cold, so I pulled one down and filled it from the pot he’d made earlier—about half the pot was left, so it easily filled the bottle. He drank it black, so I didn’t need to add anything.

And then I went into the fridge and pulled out some bread, ham, and cheese, as well as mustard and mayo, and set about making him some sandwiches to take.

“Are you still hungry?” he asked, noticing what I was doing.

“For you to take for lunch,” I replied, pulling out some aluminum foil to wrap each one individually.

Arms wrapped around my stomach, and Raj nuzzled the back of my head, breathing in deeply. “You don’t have to do that,” he said softly into my hair.

“I want to,” I said, simply, wrapping the first sandwich and moving on to a second.

He pressed a kiss to the side of my forehead. “Thank you,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry.” He stepped away, leaving my back cold in his absence.

When he returned to the kitchen, I could hear that he’d put on his shoes—and socks, presumably. I finished wrapping a fifth sandwich, then stuck all of them into a plastic grocery bag I’d pulled out from under the sink. “Here.”

He bent and kissed me, taking the bag.

“And the coffee,” I said, pointing over to the bottle.

“Rayn…” But he didn’t say more than that, kissing me again before stepping away to grab the bottle. “I’ll text you later.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“I really do wish?—”

“I know.”

2

She wantedto make sure that Rayn knew she was thinking about him. That she thought about what it would have been like to have grown up with him in a normal family. Loving parents. A dog. That shit.

She figured this would have to do for the dog. Appropriate to get a German shepherd in Germany, right?

I smiledas I ran my hands over the fake fur of the stuffed dog with its German flag collar. Violette had brought it back for me—along with a whole bunch of other things, including an elephant figurine from Thailand, a beautiful inlaid box from Japan, some wine from France that I didn’t want to open because I didn’t have a good reason to drink it, a little bell from Austria, and chocolates from Switzerland.

It was nice that my sister wanted tobemy sister, even though neither one of us had gotten a typical childhood and therefore had very little idea of what that relationship was supposed to be like. Hers had definitely been more typical than mine—since being locked in an asylum was not at all typical—but it clearly hadn’t been a happy one. I wished for her that it had been better,but I was glad that she, at least, had gotten the ‘right’ kind of magic and hadn’t been through what I had.

Melissa had asked me once if I was jealous of Violette. Maybe if I had been, that would be more normal, but I wasn’t. She’d had her own troubles, I’d had mine. We both still did. I wondered if maybe she’d had the easier childhood, but now I had the easier adulthood—I had no conflicting feelings about my parents. They hadn’t taken care of me. They hadn’t put hopes or dreams on me. I had no sense of obligation to them for anything.

I was able to live my life for myself.