11. ~Skylar~

I heard my mom's footsteps coming toward the landing just as I was passing by the bottom of the stairs.

I quickly hid what I was carrying behind my back.

Not a moment later, she appeared at the top of the stairs struggling with a ginormous rolling suitcase. "Can you ask your father to give me a hand once he's done with the other one?"

The other one being the first massive suitcase he'd hauled down the stairs for her and all the way out into the courtyard.

"I can help you, Mom."

She waved her hand dismissively. "Absolutely not, it weighs a ton."

I rolled my eyes—well kind of inwardly as she wouldn't appreciate the visible kind. "Sure, I'll go get him," I told her, taking the path of least resistance.

It was something I was working on with Caleb's teachings. Basically learning not to react to every provocation or to escalate just because I could. It was about letting things go in order to achieve a balance and turning that agitation into something positive, and when that wasn't the case, seeing a given situation from the other person's perspective. In the case of my mom, I knew it was just coming from a protective place despite the internalized misogyny that was also bleeding through. I knew that wasn't her intent. She just didn't want me to get hurt and she had a need for things to be done in what she deemed the proper way, and this was that for her.

Besides, she had a big deal she was on the verge of closing, and what this trip they were taking today was all about. It was such a big thing that they were even doing business over the weekend. She would be gone for three days to close it. It involved a lot of meetings, a lot of contracts to be signed, a lot of specifics to be worked out, and a ton of dotting the proverbial i's and crossing the t's. Her lawyer had already gone on ahead to smooth the way for her and get things aligned the way she liked it. And now she was heading out with my dad. Normally, he wouldn't come along. But this was a massive revitalization project of a really rough neighborhood, so he'd insisted.

It was also why I was hiding a certain something on my person that I'd retrieved from the basement safe while my mom had been distracted finishing up packing.

I hurried out down the corridor and through to the entryway.

My dad was coming back through the front door as I reached it.

I held the sleek black secure case out to him. "Here you go, Dad."

"Thanks, baby girl."

"How are you gonna actually carry this gun without Mom finding out?"

"I have my ways." He frowned. "Don't worry, okay? It's just an extra precaution."

"Yeah, I know. I get it."

"I know you do," he said, pointedly.

"Dad."

He reached out and laid his hand on my shoulder. "I'm not here to judge you. Me, of all people, Sky, all right? So keep that in mind. I hope it gives you the impetus to come to me soon with what's haunting you so much that it's thrown you off track with your career and had you moving home. You, the highly independent type."

Oh dammit. He really knew how to tug at my heartstrings.

For as long as I could remember, I'd always told my dad everything. He was easy to talk to, sure, but he also got me like nobody else really ever had, and he didn't judge or condemn either.

But I also didn't want him to see such a dark part of me up close.

"So either you go to your father—who I'm betting you don't want to for fear that he'll see all that darkness in you and be disgusted and never see his baby girl the same way again."

Caleb's words swirled around my head. Although I knew he'd said that to get a rise out of me, to convince me to go his route and let him help me which was doubling as allowing them to pull me closer for whatever purpose they had in mind, those words had also possessed a ring of truth that couldn't be denied.

I didn't want my dad to see that dark in me, the bad and unlovable parts of me. Sure, he'd had to do things that haunted him during his time in the military, but he'd been a war hero. I'd just been Onyx, a vigilante. It wasn't the same. And I'd made mistakes and lost sight of the mission along the way and given into the fucked-up parts of me. Yeah, Jett had made that all the worse and dragged me further under, but it had still been me who'd gone along with it. It had still been my mistake to bear.

Besides, if I told my dad about all of that, beyond the little that he already knew from me needing his help that one time, it could pull him into it too. He certainly wouldn't let the situation with Jett lie. He'd go after him and, given who Jett was connected to, that would be beyond dangerous. It would be catastrophic in all honesty.

So that was why I merely smiled and gave his hand a squeeze, then told him, "I'm good and I'm starting to get the hang of everything at Luxe too."

"Skylar—"

"Mom wanted your help with the second one of her unwieldy suitcases. She's waiting at the top of the stairs." I gestured at his gun case. "You better hide that in the car, then head up there."

Thankfully, Mom's call hastened the need for him to snap into action. "Frank! Are you coming?"

He sighed and stepped back from me. "We're going for three days and she brings her whole closet. She's really stressed about this development deal."

It wasn't exactly unlike her to pack so heavily, but this was more than the standard for her. "It will help to have you there with her this time."

He smiled. "Yeah." And then he hurried to the car and stowed the case inside, before rushing past me and heading up the stairs.

I walked over there as he was hauling the mammoth thing down with my mom following.

As she reached me and my dad dragged the suitcase out to the car, she wrapped her arms around me, then held me to her as she said, "Have a nice few days. You can invite those friends from your study group over if you want. I would tell you not to make it an actual party-type thing, but I know I don't have to with you. But I'm glad you're shedding your loner disposition a little." She thought for a moment, her mind clearly going a million miles a minute. "Just make sure you activate the security system every night. Any issues and we're a phone call away."

I smiled. "Mom, I'm going to be fine. I was living on my own for two years before this. It's all good. And this deal is going to be fine also. Better than fine. You're amazing at what you do and you can negotiate with the best of the best."

"Thank you, sweetie."

My dad joined us and we all hugged goodbye, and then they were out the door.

I waved as they drove past the gates, then disappeared down the dirt road.

Then I locked the door and spun back into the entryway of the house, the space now eerily quiet.

I frowned.

It was strange that I was interpreting it that way.

I usually loved spending time alone. I preferred it to having anybody in my space.

Maybe it was just a case of getting used to being around people with Luxe, heading over to Caleb a few evenings a week, and living with my parents again. Maybe it was just me adjusting.

I opened the connecting door through the house that led into the garage and made a beeline for my bike. It would be dark in a couple of hours and the weather reports were warning of rain soon too, so my opportunity to take a ride today was now or never. Fortunately, I'd already gotten through my readings and work after waking up at the crack of dawn this Saturday, then working all the way through to the mid-afternoon. I'd even set up and started work on the Revit software that they were going to start teaching us to use in class soon.

Everything was under control.

All under control.

I snatched my hard leather jacket off one of the hooks beside my Harley and shrugged it on. As soon as it was zipped, I pulled on my helmet.

And then I was swinging my leg over my bike.

Anticipation was thrumming through me as I started it up, then peeled out of the garage.

As soon as I navigated around the winding private drive and hit the open backroads, I was flying, the rumble of the engine beneath me rolling through me, the wind whipping around me, the power of my Harley propelling me forward.

It was invigorating beyond belief.

So incredibly freeing.

And most of all, it took everything else away, and just let me be.

So the rainhad come sooner than the perceived weather experts had predicted.

I'd had to leave my boots in the garage because they were completely caked in mud.

And my clothes hadn't fared much better.

I'd wiped them down a little with some paper towel in the garage so, thankfully, as I made my way through the house, I wasn't actually dripping mud all over the place.

I hung my leather jacket in the laundry room, making a note to clean it properly later, and I took off my jeans and put them straight in the wash, along with my socks that were soaked through because when I'd stepped out of my boots in the garage, I'd accidentally trodden right in the muddied splashes they'd made. Seriously? Talk about undoing a good ride.

I headed upstairs in my bra and panties and made a beeline for my ensuite bathroom.

Even my hair was caked in mud.

I turned the shower on, then quickly stripped off.

And then I was climbing into the shower in the next beat.

I shampooed my hair that was a matted mess, then conditioned it.

And then I closed my eyes and sank into the feeling of the warm water soothing me.

I wasn't headed to the boys' mansion tonight, so I was literally alone. Just my own company for the rest of the weekend. I was planning to make the most of it. It was why I'd made sure to get my college work out of the way. Then I could just relax. Now that I couldn't go for another ride because of the shit weather, I could work on my guilty pleasure of planning out the sequel to the video game I'd made. It was a guilty pleasure because I wasn't supposed to be doing it anymore and I couldn't around my mom or dad, or they'd interpret it as me doing a one-eighty and wanting to go back to the institute. It wasn't that. It was just nagging at me, the ideas sparking in me and demanding I give them breath. It was hard to just shut that creative energy down. And I guess I didn't really want to, because it still got me excited, it still had me buzzing with anticipation thinking about working on it.

Butit was pretty much just a hobby now, and that was why I only allowed myself to indulge in it whenever I had some downtime from everything else. And not too much either in case it got its claws back into me. Well, in case I became obsessed again.

That was kind of a thing for me, I got some major tunnel vision when I was fully-immersed in a creative project. I'd pulled back-to-back all-nighters during my time at the institute because of it.

I turned off the shower and stepped out.

I was just about to snatch a white fluffy towel off the rail when something pulled me up short.

A rumbling of footsteps.

Right outside in my bedroom.

My pulse picked up and a shot of adrenaline ripped through me.

I swung my head toward the center drawer of the vanity beneath the mirror just a few feet from me. There was a pair of scissors in there. That was about it for anything to defend myself with. I mean, why would I keep weapons in the freaking bathroom, for goodness sake?

Before I could even make a move to head over there, the bathroom door flew open, startling the crap out of me.

An embarrassing squeal even escaped me.

The wet and naked thing really wasn't helping, making me feel vulnerable, when I hated that with a vengeance.

"You didn't lock your window, beautiful."