Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 466

"So if tomorrow something happens and Tasha..." He stopped himself, but I heard the shape of the word he had been about to say, and it hit me like a slap.

"No." My voice cracked. "Do not say that. Nothing will happen to Tasha. Listen to me, Sparrow. If Tasha dies, I have nothing left. I have no purpose in this life. What am I living for?"

"Then you live for yourself."

"No." I shook my head. "I need to keep Tasha safe. I need to keep her alive. I need Tasha to be happy. I can only be happy if she is happy. That is the way it has always been, and that is the way it will always be."

He stared at me for a long time, and I stared back, and somewhere in the silence I felt like I had failed a test I had not known I was taking. Then he shook his head and put the car in gear.

"Well," he said flatly, "in the end it is your business. I do not give two fucks about it."

He started driving, and I watched the line of his jaw, the way his forehead had pulled into a tight frown, and I wondered if I had upset him. I had not said anything wrong. We had only been talking about my personal life, which was none of his business in the first place. Or maybe he was thinking about something else entirely and it had nothing to do with me.

Either way, it was not my job to manage his moods. I had my own problems, and the biggest one was making sure Tasha did not waste this year of her life. Whatever skill she wanted to learn, whatever she wanted to become, I would make sure this year gave it to her. Tasha had never been allowed to want anything for herself. This time she would.

The rest of the drive passed in silence, and I found my mind wandering somewhere I had sworn I would never let it go. If things had been different. If I had grown up with a normal life, with Lynette, with Tasha beside me, if Tasha had never been taken, maybe I would have met Sparrow in some ordinary way. Maybe I would have liked him. Maybe he would have liked me back.

I shook the thought out of my head before it could finish. There were no maybes in this life. And if it were not for Tasha, I never would have found Sparrow at all. I never would have needed him. The thought was stupid and pathetic, and I pushed it away and did not look at it again.

"Then I will be wrong. But I am not."

He sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a man who was losing an argument and knew it. "Remember what I told you this morning. I do not need you girls worrying about what I eat." He looked at me. "But fine. If Tasha made dinner, I will humor her and taste it. Is that better?"

I nodded. "That is all I ask."

He went into the restaurant and I followed, and when he ordered, he ordered for two. I shook my head at the waiter, but Sparrow ignored me and ordered anyway, and when the food arrived and was set in front of me, I stared at him across the table.