Page 3 of The KING Review

“Hey. Sorry I’m late,” she gusts out on a half-laugh as I reach for the back door so Sera can get out too. “The traffic on Eighth was crazy because of the half-marathon. I shouldn’t have stopped for the pick-me-up!”

She tips her head to the cup in her hand, following as I round the back of the car silently, popping the trunk to get Sera’s case out—bright pink and covered in flower stickers, half peeling off.

We both knew it’d be better for Sera not to be aware of the animosity between her parents. Obviously, I agree with that—but I hate how easily Marie can slip the mask on.

This is the woman who told me I can never be in a real, honest relationship because my work makes me a predator. That there’s no way I can be truthful with a partner, because I’ll always be able to read them better than they can read me, or themselves, and it makes the entire union dishonest.

I haven’t been with anybody since our divorce four years ago. Truthfully, I’m not sure how I’d even approach someone new without constantly worrying about all the shit Marie internalized into me.

Sera throws herself into her mother’s arms, and Marie spins her round, careful to keep her coffee cup well away with the lid firmly pressed down.

I mean it when I say—and it’s something I say to anybody who gets too close to the subject of my romantic life—Marie wasn’t a good partner, but she’s a wonderful mother.

I suppose I can at least be grateful for that.

“Say bye to your papa,” she says, pressing a kiss to Sera’s chubby little cheek.

Sera leans out of her mama’s arms, hooking a hand around the back of my neck. I press my forehead to hers. “Love you so much, bug.” I ruffle her hair.

“Love you more, Papa. Seeya next weekend!”

“Two weekends, sweetie,” Marie corrects quietly.

Of course. We do two-week switches now because it helps Sera feel less like she’s being picked up and moved around too much. I know that’s what’s best for her, but it doesn’t make it suck any less that I now have to go two weeks at a time without seeing her, even if we do talk most nights on the phone before she goes to bed.

I press my lips into a thin line as Marie straps Sera into her booster in the back of the old sedan that used to be mine—I transferred it into her name when she was learning to drive, right before Sera was born, so she’d have more independence and freedom, and so I’d know she could safely get them both somewhere if they needed to in an emergency.

My paper smile is hanging on by a thread as I wave them off, but Marie’s looks even more brittle than mine as she spares me a last glance in the wing mirror.

Handover days are always shitty.

I don’t know how to make them suck less, so instead I just try to take my mind off the fact that when I go home, the apartment will be empty. Quiet, no noise, nothing to occupy my mind. Worst of all, no Sera.

I heave a sigh as I head to Cade’s office for a coffee break after the first round of new student orientations in the main auditorium. I led the seminar for Readable Body Language and Romantic Affection, the class I co-teach with Cade, and I sat in on his opening piece for Intro to Human Sexual Attraction, which he now—ironically—shares with Fia.

Both of them dipped out before I could catch them, but I know they’ll have been gunning for Fia’s good coffee machine, especially with the rest of the week promising more of the same introductory seminars, proposal meetings, and course load setup.

Fia’s office appears to be empty, but I hear the low murmur of conversation a few paces down the hall, in Cade’s office. The door rests a little open, as it always does.

Right as I nudge it with my foot, I register the presence of a third voice—one that I recognize—but by the time that thought has occurred to me, it’s too late to do anything about it. The door swings open—just as I’m thinking it’s only going to take one more thing today, and it’ll be the straw that breaks the camel’s back—to reveal Neve Hart, sprawled across the little futon sofa in Cade’s office.

I stop dead in the doorway. Fia looks up first, perched on the edge of Cade’s desk. Cade’s eyes follow. Last of all, Neve glances to the door from what she appears to have made her throne. A characteristically insouciant grin spreads across her face. “Well, if it isn’t Professor Daddy Grant King.”

Fia groans. Cade guffaws.

I do my best not to react visibly—which I’m pretty good at, much to my ex-wife’s chagrin—just giving a curt nod instead. “It’s nice to see you again, Miss Hart.”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Neve replies without missing a beat. “I was just thinking the same thing!”

I modulate my response again, but inside, it’s alarm bells.

She’s wearing red—not soft red, not polite red. This is unapologetic, come-fuck-me red.

I’m too old, too tired, and having too much of a goddamn day for the way it punches straight into my bloodstream. I do my best not to look at any of them, because I know my pupils are blown. I stay in the doorway, because the light is dimmer here, and that’ll make it make sense—my pupils being dilated.

Neve’s dress hugs every curve like it was sewn onto her in a back alley behind a strip club—and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. Her gold-blonde hair is a little lighter than Fia’s, curled loose around her face, mouth glossed and smiling, eyes sharp.

Those are lighter than Fia’s too, almost yellow, like a cat’s eyes.