Page 16 of Licks

He frowned at his papers and prattled off our address and the name again, scratching at his neck until a red mark bloomed.

“Look,” I said, cutting him off. “Mary Hamilton was my mother. She was a forty-five-year-old dental office receptionist who died last month, not a teenage band groupie. There must be a mistake.”

Again with the neck scratching. “Sorry…I should have explained fully.” He blinked as though he had a loose contact and nudged the bag forward. “This is from a batch of luggage we recently found, that went missing in 2001. They had been locked in an unused storage facility. We’re returning the lost items.”

Luggage from 2001? Was this guy for real? “My mother didn’t travel. I’d never even seen her pack an overnight bag. She barely—”

“Was she related to a Doris Hamilton?”

I stumbled back and braced myself against the door. “What did you say?” Doris was my grandmother. Linked by DNA, not any form of relationship, but still…I’d have fallen on my ass if it weren’t for the strong presence behind me. A large body. August with his hand on my lower back.

“Doris Hamilton,” the man repeated. “Her name was also listed on the luggage tag, but Mary Hamilton’s was the main contact.”

My mother.

Lost luggage.

Billy Idol.

2001.

Breathing became an effort. “And you’re saying this was hers? From seventeen years ago?” I would have been ten or eleven back then. I’d have remembered having a band groupie for a mother.

“Mary Hamilton,” he said again, slowly, loudly, as though I was hard of hearing. “From 2001.”

If it weren’t for August looping his arm around my waist, I’d be eating pavement right now: face first, teeth chipped, bloody nose. Balance eluded me.

“Do you need us to sign something?” August took over, showing me where to write my name, behaving like a coherent adult. He led me inside afterward, just him and me and this shocking suitcase.

He gripped my hips and turned me to face him. “This is pretty nuts.”

“This isn’t nuts. This is like digging up the time capsule from your yard, only to discover the Barbie you disfigured by swapping her legs with Spider-Man’s had come to life to take over the globe.”

He smirked. “Barbie-Man was awesome.”

“Barbie-Man was a horror. Barbie-Man as an immortal bent on world domination would be catastrophic.”

He smiled fully, the creases around his mouth and eyes filling with affection. Wooziness swept through me again, and I clasped his wrists. Scents of sweat and clove and man drifted from him, an unfamiliar cologne. As a boy he’d smelled of fresh-cut grass and his mother’s fried chicken. To this day, I couldn’t pass a lawnmower or fast-food chicken joint without sighing.

He inched a fraction closer, his smile slipping into something darker. His warm breath skimmed my hair. I’d swear his grip on me tightened. “Barbie-Man was scary because you scalped her. You ruined what I was trying to create.”

Was that another dig? Him reviving how I’d ruined us? He had said he’d forgiven me, but laying nine years of resentment to rest wasn’t easy, and I deserved every quip and wisecrack. Yearned for it, actually.

His grip on me grew hot and heavy—something else I yearned for. “If I’d known you had an artistic vision in mind, I wouldn’t have acted so rashly.” I might not have slept with Finch.

His thumb moved a fraction, a slight drag downward, and his attention fastened on my lips. “You would have defaced her one way or another. You were always impulsive like that.”

“That doesn’t change how scary that suitcase is.” How terrifying being close to August was.

He cast a searching glance at my face, as though reading the double-entendre in my words. “This is uncharted territory. We always fear what we don’t know.”

I couldn’t be sure if he was talking about me or the suitcase-bomb dropped on my life, but I met his probing gaze, taking in his full physique. He really had filled out the past nine years, the sleeves of his soccer jersey cutting into his biceps. Strong veins mapped his tanned forearms and big hands. He had a bold Roman nose, thick eyelashes. Darker circles cradled his hazel eyes, but they upped his hot factor, broodiness always a turn-on for me. The hint of stubble dusting the severe cut of his jaw didn’t hurt either.

It also didn’t hide the scar on his chin.

I’d sat with him after he’d sliced it on the Wheelers’ broken window, the two of us having snuck into that abandoned home like we’d been FBI. Always messing around. We’d sat facing each other afterward, on my bedroom floor, our knees touching, my hand on his face as I held a wet towel to the gash. We were fifteen then, and I’d wanted to kiss him.

I was one day from twenty-eight now, and I wanted to devour him.