I gritted my teeth and followed him, stopping in the arch between dining and living when I saw him standing in front of my couch in the living room.

His eyes stopped taking in his surroundings, this precisely being after he’d lingered on a picture of Gram and Gramps I had on my bookshelf by the TV, a photo that used to sit in much the same location in our family room in LA, his attention came to me.

“It’s you,” he said.

“Yeah, it is. All me. And all paid for by me.”

He winced.

I wanted to enjoy landing that successful blow, no matter it was low, but dammit, I just couldn’t.

“I deserved that,” he said.

He did.

And with what he’d been going through at the time, he didn’t.

I wasn’t going to get into that.

“Preacher, I’m seeing someone,” I said.

“I know. Shawn told me.”

I would imagine Shawn did.

However, knowing Shawn did made me even angrier.

“Then why are you here?” I asked.

“I’m here, cher, but just sayin’, you gotta have a lot of other questions that you don’t know the answers to.”

“This is not the time to be smug, Preacher.”

“There are a lot of things I’m feelin’ right now, Lyla, and smug sure as fuck is not one of them.”

I had nothing to say to that.

His expression changed and I threw up every barrier I’d started fortifying from the minute I heard he was back to guard against the beauty of it.

“We needed that time, baby.”

Was he…?

Was he serious?

I stood motionless and it took a grave amount of effort to get my lips to work.

“We did?” I drew in breath so I wouldn’t pass out from lack of oxygen and demanded, “We did? We needed six years apart?”

He started toward me. “Lyla—”

“No!” I shrieked, and he stopped dead.

I’d never shrieked at him.

I’d never shrieked at anyone.

I’d never even raised my voice to him.

Or anyone.

“You do not get to make that decision, Preacher,” I snapped.

“Lyla—”

“You tore me apart. You ripped me to shreds. Six years. Six years!” I shouted. “And you think you can show up and tell me you did it because it was what,” I thumped my chest with a flattened hand, “I needed? That it was good for me? For us?”

“You were drowning, Lyla.”

“Yes, in your shit that was heavy and terrifying and sad, and I could have helped you navigate it if you’d have let me. I wanted…no, I needed to help you navigate it, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“No, Lyla, you weren’t drowning in my shit. You were drowning in me.”

“Of course,” I retorted. “From the very beginning. That was the way it was. That was us. That was what I wanted.”