THE KNIVES EDGE | M R ✔︎

SNEAK PEEK - Cutting Corners

[GRYPHON AND THEO - APOCOLYPSE (cigarettes after sex) SLOWED + RAIN]

RELEASING NOVEMBER 15, 2023!!!

I've always hated my father's choice in significant others.

Since my mother died when I was too young to remember, leaving our father to raise my brother and I, he's had women coming in and out of our lives. Each one worse than the last, trying to take on the role of motherhood, but not quite succeeding.

Except he wasn't the greatest of fathers either. He'd often left my older brother, Matt, in charge of me. Starting at the young age of eight, Matt was babysitting a one-year-old while attending public school.

He'd been forced to grow up at a young age. To become a parent while still being a child. He'd been the person I went to when I was struggling with my math homework or tying my shoelaces, at least until Winston came around.

Given my age, on the brink of adulthood, my father is attempting to find respectable suitors. I've been on at least twenty dates in the last two months, all of them ending horribly. Due to my father's conservative beliefs, we were supervised the entire time.

And here I am, stuck on another horrid date with a short blond man with piercing green eyes. His jawline is coated in a light layer of stubble, his lips quirking every time I lean to grab the virgin bloody mary. His eyes are stuck on my cleavage, lingering there each time I take a breath.

"So, Wallace, tell me about yourself." I say, clearing my throat and using my thumbs to wipe the corners of my mouth.

He leans forward, eyes darkening beneath the candle light. "I love sex. When we're married, I expect sex every night. You will stay either in the kitchen or the bedroom and follow through with your wifely duties. I don't wear condoms, so get birth control. Unless you want kids, which you'll be raising as I--"

I clear my throat, trying to keep my disgust from showing. "Excuse me, I think I'm coming down with something."

He looks gobsmacked, his mouth popping shut. "Oh. Would you like me to bring you home?"

I shake my head a little too aggressively. "No, that's quite alright. I can have my driver bring me home."

He nods, eyes downcast at his plate. "Alright then."

I stand from my seat, carefully slipping the chair back beneath the table. My silver heels click against the floor and I make my way towards the exit. I push my hair out of my face and step into the cool air of the summer night.

The sleek black dress feels like a glove, the seams squeezing the life out of my breasts and my hind end. I slip my feet out of the heels and pick them up, stepping down the stairs. I make a quick left, the concrete cold against my bare feet.

I spot Winston and make a beeline for him.

He leans against a brick wall, puffing on a cigarette. Faint blue light illuminates the smoke that swirls through the air. His dark brown curls hang in his face, not quite long enough to disrupt his vision, but long enough to be annoying. His piercing blue eyes look almost white under the light.

I stop just in front of him and he blows out the last waft of smoke, dropping his cigarette onto the sidewalk and stamping it out with his shoe. He wordlessly takes my heels from my hands, holding them in the hand opposite from me.

Then he holds out his arm for me to take. I loop mine through his and smile sadly.

"I take it didn't go too well?" He asks, guiding me through the streets of Dublin.

"Not at all." I answer, letting out a puff of annoyance. "He was such a misogynist. All 'you'll be in the kitchen or the bedroom', kind of guy. What man says that all a women is good for is cooking, cleaning, and sex?"

He scoffs, his lip curling with disgust. "Not a man, miss Bloodvest. A boy."

I grimace at the use of my last name. Despite knowing me since I was in diapers, Winston insists on using my surname. It's more formal, he says.

We turn the corner, a car speeding by. Winston's eyes skip over them and land on the ice cream shop across the street.

"How many more of these things am I going to have to go on?" I ask hesitantly.

He frowns, his eyebrows knitted together. "Your father wants you on one until you find someone who piques your interest."

I grumble under my breath, shaking my head. Winston leads us across the road, stopping under the light of the ice cream shop. He smirks and gestures to the window, still open and illuminated inside.

I smile, allowing him to guide me into the store. We move right to the cash register and Winston grabs out some money, setting it down on the counter. The woman behind the register smiles politely, tilting her head as she waits for the order.

"One strawberry cheesecake in a cup and one chocolate-vanilla swirl in a cone, please." He says with a forced smile.

The woman nods, ringing him up and slipping the cash into the register. Winston gets his change back and leans his elbow on the counter.

When Matt and I were younger, whenever we were upset with our father or got a big school achievement, Winston would take the two of us out for ice cream.

He was the one who taught me how to drive. He taught me the proper way to use a razon--rest in peace to the hairless stripe on his left leg. He taught me math. He bailed me out of muggle jail after I got arrested for vandalizing the side of a bank with some of my meathead friends. He bought the supplies I needed for Hogwarts and my primary school.

In all ways except biologically, Winston is our father.

That's why I did my father's day project on him, not our biological father. Winston took us out for ice cream afterwards.

"Did Matty tell you that him, Lena, and Lauren are coming up for winter break?" He asks, tilting his head in thought.

"No." I answer, my chest filling with excitement.

"Your father expects you to have a boyfriend by then. He wants Matt's approval on him." Winston grumbles out, clearly repulsed by the idea.

I frown, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

He takes the ice cream from the woman behind the counter as passes me the strawberry cheesecake one, a spoon already in the dessert. I grin, shovelling a spoonful into my mouth.

Winston and I make our way out of the store and continue down the sidewalks, enjoying each other's company. Despite the silence, we have an understanding of one another.

He knows that there's nothing I can do to get out of this predicament that my father has all but thrown me into. He knows that I can't fool my father into giving up, because he's tried. He knows that I want to be able to live the way I want to, not beneath the pressure of my father as he continues to send me on ridiculous dates.

And I know that there's nothing Winston can do in order to save me from my fathers sentencing.

The only way out is through.

And through is the way we'll trek, side by side.

A/N: just one chapter of many to... come. Hehehe. I hope you guys enjoyed this sneak peek as much as you've enjoyed "the knives edge".

For all my delulu babies, don't worry. There's much more underway.

I LOVE YOU ALL. <3

THIS CONCLUDES "THE KNIVES EDGE"