You Are Mine: I Can Give You Everything

Chapter 26: I Know Him Best

He seems alright, a little tense and shorter tempered than usual but as well as can be expected. I'll try to get him to call or text you. Have you been texting him today?

~ Reese

I pause outside the café to read Reese's text. Smiling a little in appreciation, the man was rather lovely to me and someone I would consider a friend. I hesitate a moment before clicking on Colin's name.

I miss you. How has your day been? Did you go to work today? Will I be seeing you later?

~ Emery

I pause a moment gazing at the screen before pushing my phone into my pocket and stepping into the café. Joyce is standing next to the counter with a warm smile on her face.

"Emery!" she greets with a smile, stepping over to me she wraps me in a brief motherly hug. "How was London, dear?"

"Very fun," I say with a small half-forced smile. I'm still not sure what to think about Joyce. She is so complex and as much a mystery to me as Colin is. But I feel I have a duty to at least try and build a relationship with her. She is a very close friend of Colin's and literally the closest thing he has to family. Maybe it would make it easier if I think of her as a sort of kinky mother-in-law, type of person. It certainly is easier to think of her like that instead of someone who used to have kinky, Sub/Dom sex with my boyfriend. 

Joyce smiles and glances at the man behind the counter "what did you want to drink?"

"Uh just a mocha latte is fine," I say glancing at the man.

Joyce smiles and glances at me "come, we can sit at Colin's table."

"Colin's table?" I ask as she leads me over to the table Colin and I had sat at the first time he took me out.

Joyce nods sitting down, "Colin hates sitting with his back to anything but a wall, and he feels more comfortable sitting near a window, so this table is always saved for him."

I raise a brow curiously.

Joyce glances at the man who brings us our coffee and nods her appreciation before turning her gaze back to me. She frowns a little as she looks me over, her gaze lingering on the stitched-up cut on my cheek. "What happened?" she asks gently.

I turn my gaze down to my coffee as I speak "I tripped, fell into the glass coffee table in his room."

Joyce searches my expression a moment before she shakes her head "so his nightmares haven't gotten any better then."

I glance at her with a slight frown. How did she know?

Joyce sighs turning her gaze out the window. "Where did you go to school?"

"Lincoln Park," I say with a slight shrug, rather glad about the topic change. I hate being reminded that she knows more about Colin than I do. 

"Was it a good school?"

"It was alright," I say with a small shrug. "Better than the High School that I was supposed to go to anyways. The one that was in my neighbourhood was always having suspicious activity going on. I mean there were always cops or drug deals or something in my neighbourhood so why would the school be any different?"

Joyce gazes at me curiously "what did your mother do?"

"She worked a lot of different customer services jobs, she would sometimes be working two or three jobs at a time to try and make ends meet," I say with a small sad smile. "My mother was a wonderful woman. She loved and cared about me probably more than I will ever be able to understand."