He smiled.
“And that is the longest answer you will ever receive for why I reached out to you.”
“No, it’s…sweet,” I said, unsure of what the right word was, careful not to say something that would somehow sound dismissive or corny. “Thanks.”
“I don’t know if you should be thanking me,” he said. “It feels awkward as hell having told all of you that. I’m sure as fuck not going to tell the Black Reapers, and if I find out you told Tara—”
“I won’t.”
He stared me down, trying to see if I would break under the weight of his glare. I would not, though that was a bit out of fear of what would happen if I did blab to Tara and Brock by extension.
“I’m so used to being able to control what happens, but now I realize that that’s really fucking stupid and painful in the long run,” Steele said. “I’d rather not keep doing that if all that’s going to happen is me getting hurt and other people getting bothered. But that doesn’t mean telling you all of this and not trying to control what happens isn’t painful as fuck.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I sighed.
“Yes, and you know it too,” I said. “How much do Tara and I—well, me at this point only—have everything laid out for us?”
“Only you?”
He doesn’t know. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it means he’s not trying to be as up to date on her as I feared.
“My dad fired Tara because she got her own place and was on LinkedIn looking for other jobs.”
Steele snorted.
“You’re not too bad, and you know I will always appreciate Tara, but your father is a fucking dick.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I wasn’t speaking dismissively. I was agreeing with him.
“I can’t seem to break free from him, and that’s the fucked-up part,” I said. “Tara got her own place. She’s going to have to get her own job. And she seems not only happy with it; she seems invigorated by it. Like she feels freer and more relaxed than I have ever seen her.”
“Well, that’s obvious,” Steele said.
I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Why the fuck would anyone want to stay under your father’s eye?”
“Because I don’t know how I’d do on my own.”
There it was.
The words that had popped into my mind from time to time but that I’d never said out loud.
“And because…”
Say it.
“Because I don’t know if I could do it as well as Tara could.”
I bit my lip and turned my gaze down. I could feel Steele’s eyes on me, measuring me, evaluating me, as if trying to probe me with his look. I had no idea what he was going to say, but as time went by, it mattered less and less.
Because what did matter was that I had finally said out loud the thoughts that had clouded my mind for quite some time, and by expressing them, it was like I could actually combat them now. They weren’t some nebulous thought that I couldn’t pin down. I could confront them now.
