She’d never admit it, but Valentina was stronger than she let on. Stronger than the bottles she emptied or the slips she forged. Stronger than the role Max had shoved her into: the liability; the drunk who couldn’t keep it together.
And that, much as I hated to admit it, meant something to me. More than it should.
When I finally made it to her, I found her standing under the streetlamp holding her purse close to her chest. She stepped down from the curb and pulled open the passenger door.
“You’re late,” she muttered, rubbing her hands together for warmth.
I arched a brow. “I’m four minutes early.”
“Maybe I exaggerated.”
“Shocking.”
I pulled back onto the street, navigating the route home. It was quiet. I didn’t mind it. Valentina could fill a room with her mouth, but when she was quiet? That was when I paid the most attention.
She was thinking. Hard.
“You gonna ask?” she said suddenly.
I glanced at her. “Ask what?”
“How it went.”
I turned my attention back to the road. “You want me to?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe.”
“How was it?”
“It sucked.” She sighed, tilting her head against the window. “There was this guy, some ex-cop. Told me he’s been sober for fifteen years. That he lost his wife, lost his job, lost his life, and still, he never touched a bottle again.” She paused. “Made me feel like an asshole.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t lost anything yet, and I still want a drink.”
She was wrong. She had lost things—she just didn’t want to see them. She’d lost time. Lost herself. Lost whatever version of Valentina had existed before she had to be this one. She’d lost the luxury of innocence. Of trust. Of looking at something and not immediately trying to find the catch.
And she’d almost lost herself completely. She just didn’t know it yet.
I didn’t say any of that. I watched her fingers tighten in her lap, her nails pressing faint crescents into her skin.
“You’re doing that thing,” she muttered, breaking the silence abruptly.
I arched a brow, eyes still on the road. “What thing?”
“That silent, judgmental thing,” she said flatly. “Look, if you’re gonna judge me, at least have the decency to do it out loud.”
“If I said everything I was thinking, Valentina, you’d already be yelling at me.”
She let out a dry laugh. “Right. Because your silence is so much better.”
“Usually, yeah.”
“This is why I don’t talk to you.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Because the alternative was being murdered by the guy selling bootleg DVDs,” she shot back.
