“And the rest of the straws?”
“A lifetime of being manipulated.”
She slides a look my way. Does she know it was my family? Does she suspect it?
Or am I reading more into that look than is actually there because Iwantto tell her?
Some older lady came in yesterday and was grilling Zen about their personal history and our relationship, which sent Zen into a retreat.
I know Sabrina noticed.
Not because she said anything.
But because shedidsomething. She popped out from the kitchen, where she still insists she belongs at every opportunity, and asked the woman something about an old friend, which distracted the lady from grilling Zen and put her instead on a tangent about a cheating husband.
“I didn’t put together thatmanipulationwas the right word for it until Zen used it for the first time after they moved in with me,” I add.
“Your ex?” she asks.
“Yes, but she wasn’t the first.”
I get another side glance.
“My parents and siblings,” I clarify.
“You’re younger than the rest.”
She has doneallof her homework. “The inconvenient one who was blamed for arriving ten years later than the previous youngest child, stealing thebabyspot in the family, and needing things they’d all grown out of. Yes.”
Her nose wrinkles. “You didn’t have nannies?”
“When my mother could see the writing on the wall about the direction the family trust fund was headed? The nannies were only for when other people were watching.”
She glances at me again, and I wish I had the power to read faces the way she seems to.
It matters to me not just that I’m honest with her, but that she knows I’m being honest.
That she knows I’m putting my secrets on the line and trusting her with them.
That she knows I’m not tearing apart her café because I enjoy punishingher.
It’s Chandler. I need a win over an asshole.
“Jitter, slow down,” she says.
He grins back at us with his larger-than-life doggie grin, then forges ahead, not at all bothered by slippery or uneven spots on the snow-packed path.
Or willing to take directions on how fast or where to go.
“My mom never wanted kids,” she says quietly after we’ve taken two more turns on the path between towering pine trees. “She didn’t want to get married. Her dream was to be free as the wind to go wherever she wanted in the world with nothing tying her down. Work just enough to make ends meet and fund her travels. But when she found out she was pregnant after a short-term fling with a guy who was passing through, she decided to keep me. And she’s never once made me feel like I kept her from the life she would’ve had otherwise even though she hasn’t traveled much since I was born.”
“I always wondered what it would’ve been like to know I was wanted.”
“And not grow up to want to beSuper Vengeance Man? I’m sorry, but clearly, your suffering was necessary for the good of the world.” She grins at me, and I nearly go lightheaded.
In the good way.
She hasn’t sparkled at me since Hawaii, and Sabrina Sullivan with teasing mischief twinkling in her bright green eyes takes my breath away.
