Ziggy Barnes cracks, and she starts to smile.
I saw her smile last night.
It’s glorious. Like a sunset over the mountains. Rain in the desert. A great white breaching the ocean surface when you’ve given up hope of spotting it.
“I did,” she says. “I heard things too.”
“Would you destroy my house?”
“No.”
“Your baby daddy in the picture?”
She shakes her head.
Fuck yeah, we have a chance.
And I need to shove that voice in a damn box.
I’m not asking a morning-sick pregnant woman who’s all alone if she wants to get naked before I leave and maybe never come back.
“My dog’s not the kind that’ll be happy being boarded,” I tell her. Pretty sure I already said that, but it’s my best card right now.
I don’t addshe already hates me, and this will only add fuel to the fire, especially since I don’t know if I’ll need to find her a newhome or move her overseas with me when I make a team after camp.
I’m struggling enough with that.
I don’t let people down. I take care of them.
I moved here to take care of my brother. I take care of the guys on my team. I take care of my neighbors. I water their gardens. I mow their grass. I take in their pets when they die.
And Ziggy seems like a person who just needs a break. A person who needs a break because I was doing a shitty job of being the security guy last night.
“I’m still a stranger,” she says.
“Hard to feel like someone’s a stranger after what we went through last night. I wore your body fluids.”
She flips me off but also fails miserably at suppressing the laugh she’s clearly trying to hold in. “You’re a dick.”
“Stage two of not being strangers. You’ve seen me for who I am. A huge dick. That’s as low as I go, by the way.”
“Thank you for the apology.” She opens her car door, grimacing and retreating a step, which I assume is due to the extra heat rolling out of the car. “It was unnecessary, but thank you.”
“Four days if you change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“Good luck with everything. You seem like a nice person who deserves good things.”
Her eyes meet mine over the top of her car, and she blinks hard and fast like I’ve said the exact wrong thing. “Thank you. You too.”
I nod.
She nods.
She climbs into the car and cranks the engine.
I don’t wait to feel the heat off of it before I get back inmy Jeep, which has also gotten hotter in the few minutes I’ve been outside.
