“I don’t need to know,” she cuts me off, turning back until her eyes meet mine.
The emotion glinting in her cocoa eyes isn’t because she’s afraid of me.
“I know who you are now. That’s enough for me.”
Nodding slowly, I press a soft kiss to her lips.
Her eyes flick to my hand and back to my face. “So the tattoo?”
“By the end of my time, I decided to learn to live like a normal person. Keep those other parts of me locked down in exchange for my freedom.”
“Oh,” Lexi breathes out, back to touching my ink. The way her fingers are moving over my skin, after what we just did, while we’re talking like this… A man could get used to feeling like this.
Clearing my throat, I keep talking. “I learned to play by their rules, because there isn’t a feeling on this earth worse than being locked up among real monsters.”
That thing inside me that I was born with that good people aren’t, I’ve figured out how to keep it beneath my skin, not to let it out, and to blend in with the crowd.
“So this is a reminder that nothing is worth more than my freedom,” I tell her. “And I won’t lose it again.”
There isn’t anything in this world that could send me back to prison.
I’d die first.
Lexi rolls over, unwrapping herself from my hold and turning so we’re face to face, those gorgeous eyes softer than I’ve ever seen them before.
“I took a loan for the business that I didn’t disclose on the grant application. Rory found out about it and is obligated to report it, and I’m losing the funding.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Didn’t take you for a white-collar crime kinda girl,” I say, almost impressed.
She laughs, shoving my shoulder in a way she probably thinks is hard. “Don’t make jokes,” she says, sobering up.
“You were the owner all along?” I ask.
She nods, hand under her head of curls that drape over her arm.
“You were who I was meeting for the interview?” I ask.
“Until you called me ‘gardener girl’,” she says, eyes sparking with challenge.
“You looked hot getting dirty on your knees. Forgive me for thinking you did it for a living.”
“Rory made me hire you,” she whispers, like it’s a confession.
“She’s got her moments,” I say with a smile.
“Not right now.”
“Is that what’s going on between you?” My eyes narrow on hers.
“Part of it.” She shrugs a shoulder, nodding as best she can in that pose. “She left town when we were in our twenties. Overnight, skipped out. Never reached out or came back again, not ’til our mom got terminal cancer three years ago.”
Try to keep my face neutral, keep it from pulling, so I don’t make this harder on her. Losing your mom is something I know too much about.
Lexi continues. “Came back to spend time with Mom before she passed. Ended up getting back with Wyatt and staying.”
I remember when she stopped coming into the bodega. Assumed she’d moved to a new block or gotten mugged or something.
“But even after what we went through with losing our mom, she still hasn’t talked to our dad since she left all those years ago. She can’t forgive him for what he did to our family, and I think she’s a fucking hypocrite for it, and I’ve let her know in no uncertain terms.”
