“Then how did you know I was here, if she didn’t tell you?” I ask, completely confused.
He turns and hits the button to start his vehicle, “We share locations.”
“You and Scotti share?—”
“You and I do.”
“We do not.” I huff, pulling my phone from my bag.
“We have for a while now.”
“You’vestomped all over my privacy, Len?—”
“Guilty,” he says easily, not even pretending to be ashamed. “But in my defense, when I’m not with you, I like to watch your little dot bounce around.”
I huff as he pulls out of this god-awful place, gravel crunching under the tires. “Your defense is that you like to watch my little dot bounce around?”
“It settles something in here.” He reaches over, takes my hand, and presses the back of it flat against his chest. His heart beats steady and strong beneath my palm.
“I want to yell at you,” I say, staring out the windshield. “Tell you thatsharingimplies the other person, at the very least, knows the occurrence has taken place.”
“But you won’t,” he replies calmly, “because you know it’s because I love you.”
“No,” I mutter, dragging my hand back to my lap. “I won’t because it will turn into a fight instead of a discussion, and I am very… pissed off right now, and not just because of you?—”
“Being able to be here when you needed me,” he finishes softly, “even though you didn’t think you would.”
“You’re such a?—”
“Save that anger for later.” His voice gentles, but there’s a firmness to it that makes me glance at him. “Right now, talk to me about your visit to Rikers with that awful woman who gave birth to two beautiful souls.”
For a second, I just stare at him. Because that… that right there is exactly how he is, so very different than any other man has ever been in my life.
He’s not defending her. Not excusing anything she did. But also refusing to let the worst parts of her define Lucy or me.
Two beautiful souls.My chest tightens in the most inconvenient way.
Great. Fantastic. I clearly have daddy issues if a man saying something like that makes my heart melt a little. Actually, scratch that, not a little, a lot.
Because my childhood was a carousel of men who drifted through the smoke-filled trailer. Some loud, some quiet, most drunk, none of them there for me. I learned early to stay small, stay quiet, stay out of the way.
And when I got older, one of them noticed me anyway.
My stomach twists at the memory, I try not to keep too close to the surface. The smell of cheap beer. The creak of a door and hands where hands shouldn’t be. Resulting in my feet and fists hitting hard enough to stop him.
No one ever stepped between me and that life. No one ever looked at me and decided I was something worth protecting.
Until him.
Lenzin doesn’t know every detail of my past. I’ve never laid it all out, never said the words out loud, and I’m not sure I ever will. But I do know the idea of someone choosing to stand between me and the world has done something to my heart. Which is unfair when I’m trying to stay mad at him.
I fold my arms and stare straight ahead through the windshield while the city slides past us in gray blocks of buildings and brake lights.
“You’re very good at that,” I mutter.
“At what?”
“At saying things that make it really hard for me to stay pissed at you.”
