“Ew.”
“Tell me it’s not true,” he argued.
“Men and women can be friends.”
“Sure they can, but not without everyone around them thinking they’re having somehow’s your fatherwhen people’s backs are turned.”
“How’s your what now?”
“The hokeypokey!”
“The what?!”
“I won’t say it to a lady.” He tilted his head to the side. “You’ll tell me how you got those bruises?”
I huffed. “They’re almost gone.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re not there and that I don’t want to know how they got there in the first place.” A warning flared to life in his words, giving me a glimpse at who this man would have been a couple decades ago...
Deadly.
“It wasn’t Stan.”
“Didn’t think it was. I thought that whoever did it wouldn’t be walking around if you were my woman…”
I bit my lip.
A delighted gleam appeared in his eyes. “E quindi. Okay, I’m ready to get out of this joint.”
“Before we go,” I cautioned. “I expect you to talk to them. No more of this, ‘They’ll miss me more if they know me,’ nonsense. I won’t stand for it, Currau.”
“What are you going to do? Wash my mouth out with soap?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“You going to turn into Nurse Ratched?”
“Turn into? Nah. That’s already how I roll, Currau.” When he swallowed hard, I nodded in satisfaction. “The only reason you’re getting out of here so fast is because they’re bankrolling this?—”
“What else is money good for if not comfort?”
“You’re spoiled,” I accused, but I softened it by pinching his cheek. “Get used to it, huh?”
THIRTY-THREE
STAN
“So, you’re moving in here?” Kitty ruminated, her gaze dancing over me as I prepared us both a sandwich.
When she snagged the towel on my shoulder and snapped it against my ass, I smirked. “You’re asking for trouble today.”
“Begging for it, actually,” she quickly corrected.
I cut her a look, scanned the skin that was no longer loaded down with bruises, and inside, I sighed with relief. God, I’d known her longer bruised than I had unbruised—talk about fucked up—and it was so good to see her drifting back to normal.
Returning to work with Currau, establishing him in a routine atMatri’shouse, and getting out and about in the city had done her a world of good.
“You should beg for this sandwich. I know the pigs that go into this mortadella.”
