Page 78 of Last Man Standing

I don’t spend the night with women. And I sure as fuck don’t spend the night comforting a woman who hasn’t even made me come yet.

That makes me the fool, I suppose, because I carried her to my bed a second time, and when she crawled out again eight hours later to make a sneaky coffee, I let her go.

My dad would keep an eye on her.

On our third evening at the house, I picked a fight with her, she stomped to the bathroom, I waited for her to call her brother and bitch about me for twenty minutes, then when she fell asleep, I did the thing we both so desperately need.

I brought her to my bed and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

When she curled into my side, I vowed to never tease her for it. And when I woke to her sneaking out for the third morning in a row, I simply stared up at the ceiling.

But dammit, a dumb smile kept me company.

“She seems to be settling in, don’t you think?” Dad falls into step on my left, our feet crunching over frozen grass while men run drills and shiver in the cold. It’s still early, their clothes are already wet, and their muscles are not yet warm.

Sucks to be them.

“She’s not happy about it,” he continues with a playful smile. “But she didn’t chop all her hair off and run around screaming, so…”

Chuckling, I cast my gaze the length of the vast training yard, through running men and puffed white breath, and then I stop on Scarlett sitting vigil in my window, just like she did yesterday. Just like she did the day before.

We’re too far apart for me to make out her smaller features, like if she’s looking my way, or if she’s angry, sad, crying… Which is why I carry a set of binos.

Bringing them higher and focusing on the woman in tight jeans, my hoodie, and with her knees drawn high, I study the extensive pattern she scribbles into her pants, over her kneecap and halfway along her thigh. Worse, since she only needs one hand to draw, the other sits higher, her abused thumbnail caught between her teeth.

“Dunno that I’d call it settling in.” Exhaling a tired grunt, I lower my binoculars and continue my trek around the perimeter of our training yard. “She’s skipping two meals a day, then carb-loading like she’s dying on the third.” I drop my hands into my pockets and meet my dad’s eyes. “She say anything I should know?”

“Over coffee?” Like me, he digs his hands into his pockets. “She’s a sweet girl.”

“She tell you that?”

He snickers. “No. I figured that one out all on my own, son.” He bumps my shoulder with his. “She has reason to be skittish around us, and your mother’s concern isn’t helping.”

“Her concern?” I scoff. “You mean her outward vitriol? Her complete inability to calm the fuck down and not overreact?”

His lips tremble with a grin. “She’s a good woman, Bas. We both know it. And her reaction when you and Scarlett arrived was not entirely unreasonable.”

“Dad—”

“This is the life we know. We have the now, the shared experiences, we even have comfort in knowing we’re as safe as we’ll ever be. Thirty years of caution and strength ensured us the privacy and protection we have. But she’s still that girl. She’s still Richard’s daughter, and there was a time, long ago, she was forced to lengths most others couldn’t handle, all to secure her family’s safety.”

“Sure, but her enemies are dead now. She doesn’t need to⁠—”

“You were already growing in her stomach.” He silences me with a look and a pair of firmed lips. “Your existence was the springboard for everything that came after, so before you condemn your mother for her iron grip on the only safety she knows, consider the sacrifices she made long before you were even born. The strength she needed to do what she did. And then the fortitude required to maintain that distance from a man more powerful than anyone else we’ve ever known. Three decades is a long time to fight, and you don’t get to decide when that war is over. Only she does.”

He brings us to a stop at the top end of the field, far from my room and the woman worrying herself to death in my window. Turning and meeting my eyes, he offers a consolatory smile. “Most importantly, I think it’s important you remember your own actions in all this.”

It’s time for the I’m disappointed talk, it seems.

“You think I didn’t see the tears in that girl’s eyes when you arrived? Not just her dread at being in a new space with strangers, but the devastation she carried beneath it? I didn’t have to be in your truck to know you hurt her. She still had the indents from your hoodie stamped into her face, which tells me it wasn’t just a piece of fabric laid over her head. It was a weapon used against her. It was an abuse of power.”

“I had to⁠—”

“Maintain the secret,” he nods solemnly. “I know. But you’ve always been bigger than your peers. Always stronger. You know to be careful with those smaller than you, and yet, you hurt Scarlett in that truck. I saw it on her face. I saw it in her eyes. You subscribe to the same determination your mother does, but the difference between you both is that she used her words as weapons. You used your body. We may be at war, son, but we will fight like gentlemen. Always. If we lose our integrity in the face of adversity, then what the fuck are we fighting for? There’s no honor in defeating an opponent who was never bred for battle.” Taking a step back, he rearranges his expression from dejection to friendliness. “Ms. Fallows.”

Surprised, I whip my head around and stop on Serena’s shy smile. She wears long blonde hair in a ponytail high on her head, and a mild layer of makeup over what I know are a billion freckles spotting the top swells of her cheeks.

She’s about Scarlett’s size, maybe a couple of pounds heavier, and stands only an inch taller.