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I sighed, peeling the last of the apples.
"Okay. He meant something," I admitted.
"I've seen you around men before. Not as much as with Roderick, but still. And you never got all snuggly and sweet, always looking for a reason to touch them, to look at them. You wanted more than just a fling with him."
"I couldn't have more than a fling with him. But if I had the opportunity, yeah, I... I would have taken it."
"Why can't there be more? He's like... an hour away only."
"Yeah, when we aren't on the road. Which isn't super often. What am I supposed to say? Let's date long distance? We can see - and fuck - each other maybe one or two weekends a month? That would never fly. He's a fucking biker, Astrid. He's used to getting ass whenever he wants it."
"Maybe - did you ever consider this - maybe he wants more than ass? Maybe he wants to build something, settle down with someone?"
"If he did, he would choose someone nearby. Someone who doesn't have to be out getting her ass kicked every couple of months when deals go south. That would never fly. You know it wouldn't." She said nothing as I mixed brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl, folding all the apples in, making sure each one got covered. "What?" I asked, knowing she was waiting for me to ask.
"We have a nice nest egg," she started a little cryptically.
"Yeah..."
"Maybe we could sell off the rest of the supply and..."
"We have a nest egg, Astrid. Not a multi-million-dollar retirement fund for all of us to live off of for the rest of our lives."
"I'm not saying we need to live off of it. I am saying we could... use it to settle in, hold us over while we looked for different jobs."
"You're basing a whole career change for all three of us on the off chance that maybe, possibly Roderick might be interested in dating me more seriously. And even if he was - and that is a big if since we already established he is a bit of a manwhoring biker - what happens if things don't work out? If I get bored sitting at home being Susie Homemaker. Or he gets tired of sleeping with the same woman every night? What then? Where does that leave all of us?"
"Christ, Liv, do you have to try to account for everything? Plan for everything?"
"When we don't plan, things get messy. And when things get messy, someone gets hurt. And I really have had just about enough of hurt," I told her, hearing my voice getting thick even as my eyes stung.
"This isn't a broken rib, black eye kind of hurt you are risking here, though, Liv," she said, hopping down, awkwardly patting me on my shoulder, not quite having the comforting thing down. And who could blame her? Neither did I. And her shithead mother never even looked her way, let alone showed concern for her. She had no way of learning it.
"No," I agreed, closing my eyes tight, fighting back the tears. "This is worse," I admitted. "A busted rib or a black eye, I get those. I know those intimately. I understand that for a few days, a week or two maybe, they will hurt, I will struggle. But then after that, everything will be like nothing ever happened. I don't think it is going to work that way if I let myself get any more attached to him, and only end up heartbroken, Astrid. I feel like this pain might always be there, y'know? Maybe not as raw as it feels now. But never quite healing right, hurting in random moments. I don't want any more of this. This is bad enough."
I could feel her gaze on me for a long moment, searching, trying to think of the right thing to say.
In the end, though, Astrid was no better at heart-to-hearts than I was. So she simply grabbed the pie plate for me, put it down on the counter, and told me she was going to put Superstore on for us.A heavy weight bounced on the edge of my bed, making me let out a low grumble, flinging the crook of my arm over my eyes.
I hadn't been sleeping well.
Hardly at all, in fact.
For some reason, my brain was getting its kicks by replaying the night of the shootout on repeat. And, for a cruel little twist, all the pain I had been too numbed with adrenaline to feel in the moment, came back to me fresh as if I was getting the blows all over again. I could practically taste the blood, feel the ground as I had hit it.
Anytime I even started to doze off, some pain would send me jolting awake - a new type of hypnic jerk.
