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"What's your house like?" she asked, pulling her knees to her chest, encircling them with her arms.
"Small," I admitted. "Got this old ranch on a song when the owners wanted to move to Florida for their joints."
"I sense a fixer-upper," she guessed.
"There was pink tile in the bathroom. Pink," I repeated, cringing at the memory. "I don't know. It's a two-bedroom. Has nice hardwood floors, a great fireplace, a decent yard."
"Why a yard? When you don't have kids or a dog. And, well, you don't strike me as a gardening sort."
"I don't like being on top of people. My siblings and I, we lived in cramped apartments for most of our lives. Never any breathing room. Next to no privacy. And when we did find some, we gave it to Scotti. When I could finally afford my own place, I decided I wanted to be as far away from people as possible."
"Well, yeah, you can't be a crotchety old man without a yard to tell the local youths to stay off of," she agreed, smiling at me.
The glass went from my hand to the coffee table a second before I lunged toward her, grabbing her at the hips, pulling her body toward mine, "Smartass," I told her, settling her on my lap, my hands sinking into her ass.
"We can't do this," she told me, shaking her head, eyes darting away. But before they did, I was sure I saw regret there.
She said we can't do this. Not that she didn't want to.
"Tell me you don't want it," I offered, her, my hands massaging her ass, making her hips drop down and do a needy little wiggle. "And I'll stop. I'll leave right now. I'll leave you alone."
It wouldn't be easy. But if she gave me those words, I would respect them.
"It doesn't matter if I want it or not."
"From where I'm standing, babe, that is the only thing that matters."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then tell me what you meant," I suggested, pinching her ass, shocking her enough to make her gaze find mine.
"We can't get involved," she insisted. "In any way."
"I am closing the case, babe. Kingston wants me to wrap it up. It's going to be over as soon as I get the call into him tomorrow. There's no issue."
"Except for the one where you think I am some psycho stalker," she objected, planting her hands on my chest to shove away, moving to find her feet, walking behind the couch to stare out the windows.
"I never said you were psycho. I think I said creepy," I clarified, earning me a look over her shoulder, making me realize that 'creepy' wasn't much better than 'psycho' in her book. Noted.
"Well, whatever. I don't want to get involved with someone who thinks those things about me, Nixon. It's not healthy."
"You know what is unhealthy?" I asked, waiting until she turned, leaning back against the wall, arms crossing over her chest.
"What?" she asked when she realized I wasn't going to answer until she asked to be told.
"Whatever happened to you outside of the Mallicks' last weekend."
"Nixon, don't," she pleaded, head shaking.
"I'm no shrink. Hell, I suck at understanding half of people's emotions. But I know enough to know that whatever the fuck is going on inside you is big. And that hurt runs deep. And you work hard and you paint your life in real pretty shades, so other people don't see all that rawness inside. But sometimes, you can't control it, and it bursts out because you have been trying to ignore it for too long."
"Nixon, stop."
There was a break in her voice.
A part of me wanted to let it go, wanted to allow her to keep her pieces together. The other part of me, though, understood that this was what needed to happen. We needed to smash all this to pieces and put it back together in the right way. The way that would allow her to stop falling apart randomly. In a stronger way, a more resilient way.
I could help her with that.
But I had to brandish the sledgehammer first.
"I think all that pain," I went on, gaze holding hers, waiting for the reaction to prove I was right because, fuck, I knew I was right, "has something to do with that woman in your pictures. Your sister. And I think it has to do with Michael too," I concluded, watching the flinch, the way her gaze fell, the tightness overtaking her body. "Tell me I'm wrong, and I'll leave."
It took a long time for her to speak, needing to swallow past the lump in her throat first.
"You're not wrong."
I knew it.
It was the only explanation.
She didn't want anything to do with Michael. I'd seen it with my own eyes. She was disgusted by him.
She'd never had any business dealings with him.
