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I didn't disagree with that. I wasn't naive. And I wasn't completely lacking in self-awareness.
I was perfectly aware of the fact that this was going to be one of the hardest things I had ever done, that there would be a part of me that would forever be scarred from it. That there would be quite a bit of therapy in my future.
That said, I was already in therapy. I was already hurting. I was already trying to heal from past trauma.
Yes, this would pile onto all of that, but it would pile on in a good way, it would bring some closure to the first issue, even if I needed to seek out closure for the new one I would inevitably be creating.
I would struggle, I knew. But in that struggle, I would manage to right a wrong. I could give my sister justice. I could expose the evil of a man who wore the face of a good one.
If there were other victims out there--and Lo highly suspected there were because Michael was the sort of man who had the power and money to get away with it over and over without any word of it ever getting out--then they could get a small bit of justice as well.
It wouldn't be easy for me, but it would serve the greater good.
I wouldn't claim to be brave like Lo and her team. But I could do this. I knew I could. I could slip into a dress. I could go to an event. I could let Michael approach me. I could agree to go to a second location with him.
And I damn sure knew I could hit and kick and scream when his hands started touching me, especially knowing that there was an entire team of highly trained ex-military people who would stop things before they got too bad.
Then, well, it could be over.
At least as much as it could ever truly be over.
It would put an end to my hunt for retribution. It would prove to my family that I was right. It would put a bad man behind bars.
I would be able to start moving on for real.
With Nixon.
I caught him giving me hard looks on occasion when he thought I wasn't looking. I knew it pissed him off that I agreed to this when he tried to talk me out of it. And I knew it was creating a tension between us that shouldn't have been there. At least not so early on in a relationship.
I tried to keep the two things as separate as possible. When I was around Nixon, I silenced my phone, refusing to answer Lo and her team until I wouldn't be seen. I knew he knew we were still in contact, but I think he understood just as I did that we needed this tiny bit of separation if we were going to keep the peace.
Outside of that situation, this dark cloud we were pretending to ignore, things were good. Better, even, than I had anticipated when things finally started to happen with us.
Nixon fit in surprisingly well with my employees who were also the closest things to friends I had. I was welcomed with open arms into the Mallick/Rivers clan. After having sat the women down and telling them the whole story about Nixon and me, they had folded me even deeper into their life.
Before I knew it, I was touring a For A Good Time, Call..'s Headquarters, Fiona's phone sex business. In doing so, I got to see Rush at work, looking completely out of place amongst a sea of women, but somehow utterly comfortable with his place there. I was dragged by an enthusiastic Peyton to her sister Autumn's sex toy store, Phallus-opy, where the two of them filled two bags full of fun things to try out at home with Nixon.
I had been invited to Chaz's, the bar Charlie and Helen owned. Hunter had helped me draw up a sort of memorial tattoo for Sammy that I was pretty sure I would always be a little too chickenshit to actually get stabbed into my skin, but I appreciated his time and artistic abilities nonetheless, and had gotten his sketch framed for my office. I'd been approached by Mark, who owned a landscaping business, to handle the "mess" that was my office grounds. He looked at me like I had three heads when I told him that the wildflowers were intentional, that I was trying to create a bee haven. Still, it was a sweet offer.
I really didn't realize how badly I had been craving the loving embrace of a family until I had them all there. Believing me. Supporting me.
Luis had yet to blow back into town to meet Nixon, and I found myself with a knot of anxiety at the idea of those introductions, knowing Nixon was not typically tolerant of people like my brother--vain, a little shallow, rootless, and lacking anything even hinting at seriousness.
