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"Angel, what the fuck?" I asked and it came out almost as a laugh.
"Funny thing," she said, cradling her soup tea cup. "I was sitting in the hospital waiting for my pain medicine to kick in and I got a visit."
She stopped there, waiting for me to ask, so I did. "A visit?"
"Yes. From this badass blond woman named Lo," she paused and I felt my grin stretch at her using the word 'badass'. "And, well, she kind of adopted me."
"Adopted you?" I asked, thinking that sounded exactly like Lo. She loved her fucking strays.
"And then I woke up to a bed surrounded by women and I found out that not only did Lo adopt me, but so did Janie, Alex, and Summer."
"They put you up to this?" I asked, knowing I should be pissed, but feeling like I owed every last one of them the biggest bouquet of flowers a florist could put together.
"Well, yes and no."
"How no?" I asked, moving out of the doorway to sit my ass down on the coffee table right in front of her, feeling for the first time in six days the swirling hollowness in my chest start to subside.
"It was their idea that I stay in Jersey since there are so many more alcoholics and drug addicts here for me to try to fix," she said with a slight eye roll that suggested those were one of the girl's words, not hers. It didn't take much thought to decide it was Janie's words. "But this," she said, sweeping a hand out toward her apartment. "Had nothing to do with any of us."
"Who did it have to do with, then?"
"Oh, this was all Breaker, Cash, Reign, and Wolf."
"You're shitting me," I said, shaking my head.
"Well, no. See... they all realized that they fell in love with Alex, Lo, Summer, and Janie when they were forced to live with one another during their crises so they thought that maybe if I moved in here..."
"That I would fall in love with you if you moved in and staked your claim?" I asked and she looked suddenly horrified, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a small O. "Baby, they were a little late."
"A little late?" she repeated, brows drawing together, making those two lines etch between them.
I reached out, taking the mug from her hands and setting it on the floor to the side, then grabbed her hips and dragged her forward until her feet hit the floor, then kept pulling until she was on top of me, straddling my hips. My hand moved upward, cradling the side of her face. "Sweetheart, think I loved you the minute you asked me with tears in your eyes if my Pops really knocked my baby teeth in. And I'm pretty sure I loved you every minute after."
Her eyes pooled again and my thumb moved up to brush one stray tear away as it fell. "But you..."
"Left you beaten and bloody in a hospital room like an asshole?"
"Well... um... yeah..." she said, giving me a weird, wobbly smile. "You know, a little bird... actually... four little, very potty-mouthed birds, told me something..."
I smiled at her description of the girls, my arms going tight around her back. "What'd they tell you?"
"They said as much as their men loved them, they never loved them enough to let them go..."
My heart seized at the hope in her voice, like it had been there all along, like she was trying to convince herself that it was a possibility. "Baby..."
"So, um, they... convinced me to make you see that I... belong here. They said that even if you don't want me, that this, meaning Navasink Bank, is my new home and they're my new friends and..."
"And?"
"And I realized they were right," she said, open, forthcoming, no more guards, no thorns, no trying to keep me away. "This is where I belong. I've been looking my whole life for a place that felt like a home. This feels like home, Johnnie. Here, out there," she said, waving toward the front windows. "I spent three years in Alabama and the only person I connected with was Ben. I've been here a little over a week and I have four women who have forced themselves into my life and I like it. I don't want to push them away. Lo said she's gonna show me how to spar and Summer let me babysit last night. Alex and Janie are building me a computer that will, in their words, 'kick ass'. And it's not just them either. Breaker and Cash and Wolf have been over to check on me, asking me if I need anything, taking turns teaching me about the good and bad areas around here. Paine came over a few nights and watched mindless chick flicks with me and didn't complain once... just so I wouldn't be alone. What you have here is good, Johnnie," she said, her eyes almost pleading, trying to make me see it. I already saw it. I knew I had a good group of people around me. But it felt good to know they pulled her into the fold; they took care of her in my absence. "And I want in," she finished. "So um... I just thought you should know that."
"You done sweetheart?" I asked, and she scrunched up her nose at me.
"Good, 'cause I got a few things to say too."
I paused and, I guess it was for too long. "Are you going to say them or what?"
"You ain't gonna like them, but they need to be said..."
"Is this the part where you tell me you're flattered, but you'd rather go back to your manwhoring ways? Because, really, I just... just tell me now because I don't think my pride can take any more sucker punches, Johnnie."
"This is the part where I tell you to shut it," I said with a smile as my hand shifted from her jaw to cover her mouth, "and listen. You need to understand why I walked away. I know you think you understand what you're getting into, darlin', and in theory it might even sound fun or exciting, but the reality isn't like that. I kill people. I know you know this. I know you've seen it. But that's what I do. It's a part of who I am. It's a small part, angel, and it's a part I don't live in day-to-day, but it's a part and it ain't going anywhere. I'm good at it. It pays well. And, well, some guys deserve to get dead. I've never had it blow back on anyone in my life and I would try like fuck to make sure none of it would touch you, but there are no guarantees honey..."
