AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"If you all have other businesses and you are doing well, then why do you guys still do the loanshark thing?"
That was a valid question and one I didn't really have a satisfactory answer to. Why? Tradition, maybe might be appropriate to say. It was something my father built from the ground up. The only reason we could all eventually have things like our own businesses was because of all the work he put into it, the money that was every penny he had in the world that he loaned out with interest and then collected on. It hadn't always been easy. In those early days, he was pinching pennies. He and my mom struggled. Then the five of us came and added to the strain. But he finally started to do well, hired others to help him, and when we were old enough, we all wanted in.
"I don't have a good answer for that, honey. It's just how it is. And I won't lie to you and say it is going to change, that I will reform or some shit. This is who I am. This is what I do. I don't see that ever changing."
A part of me wanted to reassure her, tell her I might give it up, I might go straight, I might just be like any other normal businessman. But if what we had between us was going to work, we needed to be raw and honest with each other.
She gave me the truth about her and her anxiety and agoraphobia. She hadn't tried to say she would be completely normal one day, she would never have another panic attack again, she could be someone she wasn't. Likewise, I couldn't tell her I could be someone I wasn't.
It was truly a situation where she needed to take me as I am.
And there was a large part of me that was genuinely concerned she might not pick me, she might change her mind and decide that I wasn't worth possible sleepless nights when she knew I was chasing down a client or the sick-stomach feeling when I came home bloodied and bruised.
She had every right to want better for herself.
And I would just have to accept that.
"So when you're old and wrinkly and have arthritis..."
"If you met my father, you would know 'old and wrinkly' isn't something I have to worry about."
"Silver fox, huh?" she asked, giving me a saucy little smile.
I sidestepped that, no one wanting to think of their father along those lines. But we could agree that I had a full head of hair and good bone structure to look forward to. And so long as I kept myself in shape, I figured I would be able to own the 'silver fox' title when I was older. "I imagine, by then, the business might have evolved to not include that anymore or, possibly, the kids might take over."
"Kids," she prompted, seeming to tense slightly at that.
"Yeah, kids," I agreed, brows drawing together.
"You want kids?"
"Hell yeah, I want kids," I said, giving her a smile. "I grew up with four brothers, Dusty. It was chaotic and loud and frustrating and privacy didn't exist and you had to develop a thick skin both literally and figuratively because the physical and verbal beatdowns never let up, but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I always had partners in crime and now that we're adults, we always have each other's backs and we can always lean on one another. I would want my own wild and crazy family one day too."
Her gaze fell from mine, looking at my chest.
"Do you want kids?" I asked when the silence stretched long enough to almost be uncomfortable.
She didn't look up and answered my chest instead of my face. "I always used to."
"Why used to?"
She laughed humorlessly at that. "Because I can't get pregnant when I can't leave my house. I can't go to the doctor or the hospital or school conferences or sports practices. It would be... unfair to put my mental illness onto a kid."
"Honey, there's no one who can predict the future. There's no one who can say definitively that you will always be stuck in your house, that you will always need a comfort zone. People fight back against their agoraphobia every day and win. They rebuild their lives and they make connections. They fall in love. They have kids."
"Yeah, but there's no telling that that is how it is going to go for me."
"No," I agreed. "But I think you're a little young to lose hope in the rest of your life. And I think you are not seeing how much things have changed for you just in a couple weeks."
"I've only been out of your apartment for..."
"The night of the carbon monoxide leak, Dusty. You freaked and you didn't like it, but you did stay in my car and you did calm down. Then you bought me a Christmas present and left it outside my door. You let me in on Christmas. Then you didn't even hesitate about coming to my apartment. And to top all of that off, you're in a fucking hotel room with me now, out of your comfort zone, recently fucked for the first time in who knows when, but still calm. These things aren't small. You can't look at how far you have to go and get discouraged. Look back and see how far you've come instead."
