By evening, the house had settled into that softer rhythm I was beginning to anticipate. Dinner was simple. I carried our plates to the couch.
“What are we watching tonight?” I asked.
“Not the reality show,” she said. “I’ve reached my limit of people making bad decisions on purpose.”
She curled into the corner of the couch, brace visible beneath the hem of her shorts, and I settled beside her. Not touching at first, just close. The TV was on, but neither of us paid it much attention. We spent the evening chatting instead. I was just as attracted to her mind as I was to her body.
“I miss playing roller derby,” she said on a sigh. “I need to go to a practice soon so I can catch up with the girls.”
“Are you close with the girls on the team?”
“Yeah,” she answered immediately without even having to think. “We are a family. One big loud nosey family.”
“Nosey?”
“You don’t even know. Mel is the worst. She’s the captain and knows everyone’s business. She might even be bossier than you,” she said, grinning at me.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, but she’s also the first to help and is probably my best friend. Well, now that Eleanor has moved to town, I might actually be closer to her. Have you ever meant someone and, you know . . . something just clicks.”
I nodded. “Yes, I think I am familiar with that feeling.”
Her eyes flew up to mine. The moment felt a little too real. She must have sensed it too because she continued.
“I met her because I used to clean for her mom. She moved back in with her amazing, creepy little girl, and I convinced her to join the Reapers. Then I got fired.”
“What?” I shift on the couch a little too abruptly, shifting both of us.
“Apparently, her mother thought I was a bad influence and requested another housekeeper. Tripp punished me by only letting me work sporadically . . . until you, that is.”
“What a jack ass.”
“Right. God, I hate it. But no more talking about Tripp. We were talking about my derby girls and how much I love them.”
She settled back into me.
“I understand your fondness for your teammates, but what is it about the sport that interested you in the first place?”
She shrugged. “I think on some level I’ve always been interested in it. I like the idea of being strong.”
“You are strong,” I said it plainly because it was a basic fact. I’d watched her those days when she was in my basement. She moved large boxes without strain. Plus, she was caring forherself and her father while she was living in her van. That thought still made me sick to my stomach, but she was definitely strong.
“I didn’t grow up feeling strong,” she admitted quietly.
“I can’t imagine that. You are formidable.”
“That’s learned,” she said. “Not inherited.”
“I can’t imagine you any other way.
She picked at the seam of the couch cushion absently. “While I wasn’t always strong, my dad always told me I could be anything I wanted to be.” Her voice softened when she spoke about him. “He was always tinkering. Radios, lawn mowers, whatever was broken. He said if you understood how something worked, you didn’t have to be scared of it.”
“He’s a wise man,” I said.
She smiled faintly at that.
“He wouldn’t recognize this version of me,” she murmured.
