“Hey,” he says, a concerned wrinkle around his frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Show me how to fight back.”
“I will,” he says, pulling me inside by my hand. “Tell me why you’re crying.”
“Shit.” I swipe more at my face. “Still? I don’t want Paige to see.”
“She may not be able to tell, but I can.” He rubs his thumb under my right eye. “What happened?”
“I lost a job. Even though I expected it, I’m still mad, you know?”
“Because of him?”
“Yes.” I don’t want to explain it, yet, because it’s still a raw, festering wound and I wasn’t lying about Paige. I only want her to see me smiling and whole, even if it’s not quite true. I liked it when she said I had a pretty smile. I liked it a lot. It may have been the first honest compliment I’d had since before I started modeling.
“Okay,” he says, letting me ignore my reality for the time being. “Let’s go.”
Grady’s parents are in the living room with Paige.
His dad is also named Grady. When I asked the younger of the two if he was a junior, he laughed, saying it was worse than that, that he was the third. It’s cute, though, how he has that connection to his dad, who he is obviously close with.
Grady, the second, not the third, goes by Gray. Which I also found cute because he’s Gray Steele. Gray laughed about it and it made me more comfortable with him because he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Even though he grumbles a lot, and Paige has taken to calling him Eeyore, I think it’s an act he puts on for his loved ones.
I greet them with the happiest smile I can muster. Maggie sees through it, her eyes soft when she returns my hello, but she doesn’t ask.
“Hi, Lulu!” Paige jumps up from the puzzle she’s doing on the coffee table, the scene of a park with several dogs playing in the grass.
“Hey, Paige, your hair looks so good,” I tell her, admiring the braid crown she wears.
“Thanks! My grandma does it for me because my dad doesn’t know how.”
“Hey, I’m learning,” Grady protests.
“Yeah, you’ve gotten a lot better,” Paige tells him, but I see the side-eye she sends to Maggie and I laugh.
“My skills lie elsewhere,” he harrumphs.
“You save people, that’s just as important,” Paige tells him, nodding.
“All right, let’s go teach you two how to punch jerks,” he says.
“Yeah! You ready, Lulu?”
“I’m so ready,” I tell her excited little freckled face.
“Me too! Dad says I can’t do it unless I tell a boy to leave me alone and he doesn’t. So, first we have to learn to yell no really loud.”
“Okay, let’s go yell no at your dad as loud as we can,” I say, holding my hand out to her. She takes it eagerly, and I feel like I won a prize in winning her trust. I don’t know anything about kids, having never spent much time around them. Yet, there’s a need inside me to be friends with this one.
“I’m not sure you know what you got yourself into, Son,” Gray says. “Holler if you need any help.”
“Will do, Pops.” We follow him down the hall and into the garage where he has a punching bag, pull-up bar, and some free weights set up in a makeshift gym. “After your fingers are healed, we’ll work on some tactics that take both hands. For today, only your right. I don’t want you reinjuring what is barely healed.”
“Understood,” I say. I’m not wearing anything to brace them together anymore, but they still ache a little when I’m not careful of them.
Grady explains that he wants to see our natural instincts, first, saying he’s going to pretend to attack Paige and wants her to yell and fight back.
She narrows her eyes at him, widens her stance and says, “I’m ready, buddy!”
