“I can only imagine,” he says, placing his palms on my shoulders. “I’m not trying to persuade you one way or another. I have your back.”
A wave of possessiveness crosses his features. It’s the same as Pierre, but so different, too. Confusion ebbs and flows, washes away my reason, only to force it back in with the next wave.
Grady is not Pierre.
Grady is good.
I thought Pierre was good.
Pierre is not Grady.
Grady is safe.
Pierre once was too.
Damnit, Louisa.
No, here, I’m Lou. Except, I’m both. I can’t be Lou without Louisa. Can’t be strong enough to overcome the pain if I don’t remember it. Learn from it. Heal from it. Lou can’t fight for Louisa if she pretends she doesn’t exist. I can’t fight for myself if I don’t learn how.
“You have my back here, but I won’t always be here,” I say. “My job takes me all over the world.”
“Then, it’s time for you to defend yourself,” he says. “Again.”
Sixteen
Grady
“Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.”
Robert Green Ingersoll
Lou is exhausted by the time I call it quits. She wants to keep going, but she can barely hold her own arms up. Mentally, she’s just as spent. I witnessed the battle waged in that pretty head of hers. One side fighting to keep safe and hidden, the other ready to step into the light and fight for the career she’s spent a decade building.
There are many reasons for me to hate the man who has done this to her, but mostly, I hate him for making her doubt how strong she is. Lou doesn’t see it. Can’t, yet, I suspect. But I see it. I saw it today when she refused to give up. Every time I said again, she took the challenge head-on and kept muttering the wordsmuscle memory.
She isn’t physically strong; her targets need to be the unsuspecting soft spots that she can penetrate more easily. Men instinctively protect their junk; we forget about other places. I’ll teach her all of those. One after another until it’s second nature for her.
It won’t be the same if she ever comes face-to-face with Pierre, but she needs every advantage she can have.
I hope she never has to see that asshole again. At the same time, I wish for that opportunity. For the chance to put him through what he put her through. To cage him, scrutinize everything about him until he knows he’s smaller and weaker than me, then beat the ever-loving fucking shit out of him.
A foreign feeling for me, since my life is dedicated to the opposite. I save. I mend.
Do no harm.
I want to harm him.
I’d want retribution for anyone in her situation. But for Lou, I want retaliation. It’s too powerful a need to ignore that it’s a sign of who she is in my life. Of what she means.
The connection I feel with her is inexplicable. When she moves, I move. What she feels, I feel. What she needs, I need for her.
I’ve been in love before. This is different. It’s more.
With Brenda, if there hadn’t been romance and love between us, we wouldn’t have been friends. With Lou, I can’t imagine her ever not being a part of my life. I can’t imagine the day I wouldn’t care about her. Even if she goes off and marries some random man, I’d want to be there when she says I do, if only to see that little excited dance she does when she accomplishes something new.
The idea of soulmates has always seemed silly to me. But if there is some unseen force, some spiritual guide that plays with all our lives, I wonder if they’re sighing in relief that Lou and I finally found each other.
I am. I do every time I see her. Like I do with Paige, like my mother has always done with me, I’m relieved to have her back in my sight.
