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I grab her hand. “I’m okay. I promise.” She still looks skeptical. “I swear, Mo. I’m fine.”
She frowns. “He didn’t force you?”
My heart slams in my chest when she puts it like that.
Force.
“No, of course not,” I say, squeezing her hand. “He’d never do that.”
“He has in the past.”
“I know, but he had reasons.”
“They don’t justify what he did.”
I squeeze her hand harder. “I know that too. But you have to trust me when I say it was me. It was my choice.” Then, with a trembling breath, I add, “I wanted to stay.”
I wanted him to kiss me and fuck me and I never ever want people to assume otherwise.
I never want Mo to assume otherwise.
Not Mo.
She loves him. She’s his greatest ally. She’s been with him since forever and I can’t have what happened between us turn into something that Mo might blame him for.
“He’s a good man, Mo,” I say before she can say anything, my eyes staring into hers with all the seriousness and intensity. “He’s so good. He’s so… moral and strong and determined. I’ve never met a man like him. I’ve never met anyone like him. My mom… I know I don’t talk about it but she…” I swallow. “I loved her, okay? I admired her. She was my whole world. To the point where I was blind to so many of her faults. I was blind to how cruel she was despite her being cruel with me. Despite her being so neglectful and… I thought all moms were supposed to be like that. At least, all Hollywood moms. But they’re not. Moms aren’t supposed to be like that. Moms aren’t supposed to cut you down. They’re not supposed to make you hide who you are. And I never realized that. Not until him. Not until he gave me the courage to be myself.”
I squeeze her hand again. “He sees me, Mo. Somehow, someway, he sees me. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted: to be seen. To be acknowledged. And he makes me feel safe. Until him I was never safe, and until him, I didn’t know that I was never safe. I’m safe now. I know we’ve had our differences in the past, him and me, but they’re over now. They’re done. And so please, don’t ever, ever, think that he’d do anything to harm me. And I promise that I’d never do anything to harm him.”
With pounding heart, I wait for her reaction. I wait for her to say something.
Usually I can read Mo but right now, she’s not giving me anything. She’s only watching me with the same look, and I’m about to say something more, but then she smiles.
It’s her usual Mo smile, happy and warm.
But there’s something more there too that I’ve never seen before.
A certain kind of knowing.
As if she knows a secret now that I don’t.
Which makes no sense to me but that’s the only way I can describe it.
Then, she says, “He’s good, huh.”
Eyes wide, I nod. “He is.”
Her smile gets bigger. “Well, okay. I just wanted to make sure that you were good too.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. “I’m good too. I promise.” Then, “You love me, don’t you?”
I don’t know where that came from.
Or why it took me so long to realize that.
I mean, the signs have always been there, that Mo loves me. That she cares for me.
But I’m only realizing it now.
That this woman, who I met accidentally, is someone closer to me than my own mother was.
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Well, duh, kiddo.”
So maybe I’m not as unloved as I thought.
Maybe there’s someone who does love me in a motherly way that I always wanted.
And look, it’s all intrinsically entwined with him. Every good thing in my life right now is entwined with him.
My guardian.
I chuckle. “I love you too.”
She chuckles too. “Okay then. Meds first. Then go freshen up and come downstairs for breakfast.” Then, getting up and bending down she kisses my forehead and whispers, “And he’s in the gym.”
Oh, he’s definitely in the gym.
Definitely.
And he’s doing the thing that I’ve been wanting to watch him do for a while now.
Four years to be exact.
Yeah, I’ve been wanting to see him punch his heavy bag for four years now. Ever since I knew there was a gym at the mansion and I saw the heavy bag hanging from the ceiling.
I hated him then but I still wanted to see.
I still wanted to watch him go at it.
And as I stand here, my back pressed to the door and my thighs clenched, and watch him go at the heavy bag after four years, I realize that I could watch him for the next four.
I could watch that tight black t-shirt that’s stuck to his body like a second skin, highlighting every crest and dip of his muscles, rippling with every jab he takes.
