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Standing in the kitchen, Geneva looked over the pass-through counter at her. “You were next door for forty-seven minutes. Are we going to make dinner soon?”
Right now, standing against the front door with her sneakers in her hand and her ponytail drooping, Siena embraced her little sister’s lack of savvy. At nearly fifteen, Siena would have known enough to make a snarky remark if their mother had come home under the same conditions. Geneva, however, just wanted to know if they were going to get back to their routine.
So Siena pulled herself together and smiled. “Yeah, sure. Pork chops and egg noodles coming right up. Do you want to make the salad?”
“Okay. But I don’t want black olives in it.”
Siena loved black olives, but Geneva thought they looked like bugs. “So don’t put black olives in it. You’re in charge of the salad.”
Just then, the roar of Cooper’s Harley made the front door shake. He was tearing out with the throttle wide open, in a massive hurry.
Maybe he needed to go out and find a better fuck to erase the memory of fucking her.
Humiliated, sick at her stomach, and disgusted with herself, she dropped her sneakers by the door and went to the kitchen to start dinner.
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~oOo~
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“Why do you need self-defense training?” Geneva asked as she watched Siena push the paprika rub into the chops. “Is it because of what happened during the summer? When that man killed all those people?”
Siena suppressed the shudder that always went through her at the mention of that day. “No, not really. That day made everybody feel less safe, but knowing some martial arts moves wouldn’t have helped me, or most people, then.”
“Your gun would have been better.”
“Yeah, maybe. But it was pretty chaotic. I don’t know if I would have made things better if I’d had my gun on me. All the security guards were armed, and they’re much better trained than I am. It’s their job, but they couldn’t get a good shot for a long time.”
She really, really did not want to talk about that day. But she didn’t want to shut Geneva down, either.
“Will you preheat the grill burner for me?” Maybe giving her more to do would keep her mind from scary things.
“Okay.” Geneva turned to the range. “What setting?”
“Medium high to start. Thanks.”
“Why does anybody have guns if you can’t use them to stop somebody who’s killing people?” Geneva asked, obviously undistracted.
“That’s a very good question. I guess ... well, if somebody was to try to hurt us here at home, I could stop him.”
“You didn’t use a gun when Luis’s dad was here.”
“I have guns in case I need one. I didn’t need one. Using one then would have made things worse.”
“I don’tunderstand. You have two guns but you don’t know when the right time to use them is. Sometimes having a gun makes things worse, even when there is somebody around who wants to hurt you? But you say there’s danger all around us, and you’re right because there are people like that man who shot all those people without warning. How are we supposed to be safe? She blinked and focused on Siena. “Is that why you want Cooper to teach you karate? Can he teach me, too?”
“Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And ... maybe that’s why I wanted it, yeah.” Though Cooper would absolutely not be teaching Siena anything ever again. “It’s not gonna work out, though.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too busy,” Siena answered lamely.
“Oh. Does that mean he’s too busy to help me out when you’re not home, then?”
“Probably, yeah. I think it’s better if we don’t bother Cooper at all anymore. He shouldn’t be in our lives.”
“But you said he was a friend now. Was he mean again today?”
