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“She was attacked,” I said as the image of my father filleting her face with a serrated blade from our kitchen. Her screams echoed in my mind.
“Did they catch the guy?”
I wish. It was like my dad was above the law somehow. The cops could never get their hands on him for some reason. Yet he always found us. “No.”
Chapter Eleven
Hunter
She sat with me in silence for a long time. I fought with the memories threatening to spike my temper even more than it was already registering. I hated how that triggered my rage, but even more, I hated how hard it was to control it once it started simmering. Damn psychopath blood running through me, that’s what it was. It was like a monster waiting to get its grip and shred through me.
“That’s why you teach self-defense. Why you’re a bouncer. Isn’t it?”
She totally and completely got me, didn’t she? And it scared the shit out of me. All these days of talking to her on chat, texting, or talking through the door with her…she understood me. And we hadn’t even had any super deep conversations. As a matter of fact, this was the closest we’d come to talking deep since the almost past relationships conversation.
Lina didn’t need the burden of knowing my baggage, though. Not when she had tons of her own to deal with.
A warm hand slid over mine, and I realized my hands were fisted on top of my thigh. “And it’s why you keep moving.”
“When did you become the shrink?”
She smiled. “Been working with them enough, probably picked up a few habits. When did it happen?”
“Three years ago.” I stared at our joined hands, loving how her dainty fingers twined with my bigger, rougher fingers. Such a contrast—like us. She was a tiny little thing, so fragile, and here I was like a bull in a china shop.
“And your dad?”
“Not in the picture.” And I hoped to keep it that way. New names, a new place to live that was so out of our comfort zone…
“You’ve been with her since you were twenty-one, moving around. And school?”
“Mostly online.” I shifted on the bed a little and looked out the window. This conversation was getting a little too deep for me, but I couldn’t help myself from answering, “Got a couple years at a community college in before we had to leave.” More like before Dad cracked even more than he’d cracked when he’d returned from war. “I transferred here the beginning of this year, hoping to finish out the year at a physical campus and actually graduate.”
She held my hand tight, then ran her other fingers over our joined fingers. “I hope you stay, too,” she whispered. “We could…walk through ceremonies together.”
Each day I found myself wanting to stay more and more as well. For Lina yes, but also for Bill. Last night that big guy showed me an unexpected part of him. I wanted to learn more about him and his life. I’d taken to him right away when I took this job in August, right before classes started, and now I understood a little more why.
A comfortable silence fell over us for a long time as we stared out the window. It would have been nice to get some blankets and park out on the patio on the big chair together, but I’d settle for the handholding.
Wait, no. I probably shouldn’t even be doing that.
“How are you doing, Lina, being here at my place?”
“I love being here. It’s so relaxing.” She captured my gaze. “What’s it like having me here?”
The question caught me by surprise, and I wasn’t sure what to say other than, “I like it.” I couldn’t saytoo much, but that’s what I was thinking. I could see myself getting used to this..
“I like it, too.”
Her head rested on my shoulder, and a wave of citrus-laced melon circled around me, teasing my body. It’d been so long since I’d been with someone…It’d be so easy to lay back, taking her with me, and get lost in her.
Slow down, buddy.
I pressed my cheek to the top of her head and absorbed the heat radiating from her. Her thumb brushed along the top of my thumb where our hands joined.
“This is probably the best moment I’ve had in three years, one month and eight days, Hunter, and I don’t want it to ever end. Can we just sit here forever?”
“Might get sore asses, but I’ll give it a try.”
