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This is not a good way to get rid of it and its owner. Since Tru turned my life upside down this morning, I don’t think I’ve done anything right. I should have been meaner. I should have called my lawyer. I should have refused her entry to my house and my bar. Instead, I practically offered turndown service and now I’m walking her pet rat.
I carry the damn thing back up the stairs too. It’s a lot of stairs and rats have short legs. I tell myself I just didn’t want to wait while it took too long, but when it licks my face, I know I’m not fooling myself or the dog.
I open the door to a smoke-filled apartment.
“Sorry,” she yells, frantically waving a dishtowel below the alarm. “I was trying to do something nice, since you were walking my dog, and thought I’d make us something to eat, but as usual, I’m not good at much of anything.”
I shouldn’t tell her she’s good at making me hard. That’s not going to make her feel better. I can’t stop staring at the patch of skin between the bottom of her t-shirt and the pajama pants she’s wearing. It’s hardly the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen, but try telling that to my dick. “I bet you got a 4.0 in all your literature classes.”
She stops the towel and looks at me quizzically. “What does that have to do with burning food?”
“You said you weren’t good at anything. I say you’re good at poems or whatever.” I study her face before she turns away. I don’t think she likes being seen. I move in and turn on the fan above the stove. “Get the bread out, I’ll make us grilled cheese.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Just get the bread.” I make for a light tone, “So, not much of a cook, huh?”
She shakes her head, watching me very carefully like she’s going to have to take a test on grilled cheese later. “Growing up, we had a cook. After my grandfather died, I found someone who would come once a week and prepare meals for the whole week.”
She grew up with a cook. She’s richer than I thought. I just don’t understand where her money went. If she came from that kind of background, why is she sniffing around my bar? “And your husband?”
“Ex-husband.” She looks down, her lashes sweeping low. “I don’t think he cooks, but I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”
There’s a story there. One that makes her shoulders round and her voice go soft. She’s vulnerable and hates it. It makes a man want to step up and fix things for her.
Where the hell did that come from? The very last thing I want to do is be some woman’s knight in shining armor. I learned what happens to that guy from watching my mom roll over my dad too many times.
But I don’t think she has anyone to talk to, and my whole life, I’ve never not had anyone to talk to. Whether I wanted to talk or not.
“What happened?” I ask casually, looking at the pan and not her. I learned that from my dad too. He told me after I was grown that the key to getting your kids to talk was not looking directly at them during a big discussion. Which explains why he used to take me for long drives when I hit puberty. It worked. I spilled a lot of shit to my dad over the years while sitting in the passenger seat.
“Do you need any help?” she asks, avoiding my question.
I flip the sandwich. “No, I got this.” She’s trembling. Fuck. I set the spatula down, suddenly filled with a dangerous rage. “Did he hurt you?”
Tru looks up, surprised. “Not that way.” She gets out a couple of plates. “We just weren’t a good fit.”
There’s more.Keep talking, sweetheart.
“Is he the reason you don’t have any money?”
She bites her lip, and I stifle a groan. Why is that sexy?
“That’s really none of your business.”
I plate the sandwiches and try not to take offense, but it’s hard not to. “I think you owe me some answers.”
That lower lip trembles, but then she straightens her spine and carries her plate to the couch. “I don’t want you to know how pathetic I am.”
“Why do you think you’re pathetic?”
“Because I am! Richard was a con artist. He got close to my grandfather while he was dying and then...got close to me. He never loved me. He was actually never even married to me. He’s in the Caymans now, probably with his real wife and my inheritance. The only thing left after selling everything to pay the back taxes and debt was Ironwing.”
I set my plate down on the coffee table so I don’t throw it. “That fucker.”
She blinks her surprise at me. “I’m the stupid one who married him.”
“Tru, it doesn’t take long in your presence to realize you have a kind of...innocence.”
