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“Just answer me.”
“I only had a few shifts. Between one and two hundred a week at best.”
I nod.I can work with that.“I was told givin’ you a job here would be a good thing.” I study her as she looks away, gaze lazy on the freestanding mirror in the corner. “Told you need to keep your hands busy and your mind quiet. That so?”
“Who said?” She’s more concerned with who ratted her out than the issue at hand.
“Don’t matter.” I lean my elbows on my knees and ask again. “Is that true? You need that to feel good?”
Her lips part a fucking tantalizing fraction. She drags her gaze across my shoulders and down my chest before returning it to my eyes. “Sometimes.”
I shove to my feet, forcing my attention away from the pillow of her bottom lip. “You call your boss and say you won’t be in for some time.”
“You want me to quit?”
“I want you to take an extended leave of absence.” Hand to the back of my neck, I add, like the asshole I am, “They let you go, then that’s their choice.” Because why take on the guilt of the decision when I can shove it on someone else, right?
What the fuck is happening to me?Where the fuck did I leave my spine? Because fuck, I haven’t felt that rigid rod for a while now.Since I got that damn parcel.
Imposter syndrome creeps into the shadows of the night, prowling the dark corners of my days. I ain’t one of these men. Not at the heart of me. They wouldn’t listen to a fucking word I had to say if they knew the truth.
“I’ll fix you up for six weeks’ wages.” She draws a sharp breath behind me as I head for the door. “After that, you’re on your own.”
I expect her to whinge and whine, to complain that it’s not enough. Same as the women always do when they’re cut off. I don’t expect her defiance.
“You don’t have to give me a dime.” Her soft footfalls close in. “You don’t owe me, and I don’t want to owe you any more than I already will.”
I resist the urge to turn around, knowing that if I do, my goddamn hands will be on her shoulders, my fingers in the baseof her hair. “You don’t owe me nothin’ either.” In time, she’ll understand why. “Take what you’re given, Rae, and then say thank you like a good girl.”
11
RAE
“…say thank you like a good girl.”
Tyke’s words echo in my head as I creep to the end of the short wall and peer down at where he drops off the bottom riser.He’s your fucking best friend’s dad, Rae.I’ve got goddamn issues.
“You okay?” Maddie pauses halfway up the stairs when she spots me lingering.
I nod. “Your dad doesn’t want me to go back to work.”
“Fucker,” she mumbles, taking the rest of the steps. “Sorry, hon.”
“No, it’s okay.” I hug my arms to myself and back toward the room. “It makes sense.” For some reason, my gut tells me to keep the money a secret for now. “I guess it’s like you said. If I stay here, it’s easier to keep me safe.”
“Again, sorry, hon.” She follows me back into the room. “It’s temporary.”
“I know.”
She studies me as I drop my ass to the foot of the bed. “There’s something else bothering you, though.”
I shy from her narrowed gaze and study my hands as I pick idly at a cuticle. “Doesn’t it bother you, the whole ‘I’m involved with Digger’ thing?”
Her sigh moves to my left, bed dipping as she settles beside me. “I get it must feel weird, but this is how we do things here. We don’t follow conventional rules of society, and that includes the prudish way people are outside this life, pretending it makes them morally superior to remain an island.”
I frown, unsure of what she means.
Maddie sighs. “When you’re threatened, insecure, then what do you do?”
