by JL Long
I tilt my head in agreeance, guilt dredging around in the pit of my stomach.
“If it were anyone else, I’d tell them to go fly a kite in a hail storm.” He pauses a moment, then his head slants in my direction. “I’ll do it.”
I should feel elated, but I don’t. Where we might gain from this, Benny, like a fucking brother to me, loses.
“I owe you big for this.”
“You don’t owe me shit. You’re family. She’s family. Nobody fucks with that. I’ll die trying to catch this bitch.”
“Appreciate it.” It’s not much, but he knows I mean the fuck out of those words.
“Know you do, man.”
“Should have seen this coming,” I admit. And I fucking should have. The bitch was goddamn crazy, but I never fathomed Aria capable of trying to kill my wife.
“Talked to the woman once while she was waiting for you. She’s not right. Far from it. But you can’t sit here and beat yourself up about it. Keep Lena safe. I’ll do the rest.”
“Right.”
He stands and clasps a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll make a few phone calls and get shit rolling, find out as much as I can and keep you updated. As for the shop, I’ll still cover everything here.”
“Right,” I repeat, pushing off the counter and following behind Benny. I lock up, and we head to our vehicles. A slight weight has been lifted off my chest.
I’d do anything for them.
Fucking anything.
Even if that means making a deal with the devil himself.
“I’m thinking about coming down there to visit for a while.”
My eyes widen. It’s probably a good thing Carolina can't see me, or she’d know something’s up.
“Um…” I start. “Like, right now?”
“Maybe a week or so, maybe a little sooner.”
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.
I haven't told Carolina about any of the shit that’s been happening. She knows Law and I are working our problems out, but nothing about Aria.
If I ask too many questions about her impending stay, she'll wonder why, and then I'll have to tell her everything. She's my best friend. I should want her to know. She should have been the first person I ran to with this. But no one knows, except my parents and whoever Law told. I'm not hiding it; I just don’t like talking about it. It’s hard enough to wrap my mind around it. Adding in other people and their questions…I don’t think I would be able to handle it.
“That okay?” Carolina brings me back from my thoughts.
“Uh, yeah, yeah. That's fine.”
“Thought I'd come visit my favorite niece in the world for her birthday and finally make it to one of your anniversary parties.”
Of course she would. We may not visit one another as much as we’d like, but she spoils my girl. And having her here for London’s birthday will be exciting for everyone. Not to mention finally having her here for our anniversary extravaganza bash. The last six years, she hasn’t been able to make it due to work complications or something else coming up. It will be nice to have my best friend spending two of my favorite days with me.
But even with that, I don’t want her in the crosshairs of Aria’s attempts. Furthermore, I just don’t want her to know so she doesn’t worry.
Swallowing my anxiety, I fake the happy I feel everyone else needs to see from me. “I'll make up our spare room and you can stay here. London will be so excited.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” I rush out a little too fast on a squeak. I scrunch up my face knowing she can’t see me and hope she doesn’t think anything of the change in my voice.
“I mean, with you and Lawson. We haven’t talked much since your visit.”
“Oh, yeah.” I breathe out a sigh of relief. “We are moving forward. We had a long discussion and we’re on the same page again, it’s just ironing out the wrinkles now. We’ve both been busy. I’ve been planning Lonnie’s party and getting everything organized for our anniversary party.” I blow out a breath. “It’s just life.”
“Good.”
I let out another breath. “Yeah.”
“All right, my girl, I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay, Caro, see you soon,” I say, finally sounding truly cheerful.
We disconnect, and I spin around at the sound of Law shuffling down the stairs. His hair is mussed from sleep, but he looks so handsome standing with his arm braced on the frame of the entryway, his chest bare, and every delectable ab muscle on full display. I bite my lip, thinking of all the times over the past six years I’ve had the pleasure of reacquainting myself with them.
“Good morning,” I chirp over my shoulder from my place at the stove, and this time, the enthusiasm in my voice isn’t fake. It’s genuine and feels like forever since I’ve actually been happy. If something happens, there is nothing I can do about it. I want to know my possible last days were lived to the fullest. Plus, Carolina coming gives me something to look forward to.
“Morning, baby. Who was that?” he asks as he rubs the sleep from his face.“Carolina,” I answer.
“Yeah? How’s she doing?”
I pause for a moment, then hedge out, “She’s good. With London’s birthday coming up, she wants to come for a visit.”
He nods, but gives nothing away. I figured he would start in on how we would be putting her in the line of danger. “Lonnie will love that.”
“I haven’t told her about—" I wave my hand back and forth and roll my eyes. Law's lips purse in acknowledgment, and I return my attention to the pan with the now bubbling pancake batter. "All that,” I mumble.
“I did,” he says, matter of fact, like he’s telling me he just mailed off a package. He walks farther into the kitchen and reaches for his coffee mug in the cabinet.
My happy mood starts to slide away. “What?”
“I told her the day you came home from the hospital.”
“Why?”
He turns to me, his thumb rubbing his eyebrow before he speaks. "She called your phone. I answered. She wanted to know where you were, so I told her.”
“You told her everything?” I ask, completely shocked neither of them decided to tell me this. I haven’t talked to Carolina much, but for this not to come up when we have talked seems odd. Why hasn’t she grilled me?
“Yeah?” he replies, like he’s asking a question. “She’s your best friend, Len. Didn’t figure you would keep something like that from her.”
“You would be wrong.” I turn the burner off, move the pan to the back of the stove, and turn to face Lawson again.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, to be honest, I’m embarrassed by it.”
His eyes widen. “Embarrassed? How so?”
I roll my eyes. “I let a woman best me.” Law tilts his head to the side. “Not in the sense you are thinking. She weaseled her way into our life. She took advantage of you, and instead of me seeing that, I assumed you were having an affair. Score one for her. Then she turned absolute psycho crazy and came after me. Score two for her. If you’re keeping track, that’s zero for me. I should have been able to fight off that man. I didn’t know what to do, Lawson. That’s scary.” I shake my head, not wanting to go there right now. “It’s not even that, though. It’s just the whole situation. I don’t want to be a victim. I don’t want the pity from other people. I don’t want them to stare at me. That in itself is embarrassing.”
“Lena,” he whispers, but I forge on.
“To tell my best friend there’s a crazy person after me because she wants my husband…that would be okay. I think I could tell her that. But to tell her Aria had someone attack me and is completely in the wind is hard to admit. This probably isn’t rational.” I close my eyes and take in a deep breath as my hands curl into fists. Blowing out the breath, I continue. “But it hurts my pride to know I’ve, in a way, been defeated.”
“Jesus, Selena, you are so goddamn stubborn sometimes.” He moves the fe
w steps toward me, and his hands come to my waist. My head tilts up to look at him as he pulls me closer.
“I am stubborn,” I admit. “It’s hard for me to accept that kind of defeat. It’s also hard for me to let anyone inside this brain of my mine, you know that.”
His eyes soften. “I do know that, but, baby, sometimes you gotta let someone in there so you aren’t alone. Even if that person isn’t me, you have to, Len. It’ll drive you fucking mad if you keep it all bottled inside.”
“I try to give you what I need so that doesn’t happen.”
“Lena—” Needing to get my thoughts out, I interrupt him.
“Who do you talk to?”
“We aren’t talking about me.”
“I know, but I want to know who you talk to when things get too rough.”
His lips purse and his jaw ticks. “This isn’t the point.”
I shake my head. “Isn’t it though? You’re telling me I need to talk to someone and let it all out, so shouldn’t you do the same thing?”
"I do it in my way.”
“And how’s that?”
“Jesus Christ. If you must know, when I go to the garage and work on my bike, half the time I’m out there clearing every fucking surface with a swipe of my arm. That’s how I clear my head, Lena. It’s not fucking healthy, but I’m a man, we don’t talk about this shit with anyone else.”
I smile. He thinks I didn't know this. "I'm a woman, Lawson, and I don't talk to anyone else about what's going on in my head. The way I've lived my life is a testament to that. When Lucas died, how did I cope?” I ask, but don’t give him time to answer. “I didn’t, I packed up and left. When things got rough between you and me, I did it again. I left.” I shake my head, remembering the day months ago. Carolina told me then I was running, and I didn’t want it to be the truth, but it was. It’s all I ever do. “I’m not running this time. I fear whatever Aria has in store for me would follow me wherever I went. But that is not the point.” I clutch his shirt in my hands. “How I deal with things is exactly that. I stay inside my head because every day I sift through one thing at a time and deal with it. It’s how I get a grip on life again. I’m slowly getting there, Lawson.”
“Fuck, you’re infuriating,” he says in a growl. But when his head bends down and his lips touch mine, I know it’s halfhearted. He moves his head back slightly, our lips barely separated. “It makes me want to take you to our room and fuck it out of you.”
“Ah, you want me to submit to you like a good little girl,” I tease. His eyes darken, and I laugh—something that feels foreign to me. “You’re such a perv.” A kinky hot perv, but I keep that little bit of information to myself. I try to back away from him, but his arms won’t budge.
“I’m only a perv when it comes to you. You bring it out in me, so who’s really the perv here?”
I laugh again. “That just means I’m good at seducing you.”
His head bends again, this time going to my ear. “Mmmm, keep talking like that, baby. Tell Daddy what you’re going to do to him.”
My eyes widen.
I am so not into the daddy kink, but hearing it come from Lawson’s husky voice, a girl just might change her mind.
Biting my lip, I slide my hands down his bare chest to the back of his jeans where they slip in between the denim and his skin, my fingers digging. He emits a growl, and I stand on my tiptoes and whisper against his ear, “As much as I would love to, I promised London you would take her to the store and buy Ollie a new toy, and I need you to pick some things up. I promise I’ll take care of you later.” I quickly remove my hands, and in his shock, I back out of his embrace and step to the counter.
“Baby, are you just going to leave me hanging here?” he asks as he gestures to the bulge in his pants.
I smirk as I grab plates for the pancakes. “Maybe.”
“Later,” he replies, and a shiver runs through my body. “I see you like that idea.”
I nod my head. “Yeah.”
His lips tip into a half grin as he moves to the back of me. He swipes away the hair at my neck and places a kiss on the skin below my ear. Another shiver rakes through my body, and I’m just about to tell him to take me back to bed when he pulls his lips away, and says, "Well, fix my breakfast, woman. I'm hungry, and I got places to be."
“I can’t do that if you won’t let me go.”
One hand moves to my ass, and his lips return to my neck. “Don’t like waking up without you,” he says, changing the subject.
“You were sleeping so peacefully. I didn’t want to disrupt that.”
“There are other ways you could have preoccupied your time, baby,” he says low, his voice going husky again.
“Lawson, breakfast,” I remind him.
“Kiss me.”
I tilt my head to the side and lean back. His head comes up, and then his lips are on mine. It’s a quick kiss, and I’m surprised he lets me off the hook that easily. When I pull back, he lets me go. I angle my head back to the stove and begin plating our breakfast.
Lawson calls for London, who bounds down the stairs. We eat our breakfast in a comfortable silence, Lonnie breaking that every so often with a mouthful of food to tell us exactly what toy she’s getting Ollie.
After the cleanup, Lawson looks to me, and says, “Right. Let me put some clothes on and we can go.”
“What?”
“I said let me get some clothes on.”
“After that I mean.”
“And then we can go?”
“Yeah, that. We?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he drawls out.
“You and Lonnie?”
He shakes his head.
“Can’t you and Lonnie just go?”
He shakes his head again, but I’m not sure what he’s playing at here. Since that night, I haven’t left the house. My vow this morning is a work in progress. I have to be comfortable with myself before I try to move on to a new challenge. Right now, being in public probably isn’t a good idea. The people…this is a small town, and I know how they’ll be. I can’t handle that.
“I think it’ll do you some good to get out of the house.”
I roll my eyes, but he doesn’t let it slide. “Lena, nothing’s going to happen. I promise you. I just want you both to go with me. Miss having my girls following behind me while I run errands. Remember when we used to do that?”
“Yeah,” I answer. I do miss those times.
Crap. Can I do this?
I am tired of feeling trapped. If I am going to live my life, I have to actually live it, right? Dammit, I’m just not ready.
“I’ll be there right beside you, baby.”
And I know he will be. He’s been more than amazing these last few weeks. He’s there when I need him, he’s more attentive—he’s the Lawson I married six years ago. And here I am, being a total fucking shit. Having something life-altering happen doesn't excuse my behavior toward him.
I take a deep breath in and slowly exhale.
I can do this because Lawson will be there every step of the way. I can do this because I am going to live my life and not let Aria control it anymore. She hasn’t taken my life yet, and I need to stop acting like she has.
“Okay. I’ll go with.”
“Okay,” he parrots. “Give me two minutes and I’ll be ready.”
While he runs upstairs to get dressed, I stand in the same spot, mentally preparing myself. He comes back down and moves straight to me. “You haven’t moved, baby.”
“I’m scared. I woke up this morning and told myself I wasn’t going to live in this state of constant fear and pain anymore, but it’s a lot harder than I thought.”
“It’s going to be hard, sweetheart. If we’re moving too fast, we can slow down. Take it one day at a time. If you think it would be best to stay back, I’ll call your dad to come hangout for a bit while Lonnie and I go.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m going to do this. I just want you to know where my head’s at,” I sa
y and give him a wink, trying to ease the tension.
He gives me a low growl, then moves to the entryway table to grab his keys. “Lonnie, baby, let’s go,” he hollers up the stairs. The stomping of little feet sounds from her room before she barrels down the stairs.
“Are we going to get Ollie a new toy?” She hops up and down on her toes.
“Yeah, honey,” I tell her.
“He need to go outside before we leave?” Law asks London.
“I’ll do it!” She bounces past both of us, calling for Ollie as soon as the words leave her mouth.
She loves that dog.
My eyes move back to Lawson as he watches his daughter, pride shining bright in his features.
“I love you,” I whisper.
He chuckles, hooks his arm around the back of my neck, and turns me into him. “Love you too, baby.”
My heart beats.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
I can’t do this.
“Ready?”
I throw on that fake smile everyone is so accustomed to and nod. “Yep.”
Lawson looks over his shoulder at London in the backseat of his truck. “All right, baby girl, one toy. Okay?”
“Maybe two,” she tries to push her luck.
“One,” he tells her, knowing better.
And if I know my girl, she is smiling big at her daddy right now. “Okay, Daddy!” she concedes too easily.
“Little shit knows I’ll cave,” he mutters only loud enough for me to hear. I laugh and unbuckle my seatbelt.
Lawson gets out of the truck and rounds the backend to open the door to help London out. I take a deep breath.
You’re going to be fine, Selena.
I won’t, but for my family, I’ll do it. I can’t stay locked up in that house anymore. After weeks, I’m finally able to stay in the kitchen longer than a few moments. I can stay in the house while Law is out in the shed for more than ten minutes and not freak out. My mother doesn’t constantly have to be there watching over me in case I have a meltdown.
I hope Lawson’s right when he says this might be good for me.
I hope.
I climb out of the truck and grab my little girl’s hand. We make our way into the small store in Oak Town and heads instantly turn my way, pity written all over their faces.