to why the bastard excited me. It was nice and simple, clean cut, but with a sharp and dangerous point.
I was attracted to him on a level that felt unholy. Which by itself was okay—attraction was not actually cheating—but it almost felt like I was when I thought about Cash Kelly, even when Scott wasn’t around.
Scott—the man who loves you—Stone.
After I met Scott’s family in January, he asked me to think about marrying him. I told him I needed time, but he was starting to get impatient. Making a man wait a few months for an answer to such an important question didn’t do anything good for his ego, it seemed.
If he was true about his intentions, though, why rush it? It wasn’t like he really asked, either. He didn’t get down on one knee or give me a ring. He told me to think about it.
That was exactly what I’d been avoiding. Thinking about one huge word—yes.
I always found something to redirect my thoughts when they went there. Maybe if he did ask soon, I’d just blurt the first response that came to my mind. I had a teacher once who told me that if I didn’t know an answer on a test, I should always go with the one that felt right and leave it at that.
“It’s probably coming from your gut,” she’d said.
It was tiring thinking about the marauder (Kelly) and the detective (Stone) at the same time. I didn’t even want to compare them, and for some reason, it felt as if I knew Kelly as much as I did Stone. Maybe even better, which was bullshit, because I’d only met him twice. Still, thinking about them in the same space of time felt like a mind trap.
Enough thinking about men then.
I glanced into the backseat at Mari. She had been quiet, probably dreading the moment we pulled up to my apartment. I knew she had no money. She had told me before we left for the fair that she had been fired. She was kicked out of her apartment and beaten up by the prick Merv, her landlord. Her beautiful face was full of bruises and splits from his fists.
My own fists balled when I thought about him doing that to her over not paying rent.
She and I needed to come up with a plan for her life, and fast. She’d refuse any help outright offered, so I’d have to work around her aversion to accepting kindness without feeling like she had earned it first. I had to think of doing nice things for Mari in terms of a job. She did something for me. I paid her for it. Then she wouldn’t consider it accepting something for free.
It was a fucked-up way to live, but she was a kid from the streets. To accept kindness from strangers could get her killed or make her wish that she were dead if she ended up owing the wrong person. So even though I hated that she was that way with my family and me, I never faulted her for it. I understood.
As we pulled up to my apartment, her eyes fell to her old leather bag. I could feel the weight of her situation fall on my back, and I wished there was more I could do. It never felt like enough. It never would. Not until I knew she was taken care of.
“I’m coming in for a sec,” Harrison said, shutting the car off. “Give me a minute.”
I gave him a narrow look, wondering what he was up to, but I was dying to get comfortable, so I got out. I waited for Mari and we walked together to my apartment. We were both quiet, but I could feel her relief the moment we stepped inside and she realized that my roommate, Sierra, was not home.
My roommate was another kid from the streets, and it was hard to tell who had the hardest life, Mari or Sierra. They both ran a good race for immediate candidates for heaven. As much hell as they went through on earth, I felt they both deserved a direct in. But for all they were the same, they handled their situations differently.
Sierra was not opposed to stepping on anyone to get a hand up. She fraternized with men who could easily put others on an endangered species list. She’d probably cut a starving person for touching her stash of food, even if she had plenty.