I’m disoriented for a second when I open my eyes. I can’t see a clock, but it feels like it’s about 6am. Most likely, since my body’s used to waking up now to get a run in.

But that’s not the exercise I want right now.

I spread my arm out, feeling for Kaija, but she’s not in bed. The clock definitely reads 5:52 AM and I know she’s not this much of an early riser.

I don’t think so, at least. I actually don’t know much about her.

Damn, I don’t even know what her day to day job is.

I slide out of bed, grabbing my boxers from the floor and pulling them on as I walk leave her room. The lights are off throughout the house, and I take note that there aren’t any pictures or anything on the walls, except for one.

I stop in front of it. It’s portrait style, and of a laughing woman holding a floppy hat and leaning back against a tree.

Her skin is about a shade darker than Kaija’s, and she’s got long, dark hair. Definitely the same smile as Kaija, and the same small dimple right at the corner of her mouth. I’ve met her sisters, so it must be her mom.

I don’t know what happened to her, either.

“Snooping, huh?” She’s at the end of the hallway, leaning against the wall in a long black t-shirt with gold lettering that says:

“Looking for you.” I glance at the picture one more time and walk towards her, following her when she turns and heads to her back patio. When I make it to the door, she’s sitting on a sectional with a royal blue throw blanket. “You want company?”

“You’re already here.” Wryly, she moves her feet and I sit where they were, stretching her legs over my lap and the blanket.

We sit like that in silence for a bit, listening to the sounds around us and me stroking her legs absently.

“What’s wrong?” I break the silence.

“Why do you think something’s wrong?” She doesn’t look at me, just plays with the edges of the blanket.

“You’re telling me it’s not?”

“I’m just wondering what makes you think so.”

“Don’t talk me in circles, Kaija. If something is bothering you, we talk about it.”

“Oh, is that what we do? I wasn’t aware.” She looks out at the backyard and her leg starts to shake before she realizes it’s in my lap and I can see her reactions. “I just…I woke up and I was thinking about some of the stuff you said last night, and it…bothers me.”

“Okay. What bothered you?”

“It didn’t bother me in the moment, but I feel like it…I shouldn’t have been okay with it.”

I have a feeling I know what stuff is bothering her now that she’s overthinking it, and I think it’s ridiculous. But I know better than to say that, or invalidate how she feels. I just don’t see the point in getting hung up over stuff that arouses you, as long as it’s not seriously harming anyone.

“Why not?”

“I…this…I don’t really want to get into this right now.” She moves to take away her legs and get up, but I grip them, not letting her. “Harlan, let me go.

“No.” I do the opposite and grip her thighs, pulling her towards me until I can settle her in my lap.

“What is up with you and conversations where I’m sitting in your lap?” She grumbles, but doesn’t try to move again.

All bluster, this one. I wrap my arms around her, nudging her head to my shoulder and it takes her a second, but she wraps an arm around my back and sighs.

We sit like that, me stroking a soft hand over her back and resting my chin on top of her head. I want to give her enough time to be comfortable, to accept that I’m not letting her go and I’m not going anywhere.

If I have to sit here for the entire day before she tells me what she’s thinking, I will.

“We don’t know a lot about each other.”

“We don’t.” I agree, smiling when she starts stroking a finger over my chest, playing in the little bit of hair there.

“I’m a different person now.”

“I like everything I’ve seen from you.” I’m reassuring her, but the words aren’t empty. I mean them. You get a feel for people’s…vibes. The little things they do, things they say, and everything she’s shown me points to her being an overall good person.

“When I was 16…I decided that I didn’t want to be so…boring anymore. I wanted to live, explore, try stuff I’d never done. All the kids I went to school with had been drinking and smoking and having sex for what seemed like forever, and I was always the “goody two shoes.” She starts, and I just listen, moving my hand to the nape of her neck and lightly stroking my fingers there. “For a girl that was always doing what her father approved of, that meant finding the first bad boy that I could.”

“There’s always a boy.”

“Of course. Unfortunately for me, my bad boy turned out to be the worst boy. Or man. He was 22 and I met him at the first underground rave I snuck out to with Mickey.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised at all to hear Mickey was your go-to, to find trouble.” She hits my chest lightly, and I shrug. That’s not a woman to just go with the tide.

“Mickey didn’t know I was talking to him. I don’t know, he wanted us to keep things quiet because he knew who my dad was, and I agreed. I thought it was just because he didn’t want anyone to force us apart…It was really because he didn’t want anyone to link him to me when he sold me to traffickers.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know,” she strokes my chest, like she’s trying to sooth me this time. “Kinda went from zero to one hundred. That’s how it felt while it was all happening.”

“You seem like you dealt with whatever happened well.”

“I didn’t, at first. I was lucky that Mickey started to suspect something was up and she went to our parents. My dad used to be a cop, it didn’t take him and his security team long to figure it out. I was lucky I was privileged. I went through therapy, I spent some time at a rehab facility. Other girls weren’t so fortunate.”

“What happened after that?”

“I was okay. I was better, I was applying to college and moving on. But I couldn’t stop thinking about those other girls, the ones they didn’t save when they found me. And they couldn’t find Wesley, the guy that made me think it was all because he loved me. So when I was 18, I went to the task force that had helped my dad, and I told them I wanted them to use me.”

“Use…you? Like, as bait?” This is nowhere near what I expected to hear from her, none of this. You just…I wouldn’t have ever looked at her and thought that anything remotely like what she’s telling me had happened.

“Yeah. I knew my dad never stopped keeping tabs on what was happening, and I saw some files in his office one day that told me they didn’t have anyone that could get close enough. But I knew I could…because Brandon had reached out to me and I’d ignored it and I knew he wanted something, for whatever reason. So, I offered myself up. Because I felt guilty, and blessed and like I could make a difference.”

“And they let you? Nearly still a child?” There’s a hard knot in my chest. She’s obviously here now, so nothing bad happened, but just the thought of her putting herself back in that situation, back in the hands of god knows who. Shit.

“They prepared me, and I was well protected and they had eyes on me at all times. I wore small stud earrings with a tracking device in them, and just in case something happened to those…there was one in my nipple piercing too.”

“Nipple piercing?!” And here I thought she just objected to piercing her nipples period.

“I told you, I was a different person back then.” She laughs, then sobers again. “I met Wesley on the docks, like some creepy mob movie, and he told me everything. I was wired, and he told me every single thing they needed to take him and everyone else down. He told me he loved me, and he needed the money. It was nothing personal and he watched out for me by making sure no one molested me the way they did the other girls. That I should be grateful that he cared, and he wanted to be in my life again.”

“I hope you pushed him off the pier.”

“I kissed him. And just when he was about to get over his shock, I kneed him in the balls hard enough that he let out the most high pitched scream I’ve ever heard. And while he writhed on the ground, I watched a team come in and take him away and then I got to watch from monitors as they stormed the houses where girls were being kept. And it was the first time since it all started that I felt even a little bit of real happiness. The first time I felt like it was okay for me to really live my life again, like I deserved it then.” I swipe my thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away her silent tears.

“You were brave.” I murmur. “You were strong.”

“But I was stupid first.” She corrects me, laying her cheek against me again. “I thought my life was too boring. I wanted something bad and sexy and I thought drinking and parties and sneaking out and disrespecting my parents would make me feel better. Instead, I just felt so, so childish. And lost.”

“Have you forgiven yourself? I know what it’s like to keep berating yourself for the stupid stuff you did when you were younger.” My situation is nothing compared to hers, but I think I have a little understanding of what she felt. You think you know everything, and it’s hard to think about the consequences. It’s part of growing up, but that shit still sucks.

“Mostly. I still volunteer at the rehab place where I went, and I try to help where I can with charities and programs that help girls who’ve been through that or didn’t have the stability that I shunned. Wow, that turned into a monologue. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We’re learning about each other, and if that’s part of what made you who you are today, then it’s important to me.”

“Anyways…it…it seems small now, after all of that. But…they would call us every name in the book. Bitches, cunts, whores, sluts…and I had to listen to those girls beg and plead to be left alone. Wondering if one day in those 3 weeks that they had me, if I’d be next.”

“And you started feeling guilty, because you liked it last night.” Understanding dawns and I shake my head for my thoughts earlier, thinking she was just being overly sensitive.

“Yeah. It just…brought back those memories, and me feeling like I was lucky. And there I was last night, practically begging you to say more to me.”

“Do you know the difference between then and now?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.” She looks up, and I drop a kiss to her forehead, wrapping my arms tighter around her.

“You mean something to me, Kaija Banks. I don’t know just what yet and I can’t see the future, but I know that I think you’re sexy and intelligent and strong and amazing. And when I use those words, I strangely mean them in the most…respectful way possible. I don’t see you as any less, or weaker or disgusting. I don’t say them to insult you, or make you feel inferior. What did I say last night before I came?”

“You said a helluva lot, but…I think you’re asking about when you called me your “beautiful slut” if I remember correctly.”

“And you were so beautiful, the need in your eyes and the way you couldn’t control yourself. I’ll make a promise to you right now that I’ll never use those words in any other context, never use them to make you doubt yourself if you can promise me that you won’t think any less of yourself for things we both enjoy. Can we accept those promises to each other?”

“You know, I’ve never met a man who wants to talk so much, in my entire life.”

I roll my eyes. “Is that a yes or a no, woman?”

“Yeah.” She whispers, sliding a hand over my cheek and leaning up until our noses are brushing against one another. “It’s a deal.”

I kiss her and rise from the settee, keeping my mouth on hers as I head back to her room and we tumble into bed again.

I don’t know what we’re doing, but for now, as long as we’re doing it together - that’s all that matters to me.