Chapter 24

Animal

The year I spent with Nix in Feybi’s organization sucked. I tried to understand his reasoning. He’d lost his will to live when Becca’s mom asked him to leave her alone. Granted, I was glad he was still alive after the scare we had when Becca killed his horrible father, but Nix took things to the extreme.

I saw the future, though. I knew my man would get out if he wanted to. And he had to want to. Whatever punishment mechanism made sense in his skull-flavored mind wasn’t something I could figure out. Like I didn’t know where his finish line was. I hoped he would recognize it when it came.

I started to build. In that time the material was already on site, so to speak. I knew how to collect people. The bruised and battered. The ones that needed to have a place. T came around. It’s what she did. It reminded me of when we were kids and had each other’s back. I was guarded. Not with my words, but with my heart. It wasn’t that she’d left, but that she returned and didn’t tell me that was the deepest wound.

She was getting back in, though. In her head, I think she was doing a penance. In the time away, she had honed her skills for survival to a deadly edge. She didn’t talk about how life was hacking the world on her own as a teenager.

She didn’t want for money, so it seemed. She learned how to make it. She never shared with me if she finished school, and I didn’t want to open the door to that conversation. Because I had my degree, I didn’t want her to think I was judging her if she didn’t have one.

Nix was highly inaccessible. He checked in, but shut down. He’d submitted to the Feybi top soldier mentality as far as I could tell because he’d be able to get me a message if he wanted to. He could hack anything if he wanted to.

So while he improved the Feybi organization, I was creating one to take it down. It was okay, because he’d run it with me once he came to his senses.

T became my go-to person. She was still quiet and apprehensive, but listening all the time. While I tried to hash out solutions to problems like the docks being run by the Kaleotos, she would file it away, and two weeks later I would hear a rumor that things were settled. Sometimes it was as simple as police activity increasing in the area. Other times places of businesses were burned to the ground. After about three incidents, I addressed her.

“So the docks, Kaleotos’ restaurant, and the drug deals over at the Duggerton—those were all problems that sorted themselves out.”

We were in my office in my house. It was temporary. As soon as Nix was back, I was going to his place. I didn’t like being there when he wasn’t.

T was wearing tight jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and a hoodie. Her style hadn’t changed that much since school. She didn’t wear the black eyeliner as thick anymore, though. Her hair still swooped over one eye.

She was sitting on my couch. She didn’t look up to acknowledge the fact that I was talking to her. I watched as her pinkie twitched.

“I’m thinking it wasn’t a coincidence.” I waited until it was awkward for her not to make eye contact.

She finally looked up. “Things happen.”

I snorted. “Things that I specifically bitch about mysteriously resolve themselves in my favor? I find that hard to believe, T.”

She shrugged.

“And Smiley tripped into the river the night you left me. Just coincidence, huh?”

Most foot soldiers would be quick to claim responsibility to the man in charge to make sure they got props when it was time. But she wouldn’t even admit to the murder she committed to tie up loose ends before she left town back in the day.

“’Fess up.”

I wanted to know if she was going rogue to do these things.

“I just see a solution and implement it. If it works, it works.” She shifted in her seat.

“Listen, I appreciate you going and getting shit done, but you have to keep me informed. If you’re out there putting yourself in danger, I want to know. I don’t like losing track of you.”

I watched as she tilted her head down. I heard the double meaning of my words then. The argument we never really had.

That she knew where I was and how I was doing, but I never knew where she was so long ago.

“I’m sorry.” The apology was for now, and maybe then.

I didn’t like to beat a dead horse. But I apologized just like that if I accidently stepped in front of someone in line. I wanted more for what we’d been through. What I thought our relationship deserved.

“You still haven’t told me why.”

“It’s embarrassing.” She was finally admitting there was a reason.

“Sweetheart, you knew that my fosters would shoot up the check they got from me, and I was okay with that so I didn’t have to move again. You know I hate snakes. We’ve shared too much shit to be worried about embarrassment.”

“You remember when I told you I only love once?” She was so far behind her hair that I knew we were about to get real.

“Yeah. You were loyal to your mom no matter what. She was the only mom you would ever let yourself have.” I tapped my fingers on my desk.

She raised her face and her hair fell away. Her eyes flashed.

“Not saying you were wrong about that. But that last foster mom for you would’ve been a real decent choice. I know it costs you to be that way. And I respect it.”

The flare of anger in her eyes simmered down.

“I did come back to talk to you in a thrift shop dress. I figured I’d show up and it turns out it was prom night, you know? And when I got there to say hi, I saw you on your way in.” Her voice got so quiet that her sentence disappeared.

“I went to prom with two chicks…”

“I only love once, Animal.”

Oh shit. That’s what it was. She was in love with me. All I could say was, “Oh.”

Because I loved T. She was—well, is a beautiful woman. But I wasn’t in love with her. She was family. I wanted to keep her behind me. Protect her.

I pictured the scenario at prom. Her arriving and me somehow missing her. I’d just found out from Merck she was in town from time to time and not checking in with me. And I was pissed and in pain.

But for her, in the sidelines in her thrift store getup made my heart want to punch myself in the balls.

I wanted to tell her I would’ve dumped those girls in a hot minute to take her to that dance, but something stopped me. She loved me. And that changed the script. Because I wasn’t about to lie to her. I wasn’t going to try to fake it for her either. She didn’t deserve that.

She gave me a hard nod, hair curtain fully engaged. “I have to go.”

She had revealed herself and now wanted to bolt because she knew I didn’t feel the same way.

I had to move fast, because she was fast, but I was able to catch her by her arm and hold the door closed.

“T.”

She wouldn’t face me, so I was talking to the back of her head while I held on to her lightly.

“I didn’t know.”

Because we weren’t face-to-face, I guess she felt like she could talk to me, finally. “Everyone falls in love with you. It’s what happens. You’re you. You fill a room. You are...something else.”

“You’re not everyone. I’m so sorry. I could never lie to you. I love you. You’re my girl.”

“Don’t. I already know. I’m not the one for you. I just want to be here, do what I can to help. Make sure that no one hurts you.”

She pulled at her arm a little, asking me to let her go with her body language.

Instead, I moved her gently so I could look at her face. She wasn’t crying—just defiant. Her truth was out.

“You already did that. I’ve not forgotten the day you saved my life, T. You killed for me. I can’t lose you. I mean, again. You have to be in this life with me.” I let my hands drop. I wasn’t going to force her to stay anymore.

“You’ll never lose me.” T tucked her hair behind her ear and then reached up close to my face. “And you’ve saved my life more times than anyone can count. You just didn’t know it.”

She put her palm near, but didn’t touch me.

I leaned into her hand, forcing the contact.

“Don’t misunderstand this. I’ve known. It wasn’t both ways. The way I feel about you isn’t the way you feel about me.”

She curled her hand, almost making a claw, but not hurting me.

“I didn’t come back trying to get with you like that. But I see how you’re doing stuff here. Putting everyone else first. You needed to know how I feel because when push comes to shove I’m here for you. When crap goes down, I will look to you first. Take care of you first. No one else has priority. Not Nix. Not Becca.”

Her hand opened and the soft touch of her palm cradled my face. “And I know that’s not how you think. But call me selfish. I can’t be any other way. It’s how I’m wired.”

She was shredding me open with her loyalty. The truth of it all.

“T, I can make it work. Let’s try. I can try. You know you’re my wife in my head. Nix is my man wife and then there’s you.”

She whispered, “Man wife.”

Her ghost of a smile made me more determined. “Let’s try.”

She took her hand away to reach for the doorknob behind her.

“Animal, don’t you get it? You deserve to feel how I feel about you. It’s really big. And it’s going to be for someone other than me.”  She completed the smile that my joke had started and left the room.

I hung my head and felt like a giant asshole. How could I not be in love with this girl? I loved her in my head and heart. Was I not feeling it in my soul?

After I sat back down at my desk, I banged my head against the back of my desk chair.