Chapter Twenty-Three
Buster.
It’s the first thing I see when I open the front door. It falls over, halfway in the house, halfway on the porch, the decrepit teddy bear propped up there. The moment my eyes meet it, my insides drop. My heart stops. Breath hitching, my gaze scans the area around the house, caught off guard.
It’s near dawn, the sun slowly rising, lightening the quiet neighborhood. Nothing looks out of place.
No familiar cars.
No familiar faces.
No Lorenzo.
I left the bear at his house. I know. I saw it the morning Kassian showed up. It had been lying in the unmade bed, tangled up with the sheets.
Reaching down, I carefully pick it up before stepping out onto the porch, keeping the front door open behind me, to listen inside, in case Sasha wakes up. I just need some fresh air. I need out of there.
Coming back here was harder than I imagined.
Sighing, I sit down on the top step, hugging the bear as I stare out at the neighborhood. It’s strange, you know. I lived here for years. We built a life in this house, found happiness within these walls, loved beneath the sloped, dark roof, and for months after it all fell apart, I yearned to be back here. But stepping inside now, all I feel is the heartache. I feel the void. The violence. The pain.
When I walk the halls, I feel the fear I felt that night, when Kassian showed up at the front door under the cloak of darkness, and I told Sasha to hide. When I step into the kitchen, I feel hands around my throat, squeezing the life out of me, stealing my soul.
It doesn’t feel like home anymore.
“Mommy?”
Sasha’s voice is quiet, guarded, as it rings out behind me in the doorway. I turn my head, looking back at her as she eyes me warily. I didn’t hear her approach. So much unlike the little girl who grew up in this house, who couldn’t ever seem to tiptoe because she danced when she walked. She has always been good at hiding, but she’d learned to sneak around, learning to not make a sound. I can’t even bring myself to dwell on how that came about.
“Hey, sunshine,” I say, giving her a smile. “Somebody else wants to say hello, too.”
Her eyes flicker around, alarmed. “Who?”
I hold up the bear. “This little guy.”
She hasn’t mentioned him, so I’m not sure how she’s going to react. Maybe she won’t care. Maybe Kassian stole that part of her, the part that believed in magic, the part of her that loved her bear like he was real. Maybe she won’t want him. Maybe she’ll be upset. Maybe she’ll think he let her down, because she always believed the damn bear would protect us. Maybe... maybe... maybe... but I hope it isn’t so. I need her to still have some of that innocence she deserves.
She looks at it, her eyes widening, as I hold my breath. It takes her a second before she even reacts at all. “Buster!”
She sprints out onto the porch, snatching the bear from my hand, before flinging herself at me, nearly knocking me down. I laugh as she clings to both me and the bear.
“Mommy, it’s Buster!” she squeals. “He came back!”
“He did.”
“Where did you find him?”
“Right here,” I say. “He was sitting on the porch, waiting for us, this morning when I woke up.”
She smiles, a wide kind of smile. Her whole face lights up. Sitting down beside me on the step, pressing up against me, she studies the bear in her lap. Her fingers run along the messy, dark stitches holding parts of the bear together. “Somebody gave him surgery. They saved him from Daddy!”
I try to keep a straight face, but I grimace. Daddy. The man never deserved that title.
“Or,” I say, nudging her, “maybe Buster saved himself.”
“Maybe,” she agrees, pausing before adding, “but he didn’t give himself his surgery.”
“How do you know?”
She gives me a look, like I’m being ridiculous. “Because he can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t have no thumbs. He only has his paws.”
“Oh.” I glance at the bear. Can’t really argue with that logic. She was always too smart for her own good. “Well, in that case, somebody else certainly gave him surgery, but it looks like he still needs some more work.”
He’s still missing his right eye.
Needs a good scrubbing, too.
He’s filthy.
“Daddy didn’t like Buster,” she says. “He put him in his fire because he said I was being bad, and then I couldn’t have him back until I said I loved him, but then he didn’t even believe me when I did, so I never got him again.”
She frowns, poking her bottom lip out.
I have no idea what to say, how I’m supposed to handle this, how I’m supposed to explain it to her so she’ll understand. I was never exactly equipped to be a mother, but this is so out of my realm of expertise. I’m terrified of messing her up, of her growing up traumatized. I don’t have a little Dr. Phil in my pocket to walk me through these things, so I’m just going to be real with her, because honesty is the best policy, right?
“You didn’t deserve that, sunshine,” I say. “Everything he did, no matter what it was, it wasn’t your fault. You’re not bad, and he shouldn’t have done those things, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers.
“I’m serious,” I tell her. “And you don’t have to call him ‘Daddy.’ You can, if you want, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to call him anything.”
“He told me I have to.”
“I figured, but you don’t.”
“But what if he gets mad?” she asks. “What if he takes Buster away?”
“He won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
“But—”
I gently grasp her chin, tilting her face up. “No buts. He’ll never get mad at you, never take Buster, never show up here again... he’s gone, sunshine. Forever. So you can call him whatever you want, or you can call him nothing at all. It’s okay.”
She stares at me for a moment. “Did he never get his heart or something?”
My brow furrows. “What?”
“Tin Man,” she says. “That’s what he was called. I heard you say he had no heart, like the Tin Man in that movie.”
My stomach sinks. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe he had a heart, but he didn’t show it to me, so I couldn’t see it. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s all over. We won’t have to play Hide & Seek anymore, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, “because I don’t want to play ever.”
“Me, either.” I smile. “What do you want to do?”
She shrugs.
“Come on, there has to be something,” I say. “We’ll get out of this house, just you and me.”
“And Buster, too?”
“And Buster.”
“Can we go eat hot dogs? And ride that big wheel thing? You know, the one that goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh with the lights and the music?” She holds her hand out, making circles. Ferris wheel. “They have one at that place with the beach...”
Coney Island.
“I, uh... sure. If that’s what you want.”
She nods.
“Well, then... how about we go get dressed and make a day of it?”
She throws herself at me again. “You’re the best, Mommy!”
My stomach is in knots as she gets up and runs into the house. Coney Island isn’t where I’d choose to be, but whatever makes her happy.
Where I’d choose to be, if I had a choice, is at a white house with a picket fence surrounding it… just not this one.
* * *
We spend the entire afternoon down in Coney Island, riding rides and playing games and stuffing our faces full of hot dogs and ice cream and cotton candy. She’s glowing, like a weight has been lifted off of her small shoulders, so much my little girl again, carefree and happy. Not broken.
I’m not going to say she’s over it. That’s a lie. She may never get over a lot of what happened, but she’ll learn to live with the memories she can’t forget, because she’s resilient.
She’s definitely my child.
It’s early evening when we stroll through nearby shops, her lugging Buster under her arm in a headlock, as I carry her new little friend—a strange looking rainbow-striped monkey she won shooting clowns with tiny water guns. We end up in a little bookstore, aisles piled high with used books. Sasha stays where I can see her, never leaving my line of sight, as she scours through stacks of children’s books. I pick up a book of fairy tales, flipping through it to see if Sasha might like any of the stories when one catches my eye.
The Juniper Tree.
I know that one.
Well, I remember it, vaguely.
Lorenzo told me the story.
His favorite fairy tale.
Leaning against the shelf, I skim the story, realizing quite quickly Lorenzo did a horrible job of summarizing. He stopped midway through, never telling me how it ended. Some stories don’t have happy endings, he’d said.
That lying son of a—
“Mommy?”
I glance up from the book, looking at Sasha. “Yes?”
“Can I have this?” she asks, holding up a book, this one also about fairy tales, but hers has pictures and color and is made by Disney, unlike the crazy shit I’m reading. “Please?”
I probably don’t have to tell you that there’s no way I could ever tell her no right now. No matter what the girl asks for, it’s a resounding ‘hell yeah’. If I can’t afford it, I’ll fucking steal it, but being as the book has a price tag of a dollar, I think we’ll be just fine.
Lorenzo made sure of that.
Lorenzo.
I glance back at the book I’m holding, closing it as I tell her, “Of course you can have it. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
I pay for the book I’m holding, as well as Sasha’s, and we head out of the store, making our way back to the boardwalk, strolling along it as I hold her hand.
She’s as happy as can be, as she somehow convinces me to let her take her shoes off and play in the sand (yeah, right... like I’d tell her no, remember?), making a little makeshift campsite as she sets up Buster and Mr. No-Name Monkey and tries to read her book to them.
Newsflash: she’s only five, which means she can’t really read, so she’s just making up some nonsense.
Still better than the bullshit half-story Lorenzo told me.
“Come on, sunshine,” I say as time wears on, wanting out of there before sunset, still not sure how safe it is for us. “Time to get going.”
“Home?” she asks, looking up at me, her expression falling. “Do we have to go home, Mommy?”
I frown. I don’t think she likes being there any more than I do now, the bad overshadowing so many years of good. “Uh, no, not if you don’t want to. Would you rather go somewhere else?”
She nods. “Buster doesn’t like that house so much now.”
“He doesn’t? Why?”
“He didn’t like when you were sleeping in the kitchen.”
Sleeping in the kitchen. “He saw that?”
“Yes, he got scared ‘cuz you didn’t wake up when we tried to wake you.”
“You tried to wake me?”
She nods.
“You came out of your hiding spot that night to try to wake me?”
She nods yet again.
“And that’s how he found you?”
Yet another nod.
“We don’t have to go home,” I tell her, “so tell Buster not to worry. We can go somewhere else.”
“Where?”
I think about that for a moment, looking at Buster, as I pull Sasha to her feet. “How would you like to go meet the person who did Buster’s surgery?”
Her eyes widen. “Really?”
“Really,” I say, picking up Buster. “He’s a friend of mine. He’s not the best at stitching, but he’s got something else going for him.”
“What?”
“Unlike the Tin Man, I know he’s got a heart.”
* * *
The sun is setting as I step through the gate of the small picket fence in Queens, leading up to the house. Sasha clings tightly to my hand. I can tell she’s nervous.
Fuck, I’m nervous.
I’ve been putting off coming here, not because I haven’t wanted to. I have. I’ve put it off because I’m not sure he wants me here, and that kind of rejection sucks serious balls. Lorenzo walked away a week ago without even saying goodbye, like he could just easily dismiss me from his life, and Buster showing up on my porch this morning... well, that’s just a cherry on this fucked up sundae I call life. Buster’s presence felt like severing ties.
I don’t accept it.
Stepping up onto the porch, I raise my hand to knock before hesitating, my fist in the air, my gaze drifting to the doorknob. Fuck it. I grab it, turning the knob, finding it unlocked.
Of course. I push the door right open. I’ve never knocked before, and I’m not going to start now.
The moment I step inside, pulling Sasha into the foyer, voices halt, eyes turning toward me. Leo and Melody stand in the living room doorway.
“Morgan!” Melody gasps, lunging right for me as Sasha shifts herself behind me, ducking out of sight. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re here!”
“Hey,” I say, patting her back as she clings to me as tightly as Sasha had. “It’s good to see you.”
“Me?” Melody shoves out of the hug, tears brimming her eyes. “Look at you! The last time I saw you, oh god, Morgan... I thought... I mean, I didn’t think you were going to... you’re frickin’ alive! I thought for sure you were dead! I thought that Russian asshole—”
“Mel,” Leo says, cutting her off, coming between us as he pulls his girlfriend away. “Not the time for that, babe. Little ears are listening.”
Melody looks at him with confusion. “Little what?”
“Ears,” he says, diverting her attention as he motions to where Sasha peeks out from behind me.
Melody glances down, her expression shifting, from confusion to shock before jumping right to excitement. No hesitation, she drops to her knees in the foyer, making them eye-level. “Hey there! I’m Melody! What’s your name?”
“Sasha,” she says quietly, stepping out in the open, like she’s decided she likes Melody. Not surprising, since they’re both little firecrackers.
“Sasha,” Melody says. “That’s such a beautiful name!”
“Thank you,” she says. “Mommy gave me it.”
“Your mommy has great taste.”
Leo makes a noise, half-scoff, half-laugh, that draws our attention. He holds his hands up defensively right away. “Hey, I’m not disagreeing. Just imagining my brother’s reaction to that statement.”
Melody rolls her eyes before turning back at Sasha, scanning her, attention settling on Buster clutched under her arm. “Hey, I remember this guy! Bruiser or something, right?”
Sasha laughs, the lighthearted sound warming me. “He’s Buster.”
“Buster,” Melody repeats, moving on to the rainbow monkey. “And who’s this one?”
“He doesn’t have his name yet,” Sasha says. “We just got him today.”
“Huh, he needs a name,” Melody says. “A good one, something as awesome as he is.”
“Leo,” Leo chimes in.
“No,” Melody says, “not happening.”
Leo shrugs it off, as Melody and Sasha chatter back and forth, the attention turning to the book Sasha’s holding. Melody takes it from her, expression lighting up. “Oh, Cinderella, she’s totally my favorite princess!”
“Do you wanna read it?” Sasha asks, her voice a little louder than it had been. “We can!”
“Hell yeah,” Melody says, standing up, holding the book, going pale when she realizes what she said. “Oops.”
“Can Melody read my book, Mommy?” Sasha asks, looking up at me as she tugs my hand. “Please?”
“Of course,” I say, gently pushing her toward Melody. “Go ahead, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
She must trust that, and she must really like Melody, because she grabs her hand and lets her take her into the living room without second-guessing it. I turn to Leo once they’re out of earshot, seeing him grinning as he watches his girlfriend.
“She’s great with kids,” Leo says.
“I see that. You going to give her one of her own soon?”
He laughs incredulously, turning toward me. “Not until we’re married.”
“Strong morals?”
“More like scary ass brother,” he says. “He’d whip my ass if I didn’t do it the right way.”
He probably would, I think.
“Speaking of your scary ass brother,” I say, glancing around, surprised he hasn’t appeared. “Where is he?”
Leo’s expression falls. “Library, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Yeah, he, uh...” Leo laces his hands together on top of his head. “He’s pissed off at the world, touchy... twitchy. It’s been pretty unbearable.”
I sigh.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
“He got home last night, and I don’t know... something seemed different,” Leo continues. “I know he’s dealing with a lot, with me moving out and with what happened with you, but he was just next-level whatever, talking about packing up and going back to Florida.”
My stomach drops. “Florida?”
“Yeah, he said he’s got work to do down there, but I don’t know... feels kind of like he’s running, which is very much not Lorenzo.”
Yeah, that’s not Lorenzo at all.
“So, the library, you said?”
I step by him, heading down the hallway.
“Uh, yeah, but he’s not really feeling... hospitable.”
The door is closed. I see that as I approach. Not a stitch of light filters out from the crack beneath it, which means if he’s in there, he’s just sitting in the darkness, all alone. I glance back at Leo, and it’s as if he can read my mind, because he gives me a small smile and points toward the living room, saying, “I’ll keep an eye on our girls.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, barely making a sound, before I turn to the closed library door and take a deep breath.
This time, out of respect, I knock.
There’s no sound inside, no footsteps or voices, not a peep at all, like he isn’t there.
I knock again.
Nothing.
A third knock is again met with silence, which tells me I could knock all night and he wouldn’t answer.
Knocking’s pointless.
So instead, I grab the knob and open the door.
He moves fast, reacting.
Right away, I hear a gun cock.
Within seconds, it’s aimed at my chest from across the room.
I don’t move, just standing in the doorway, staring at him. He’s sitting in his chair, glaring my way, his chest rising and falling harshly, nostrils flaring.
He’s furious.
Shadows cover him. I can barely make him out as darkness shrouds the house, night falling around us. He’s dressed in all black, blending into his surroundings. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and I don’t know if he’s been sleeping, because he looks every bit the scary ass brother.
But I’m not afraid of him.
“I knocked,” I say. “You didn’t answer.”
“And that didn’t tell you something?”
“It told me a lot.”
“Yet there you stand.”
“Would you rather I have went away?”
He says nothing.
He’s not going to answer that question.
After a minute or so passes, he lowers the gun. That’s all the answer I need from him. He’s not going to shoot me. If he were, he would’ve done it way back at the start.
Carefully, I push away from the door and stroll into the library, coming closer to him.
I notice right away that the table is turned over, puzzle pieces scattered all along the floor around him. Wordlessly, I grab the table, flipping it back onto its legs. It’s a pain in the ass, heavy, but I manage to get it upright again without any help—which is good, because he doesn’t look like he planned to offer any. I pick up the lamp next, plugging it back in before setting it on the end of the table.
As soon as I turn it on, Lorenzo dramatically winces.
I laugh at his reaction, perching on the end of the table near him as I look around. “What happened to your puzzle?”
“Adam’s dick disappeared.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
He runs his hands down his face, grumbling, “A piece was missing.”
“Oh.” I look at the mess, my chest tightening, not mentioning the fact that it probably got lost the night he fucked me on top of it. “That sucks.”
He laughs bitterly as he tilts his head back, slouching in the chair, stretching his legs out, covering his eyes with his forearm. The gun rests on his thigh, in his lap, his free hand on top of it, keeping it securely in place as his leg steadily moves back and forth. Antsy.
“There’s more to the story,” I say quietly after a moment.
His arm shifts, his eyes meeting mine.
“The Juniper Tree,” I say, holding up the book I bought to show him. “The little boy is reincarnated into a bird, which is born from the tree. The bird sings a song, rats out the stepmother, and she dies as punishment for killing him, before he’s once again reborn into a kid.”
Lorenzo blinks a few times, his voice completely flat as he says, “That sounds like bullshit.”
“Better than the story you told me.”
“I like my version better.”
“Do you?” I ask. “Really?”
Another question that goes unanswered.
“Didn’t think so,” I whisper.
He sits up. Fast. So fast it catches me off guard. I freeze in place as he shoves out of the chair, gripping the gun tightly so it doesn’t fall to the floor. He doesn’t aim it, doesn’t even raise it, instead slamming it down on the table beside me as he stalls in front of me. “What do you want from me, Scarlet? Huh? Haven’t I done enough for you?”
“You’ve done more than enough, but—”
“But,” he says, cutting me off. “There’s always a but, isn’t there? Nothing’s ever good enough as it is; we have to tack on a fucking but.”
I stare him in the face as I set the book down on the table. He’s struggling hard to control himself right now. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but something has him teetering on the edge.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, pressing my palm to his scarred cheek, my thumb gently stroking the rough skin.
He doesn’t like that.
At all.
Instantly, he pulls back, moving out of my reach, anger flickering across his expression. He leaves the gun on the table beside me as he clenches his hands into fists, like he’s about to punch something, like he might find that so much more satisfying at the moment than pumping bullets through whatever it may be.
Not me, though.
He won’t hit me.
You might be sitting there thinking I’m stupid, that I’m insane for thinking that way. A few minutes ago, the guy had a gun aimed at me, so what makes me think he’ll keep his hands to himself?
Well, it’s simple, really... it’s what I told Sasha.
He’s got a heart in his chest.
I see it when I look him in the eyes. I see the agony he feels. He’s tortured, twisted, all tied up in knots. He’s busy beating himself up inside. But most people don’t see that, because they don’t look at him. They turn away from the surface, terrified, because what he shows the world can be downright fucking scary. But if they just took a second to really see him, they’d know what I know.
They’d believe what I believe.
And what I believe is this man is far from being a monster. I’ve lived with monsters. I know them. And maybe, on the surface, Lorenzo falls into that category. Legally defined, he might be a serial killer, or maybe a spree killer... I know he has killed. Who knows how many lives he’s taken—I’m not trying to justify that. Psychologically, they’d probably diagnose him as something dangerous, but I believe the world is wrong about him.
Because I see what they don’t bother looking for, assuming it must not be there.
I see his conscience. I see his compassion.
I’ve listened to the heart strongly beating in his chest that he desperately tries to silence to keep everyone from hearing.
“Why are you here?” Lorenzo asks, an edge of anger to his voice, his tone almost accusatory. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” I say, because it’s true... I don’t know. I could list off reasons all day long as to why I might be standing here, but I’ll never know which was the reason that put me in this room. Gratitude. Guilt. Regret. Longing. Maybe it’s all of those, or maybe it’s something more, something deeper. “I just... don’t know.”
He looks away from me, scrubbing his hands over his face as he starts to pace. “Why are you doing this to me? Huh? Why can’t you just stop? Why can’t you leave? Just go the fuck away?”
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes!”
He yells the word so loud that I cringe. Oh no, his hands won’t ever hit me, but his words might. It’s like a punch straight to the chest.
“I want you gone,” he says. “I want you out of my life. Out of my system. I don’t want to spend another goddamn second thinking about you, wondering about you, worrying about you. I don’t want to look at you, don’t want to see you or smell you or taste you or hear you. I don’t want this. Do you get that? I don’t want any of this. It’s driving me fucking insane. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t think. I hate this, whatever this is... whatever this bullshit is that I’m feeling because of you. Make it go away.”
I just stare at him, because I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know much of anything right now except what I’m feeling, and even that is hard to comprehend.
“You want the fairy tale,” he continues. “You want the happy ending. You want the little boy to be a fucking bird so he can fly away and make everything okay, but I can’t do it. I’ve told you that. It’s not me.”
“I know.”
“So why the fuck are you here?”
“Because I love you anyway.”
It’s like the world stops at that moment.
I wish I could say it was beautiful.
Wish I could say the sun shined and the flowers bloomed and the birds sang. Wish I could say there were fireworks, that there was happiness, that the stars aligned just right. But this isn’t Mary Poppins. I’m no goddamn Cinderella. The fairy tale I’m sitting in the middle of right now isn’t made by Disney.
There’s not a symphony playing in the background.
The word is meek when I say it, barely a whisper. I hadn’t meant for it to come out. It wasn’t something I planned to say to him. I’ve never said it to him before, struggled admitting it even to myself, but it’s true, the truest syllable I’ve ever spoken.
Love.
I love this dangerous, menacing asshole.
I can very easily stand on my own two feet, but the thought of losing him makes my knees go weak. The thought of not having him around makes my chest ache. I can breathe without him. I don’t need him. He’ll never complete me, because I’m already complete. But yet so much of me is now tangled up with so much of him that the thought of living the rest of my life without him around makes me feel cold inside, like he gives me my warmth.
“Don’t,” he says, or more like he growls, still not looking at me. “Don’t fucking say that.”
“It’s too late,” I whisper. “I already said it.”
“Don’t do this to me.” He shakes his head, still pacing. “Why are you doing this to me? Why couldn’t you just fuck off and go find your picket fence?”
“There’s one right outside.”
His head turns, his gaze shifting my way when I say that. “Not that one.”
“Well, I mean, you didn’t exactly specify...”
He doesn’t look amused by that. He looks like he wants to run outside right now and set the fence on fire before ripping it out of the ground.
“What do you want, Morgan?” he asks after a moment, his voice low. “Just... tell me what you want from me. I can’t stand here and do this with you.”
“You named me,” I say. That’s not the first time I’ve heard him call me by my real name. Morgan. “You only name what you keep, remember?”
He just stares at me.
“So I’ll go away, if that’s really what you want, if that’s what will make you happy. I’ll leave you alone, Lorenzo. You’ll never have to see me again, and you can forget I ever said what I just said. We can pretend I didn’t mean it and go our separate ways. But... you named me. And maybe it’s stupid of me to believe this, and I’m not trying to make shit weird, but it makes me think you might feel the same way. So if that’s true...”
I trail off, and he says nothing. His expression is blank, a mask of nothingness. I give him a moment to respond, to think about what I’m saying, but it gets to be too much eventually.
I’m bearing my heart to him, when so much of me is hardened not to, and he’s not reacting.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe he’s trying to spare my feelings here.
Pushing away from the table, I turn to leave. If he wants me gone, I’ll go. I’m not going to push him. I make it a few steps before he reaches out, snatching ahold of my wrist.
I glance at his hand before looking at him.
The world stops yet again.
This time, it’s not quite so ugly.
He doesn’t say anything.
What, did you really expect him to?
Have you been paying attention at all?
He’s not a man of emotional declarations. He shows you he cares through his actions. And words... they’re just words, remember? Letters and syllables. Kassian told me he loved me so many times that those words don’t have half the meaning as Lorenzo clutching my wrist does as he stops me from walking out of his life.
He stares at me.
I wait for him to speak.
“The prequels are some of the worst movies ever made,” he says eventually, finding his voice. “You’ll never convince me otherwise.”
“Come on, they have General Grievous. He’s badass.”
“Yeah, but they also have Jar Jar Binks, who should’ve never been created.”
“I thought he was kind of funny.”
“He’s an abomination.”
“And what, like we’re not?”
His serious expression cracks for just a moment as he pulls me to him. He lets go of my wrist, instead cradling my face as he leans down, gently kissing my lips. It’s soft, and sweet, a few simple pecks, as I close my eyes and grasp his forearms, savoring the moment.
I’ve missed this. Missed him.
It’s only been a week since I’ve seen him, two weeks since I’ve kissed him, but a lifetime of hell passed within that time. I try to deepen the kiss, eager for more, groaning into his mouth, when a small voice calls out.
“Mommy?”
The sound startles me.
Lorenzo pulls away. Fast.
I turn, seeing Sasha in the doorway, her eyes bouncing between me and Lorenzo, alarmed. Leo’s behind her, just out in the hallway.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” Leo says. “It got quiet, so I figured it was safe, and she said she was thirsty, and I wasn’t sure what she was allowed to drink, and well, the kitchen is this way, so...”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, so he’ll stop stammering, before motioning to Sasha. “Come here, sunshine.”
She approaches, and I kneel beside her. She eyes Lorenzo suspiciously, looking up at him, while he stares down at her like he thinks she might bite. They’re both damn nervous. It’s kind of cute.
I mean, there’s a chance one (or both) of them might freak the fuck out any second, but still... cute.
“Sasha, this is Mommy’s friend, Lorenzo. He helped me when I was looking for you, helped me find you.”
“And did surgery on Buster?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah, he’s the one who sewed up our Buster,” I say. “That was nice of him, wasn’t it?”
She nods.
“And Lorenzo, this is—”
“Your little Scarlet Letter,” he says.
“Uh, yeah, that’s one way to put it,” I say with a laugh. “You said you wanted to know what a mini-me was like, so here she is.”
Neither of them says anything right away.
They just stare at each other. Assessing.
It’s like they’re sizing one another up, getting a read on the competition, gauging whether or not they’ll be willing to share my attention. I’m not at all surprised when it’s Sasha that cracks first, but the words that fly from her lips nearly knock me on my ass.
“How did your face get all hurt?”
She points at him, right at his face, at his scar.
Lorenzo blinks at her.
Oh god.
“Sasha, baby, you know we don’t—”
“It’s fine,” Lorenzo says, cutting me off, his gaze on her. “You want to know what happened to me?”
She slowly nods before cutting her eyes at me, like she’s worried I’m going to be mad. Not him, no... she’s not worried about him. If she were, she wouldn’t have asked that. I’m the scariest one in the room, apparently.
Lorenzo hesitates, like he’s considering how to answer, or even if he still wants to answer. But eventually, he says, “I got hurt a long time ago by a very bad man.”
“What kind of bad man?” she asks.
“The kind that liked to call himself my dad.”
Her eyes widen. “My daddy is mean, too.”
“I know,” Lorenzo says. “I’m glad he never hurt you like I got hurt. I tried to make it so he couldn’t.”
She processes that, her brow furrowing, before she says, “Will your face get all better?”
He shakes his head. “It’s stuck like this.”
“Does it hurt?”
I see Lorenzo’s cheek twitch.
I think maybe he’s done entertaining questions, but he answers before I can chime in.
“Sometimes,” he admits. “The eye hurts. It doesn’t really work anymore.”
“It got broken?”
“Yes.”
I’m not sure if she understands the concept, since his eye is still there. It still blinks and moves, looking pretty normal except for the lighter coloring.
She frowns, but it only lasts for a moment before her expression brightens. She holds up her bear, as if he’s never seen it before. “Maybe you can give yourself surgery like Buster! His eye got broken, too.”
“I think that’s enough for now, sunshine,” I say, squeezing her in a hug before standing back up. “Go ahead to the kitchen and find something to drink. You can have anything but the rum.”
Leo laughs from the hallway.
She starts to leave when Lorenzo clears his throat.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sasha,” he says.
“You, too, Mommy’s friend,” she calls back as she runs out of the library.
Sasha. He called her Sasha.
He used her name.
My eyes sting. I can feel the tears welling up. There’s a lump in my throat that’s getting harder and harder to swallow down.
As soon as she’s gone, Lorenzo looks at me. “I swear to fuck, Scarlet, if you start crying right now, I’m going to throw you out of my goddamn house.”
“I’m sorry, I just—”
“Don’t apologize to me.”
“Ugh, okay. I’m not.” I try to shake it off, clearing my throat. “That was just really nice of you. I didn’t expect you to be so...”
“Nice?” he guesses. “I’m not an asshole, you know. Well, I am, but not that much of one. I was a kid once. I remember what it was like when adults were assholes. I’m not going to do that to her. Besides, she’s yours, so I didn’t really expect her to make this shit easy for me. Her mother sure as fuck doesn’t.”
No, I guess I don’t.
Pausing, I reach up, pressing my palm to his cheek again. He grimaces but doesn’t move, doesn’t pull away, although I can tell part of him wants to. “Do you, uh...?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you at least like The Force Awakens?”
He stares at me. “I haven’t seen it.”
“Wait, what? How can you call yourself a fan if you haven’t even seen the new movie?”
“I’ve been a bit busy lately,” he says. “Dealing with you has taken up a lot of my free time.”
“Oh, whatever. That’s bullshit. You had enough free time to put together a gazillion piece puzzle. You’ve got time to watch a movie, and you know it. I’m just... I’m ashamed of you. Legitimately ashamed.”
“I’m guessing it’s good, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I shrug. “I haven’t watched it. Been too busy.”
Lorenzo pulls my hand away from his face and laughs.
Genuinely laughs.