Chapter 33 Kaboom
kaboom
Lorien
I never have the presence of mind to plan ahead.
In school, yes. In research, of course. In the lab, it’s second nature.
In life, I’m the girl whose head was so stuck in a book, I missed the basics of being street smart.
Until June, when two men took advantage of my na?veté and I vowed nothing like that would ever happen again. So I have my phone. I’ve already called a rideshare, and my bag is packed.
I’m one hundred percent certain I’m missing something I need for my weekend at home. Whether that’s a dress or sleepwear or panties, I don’t know. And I do not care.
Liam pounds on my back door and calls my name.
I need sixty seconds. I need sixty freaking seconds as I watch the app. The Tesla that pulls in front of my unit barely makes it to a stop before I’m in the backseat and we’re heading out.
“DIA please.” Nutter Butter. He already knows that. He knew that when he accepted the fare.
I play on my phone, knowing this plan is terrible, that more can go wrong than right, and that I’ll need my game face in place before I land.
That shouldn’t be a problem. My flight doesn’t leave until the morning. Fourteen hours sitting in the airport should allow me enough time to run the gamut of emotions and place the worst week of my life firmly behind me.
The light of the sun setting warms my head and neck, and I drop my head back onto the seat. All too soon, we’re at the airport and I’m faced with hour upon hour of wandering, trying to sleep in public, and needing a charger, now that I think about it.
The TSA people must feel sorry for me, because they wave me through with next to no time in line.
I reach my concourse and stand at the top of the up escalators realizing my first mistake.
It’s too early to even know which gate is mine.
They haven’t been assigned yet. My stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten and what I did have is sprayed in the grass somewhere in Morrison.
I pick a restaurant with the least boring menu and take a seat near the window. I order a glass of wine and a salad with grilled shrimp and eat while I watch the baggage handlers fumble and toss people’s luggage from cart to cart.
The waiter has just set down my second glass of wine when a huge presence taps a tatted hand on my table. Looking up, I see the man I ran from take the seat across from me. “I’ll have whatever she had, except bourbon instead of wine,” he tells the waiter as he approaches. “And two waters please.”
The man who betrayed me before he even knew me, the one I felt safe with, even with no logical reason, dips his head to find my eyes that had been studiously examining the coaster.
“You ran away.” His voice is quiet but firm.
The waiter sets his drink down, along with two waters. “Another wine, miss?”
“Sure,” I offer sweetly, all the while staring at my husband whose face shows disapproval.
“Altitude, flying, vomiting. Your body will hate you for a second.”
I lift my glass in toast and offer a fake smile after the waiter walks away. “A third.”
“You left. You left me and didn’t tell me where you were going.”
“And yet, you’re here.” I take a generous sip of the terrible wine. “I’m assuming the cameras told you what you need to know.” My emphasis on the word cameras is not lost on him.
“And your phone.” He gestures to my device near the cutlery.
If I come unglued at the airport, is it a problem? On a plane, sure, I get it. But inside the airport, will that get me put in airport jail or is it the county who handles me? Me losing my shit might be worth it.
“I’m waiting, Wifey,” he damn near sing-songs.
“For what, William?” I hiss.
“For you to lay it all out there and tell me what’s on your mind. For you, uncensored, to let it fly.”
Three. Two. One.
Kaboom.
“Well, you asked for it.” Rolling my shoulders back, I lift my chin.
My will is steel and my voice is ice. “After those men violated the sanctity of my house. My safety crumbled. My security shattered. Instead of being protected inside the walls of my home, you spied on me, watched me, and desecrated my privacy. I didn’t know you.
It’s disgusting and it’s violating. I can’t imagine you”—I gesture to his broad chest and imposing stature—“know what it’s like to feel unsafe or small—”
“Sir, your salad. Miss, your wine. May I get you anything else? No?” The waiter scurries off before we can answer, knowing the time bomb that’s about to detonate.
“I want you to picture the most scared you’ve ever been, ratchet that up by ten, and assume you have no way out. Are you with me?”
He nods.
“Now assume the person who put you in that position is actually enjoyable, funny, kind, protective, and handsome.” Fudgesicle, I did not mean to say that.
“Assume you relaxed enough that you trust him. But every single day the situation you’re in gets more and more dire, so much so you cannot think or scheme your way out.
You have to trust someone. Just one person.
Because you only get one. And because you’ll lose your mind if you’re left all alone in the dark.
Now assume that person, instead of helping you and being who you think they are, pulls the rug out from underneath you and throws you into freefall.
Feels good right? Do you feel safe, William?
Do you like the danger you feel? Do your feet feel solid below you?
No? Maybe we should add some more to it.
Let’s assume you can’t escape it. Can’t go home.
Let’s also assume you have no way to escape.
You’re stuck and the one person”—I lift a finger to his face—“that one person you trusted ended up being the villain of the story instead of the hero. What then? How the hell do you react? Do you sit and take it? Accept it? Welcome it?” I drop my voice.
“I don’t think you know. I don’t think you have any fucking clue. ”
His head jerks back with my f-bomb.
Nevertheless, I continue, “What it’s like to be that vulnerable.
To be that afraid. And to be that stuck.
That’s me letting it fly. You’re you. You’re huge and hulking.
The tattoos, the eyebrow piercing, the shaved head tell the world a story you want them to see.
The thing is, it’s only a partial truth.
You are that man. Big, burly, formidable, scary.
But you’re also what Sariah said, the roots of a family that anchors them so they can soar.
Maybe you’re the one who isn’t so brave.
Maybe this”—I lift my hand up to his neck before pushing the air down—“facade is just a costume. Mine isn’t as pretty, but—”
“Stop.” The word is a dagger in my rant.
“Why? I thought we were laying it all out there. I thought we were getting raw.”
“You proved your point. Really well. And repeatedly. I was wrong and I’m sorry.”
“How many?” I interject, not allowing his words to be a balm to my wounds.
“How many what?”
“Cameras.”
He bites his bottom lip.
“Where are they? Did you watch me—” I throw a hand over my mouth. He didn’t, did he? He wouldn’t. Please tell me he wouldn’t.
He lifts his thick palm and looks around the restaurant where people have begun to stare. “Front steps, back yard, kitchen, dining, and living room. There’s nothing from the mouth of the hall back.”
My shoulders slump. Thank God.
“Why?”
His head tilts, and he looks to his salad in question before stabbing a bite. “I didn’t want trouble on my doorstep.”
“And I’m the trouble?” I place a hand over my heart and lift my eyebrows.
“Before? No.” He shrugs. “Or maybe. I wanted eyes on what could become a problem for me. I didn’t know you. It wasn’t personal.”
“Do not try to explain it away, like it’s no big deal and you were justified.” I slap the table, rattling the silverware.
“My father is a piece of shit who has been instrumental in the downfall of all of his kids. I’d say least of all me, but”—he extends the thumb on his left hand, staring into my face with hard eyes.
“I was out from under that snake’s thumb the day I turned eighteen, so he had less opportunity.
The man you see before you is a direct contradiction to that fucker.
” He points his knife my way, not in threat, but in emphasis.
“He brutalized Ayla. Cian, the same. You know them now, but they went through hell, literally, at his hands. My mom is still going through it. I protect my own. I am that man. I will not apologize for protecting myself and, Wifey, I hate to mention it because of our rules, but those cameras offered protection for you in the case that anything was off, in the case those people came back, in the case Troy came back.”
“What does he have to do with it?”
“How much truth do you want in one day? Have you reached your limit, or can you handle more?”
I let a huge exhale burst from my lips. “No more today, please.” I drop my eyes closed, recentering myself. When I open them, Liam is eating his salad as if my demons haven’t clawed up my insides to free themselves twice today. A thought strikes me that hasn’t before. “Why are you here?”
“You ran away.”
“I’m missing something.”
“You left. I was an ass. I needed to apologize.”
“But how are you here?” I point to the table, in the concourse past TSA. Only ticketed, confirmed passengers get to this point.
“Oh, I bought a ticket to Peoria. We’re on the same flight.”