Chapter Seven
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Things are either what they seem, or not. You’re welcome.
Leora
Wolfe carries me steadily all the way to the door of Blackwood Barb, his tattoo shop, while Almond and Sterne bicker behind us about video angles and “the cinematic experience of an abduction.”
I spend the time wondering if I’m going to be back to Hunter’s Moon in time for my delivery or not, and if this detour in my day justifies ordering food from the diner in town for dinner. I’ve just decided that it does when Wolfe sends my stomach hurtling as he spins to address his posse.
“You two can go now. I’m going to talk to Leora privately. Alone. Without you.”
Almond’s frown reflects in the tattoo shop window. “But… we’re helping.”
“I can handle it from here.”
“But–”
“He’s handling it,” Sterne interrupts, nodding at Wolfe. “We had our fun. Now he can have the pleasure of dealing with the consequences on his own.”
And then? They do leave. Almond mutters complaints with every step away from us while Sterne hums and occasionally nods. I watch them go, stomach fluttering as they get farther away and Wolfe and I get more alone. Together. Just us.
He fishes jangling keys out of his pocket to unlock the door to his studio, and we become even more alone as he steps into the building. Him, and me, and the hum of the air conditioner while the door swings silently shut.
“One second,” he murmurs. “I’ll put you down by the couch so you’ll have a safe landing if you stumble.
” His waiting room swirls as he turns, showing me nooks and crannies I’ve never seen before—except for that time that my curiosity overcame me and I googled Wolfe’s business, anyway, but that was a gin-induced bit of terrible idea on a lonely night, so it hardly counts.
That same night I looked up his brother’s bar, my ex-boyfriend’s mother’s laundromat two towns over, and the obituary for my childhood crush’s great-aunt.
After that, I cried for two hours because the great-aunt had stars engraved on her headstone, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Then I woke up in the morning with my head pulsing to a photo of Amia waiting on my phone, and I vowed to never drink that much ever again.
Because how in the world could I ever think anything was more beautiful than Amia Blackwood? Ridiculous.
I am unexpectedly reminded of her beauty, and my reason for alcohol limitations, when Wolfe takes us into a different room.
I quickly ascertain that we’re in his office when my face orients with the wall, which is covered nearly entirely in photos of Amia and her artwork.
Shock spreads when I find my own artwork among her little-kid drawings and adorably chubby cheeks.
Envelopes framed to show off quick, last-minute doodles intersperse the space, and more than a few neon sticky notes with equally simple sketches are stuck straight to the wall.
The sticky notes, at least, congregate mostly behind his desk, where it’s clear that he opened a letter, found the drawing, and popped it in whatever free space there was on the closest wall to him.
The envelopes, though… those took time. Energy. Frames.
And they’re up there, nestled within treasured memories with his daughter—his greatest love.
My heart squeezes.
I have to admit… I’m having a hard time reconciling his current actions with all of the evidence showing how very clearly he values me and our friendship. It’s not making much sense. At all. Even a little.
“Going down,” Wolfe warns before bending to set me on my own two feet. I’m grateful for his smart thinking when I immediately fall backward onto a lush, blush-pink couch. I land on emerald pillows with a puff and blink up at my captor.
He nibbles his lip, and his pointy canine leaves a dent in the soft pink even after it’s gone.
His dark brows draw together, and his hands travel from his hips to his head to his sides and back, restless and unsure, a golden seal winking at me from the envelope he holds with every new place they land.
I transfer my blinking to the winking gold—to the letter I’d not realized he was holding. The letter I wrote him. The letter denoting my non-consent of precisely this situation.
Wandering, my eyes find similar envelopes in places of honor, and I gulp.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, regaining my eyes as well as my disbelief.
“You’re sorry?” I echo.
He nods, clutching at his letter—my letter.
“Yes. I’m sorry about this, and about Almond and Sterne, and about…
I don’t know. Existing, maybe. I just wasn’t sure…
and then Amia suggested… and then Sterne said…
and then Almond… and then I was there, you know?
” He drops to his knees to stare at me eye-to-eye so earnestly.
I almost want to tell him that Yes, of course, I absolutely do know, and all is forgiven.
Except.
“I think perhaps I would know a lot better if you were to finish a sentence. Or a thought. Or an explanation, most preferred.” I keep my voice as gentle as I can manage, not entirely wanting to hurt a person that I’m beginning to think isn’t as Real Life Man as I may have assumed, but he flinches as if I’ve hit him anyway.
I wince through his resulting apology.
“Don’t apologize,” I tell him. “Just… tell me what’s going on.
From the beginning, preferably. I can’t say that we’re one hundred percent cool at the moment, Wolfe, but I don’t understand what’s happening right now.
You’ve never come off in your letters as the sort of person to take a ‘no’ and blatantly disregard it. ”
“I’m not,” he replies. “I’m really, really not.” His shoulders rise and his chest expands before he exhales with a groan.
“The beginning,” I repeat. “I’m lost, and I need the map you followed to get here.”
A loose strand of white hair bounces over his forehead when he nods, and I let my focus stay on the soft fall of it settling against his skin as he takes us to the start of a dotted line that will lead us to the big, giant X.
“Poem’s house flooded,” he says.
My eyes dart to his as my eyebrows furrow. “You kidnapped me because Poem’s house flooded?” I ask. I’m interrupting, and I know I shouldn’t, but… he kidnapped me because Poem’s house flooded?
“No,” he answers. “Well, yes, but also no. It will make a modicum of sense as I go?” He leans back to sit on his heels. His hands fist and unfist against his knees, anxious energy begging for a release.
I grant it one.
“Oh-kay. Go on, then. I will keep my lips zipped for the rest of the trip.” I press my mouth as closed as it’s ever been.
Wolfe’s eyes soften, but his hands still flex a nervous rhythm.
He clears his throat. “Poem’s house flooded,” he repeats.
“Really bad. It’s fixed now, but she had to stay with Fox for a while.
While she was there, their… whatever it is they had going on came to a head.
It brought up a lot of Fox’s insecurities that I knew were there, but I’d been hoping would resolve themselves with time.
” He shakes his head and scoffs. “I’ve learned my lesson, now.
Time doesn’t fix anything. Attention, love, and facing the big, scary thing head on is what fixes things.
I didn’t give Fox any of that, even though I knew he was struggling, and I should have.
I should have done so much more for him.
I found him banging his head against every available surface in his office a few weeks ago, and even then, I didn’t help him.
I just took him to Poem like some kind of drop off service.
Here, I found this man in emotional distress.
Can you take care of that for me?” His fists unclench to allow for digging his blunt nails into his jeans.
“Poem was livid, as she should have been. Here’s my brother literally beating himself up over how worthless he feels and I didn’t even try to take care of him myself.
It was disgusting. Him being in so much pain in the first place was disgusting when you know that I could have done something to prevent it.
But I didn’t. I sat around, passively watching and worrying while my brother got worse and worse, and then, in the end, I still wasn’t the one who aided him in starting the process of healing. Poem was.”
His eyes darken, helpless self-judgment melting into a determination that sends my stomach fluttering.
“I made a vow to myself after they got engaged. No more passive Wolfe. No more watching people I love struggle. No more hoping and wishing and praying for the things I want in life when I could take a little bit of action to make them happen. I could have made my brother happier, and I regret every second of every day that I wasn’t brave enough to do it.
So I took a minute, and I thought of other ways I was being passive in my life, hoping and wishing and praying for better, and I thought of…
you. I thought of all the joy you bring me, and all the joy you bring Amia, and all the longing we both feel to be with you.
We love you so much. Your letters brighten our lives.
Your existence makes ours better. Amia asks me constantly if we can meet you, and I’ve always told her no.
Not yet. Eventually, maybe, but not anytime soon.
Passively enjoying whatever gifts of paper and pen you would send us, longing for more, but lacking the courage to ask for it.
“So I held one of your letters in my hand, and I thought of my brother and Poem and my daughter and all the ways my cowardice has affected them, and I pulled out my phone and I asked a scary question.” He takes a fortifying breath.
“And I got no answer. Until I did, but then… well, Almond had convinced Amia that kidnapping was romantic and Amia offered it up as a solution for my problems. I said no, absolutely not as I tucked her into bed, then I went down to the bar to ask Sterne to remind me why kidnapping is a no, absolutely not. I’m not proud of it, or anything that followed, because Sterne didn’t tell me no.
Instead, he dragged Almond the Insane into the conversation and the two of them strong-armed me into thinking it wasn’t as insane of an idea as I thought.
Until, you know, we got into the alley by Hunter’s Moon and I found my sanity again, at which point they literally shoved me through your door.
” His nose wrinkles. “And then you were there for the rest.”
I definitely was there for the rest. That is undeniable. Very there.
I blink at the man on his knees before me, then I pinch myself. Then, for good measure, I pinch him.
“Ow!” he grunts, rubbing his forearm.
“This is reality, then,” I murmur, brows furrowing. “What absolute ridiculousness.”
“I know it sounds far-fetched,” Wolfe says, leaning so far forward he hovers over my lap, puppy-dog eyes begging me to believe him.
“But it’s the truth. I’m not a bad person.
I’m just a little dumb, a little selfish, and a lot cowardly.
I need a backbone and a group of people more morally adjusted around me, but I don’t mean any harm, and I especially do not ever mean any harm to you. ”
“Shut up,” I mutter, narrowing my eyes at the genuflecting man.
“I need to think. For a moment.” Then, truly breaking the universe, I sit silently for multiple consecutive minutes while I do just that.
My lips do not move. My mouth does not jabber.
I think my thoughts inside as I process them, a brand new experience I hope to never have again.
How do people do this? The words and the sentences and the half-formed maybe-thoughts crawl all over each other, jumping and skipping through the spare spaces left between flitting contemplations.
In the end, two thoughts ring louder than the rest, trumpeting above all others to demand my attention.
Firstly, Amia is on track to one day join book club—a thought as terrifying as it is thrilling.
Secondly, the series of events as presented to me by Wolfe are so ridiculous as to be regarded as only one thing: the truth.
Wolfe is telling the truth. Meaning…
Wolfe is Real Man, but not in the way that Real Men usually are. Wolfe needs fixing, but he doesn’t need reformation.
I hum as my head tilts, and I consider the man before me. The background chatter of my brain quiets, then silences, and the back of my mind fills with anticipation as we all wait to see what I will do next.
I am not a woman who believes that I can fix a man.
You’ll never hear the words “I can fix him” pass through my lips.
Not again. I used to believe such a folly.
I used to see the world with big, naive eyes, and useless men with a rosy hue.
Those days are past, though. I’m wiser now.
Smarter. Less willing to hand my heart to a fixer-upper and hope they treat it right or, worse, hand the silly thing to a man who takes it before he shows me his cracks and crumbling foundation.
I was born with my heart already belonging to such a man, and I refuse to die the same.
Am I a woman who thinks she could drag an already good man into being a better one, though?
Could I, Leora Mouton, push a man until he becomes not only who he claims he wants to be, but until he becomes who I want him to be?
A surge of feminine power flushes through me. The heady weight of it makes my breaths heavier as my eyelids droop.
Oh, yeah. I could push a man.
And I could have fun doing it.