Chapter 6
The day had gone by surprisingly quickly for Pid. He left Monica at his house while he ran out to get some grocery shopping done early, before the store got crowded. He’d hoped to find her more relaxed when he returned, but that hadn’t been the case.
Elodie had stopped by, as he expected, with two casseroles and a bowl of saimin.
She was practicing making Hawaiian dishes, and saimin was a soup dish with wheat egg noodles, seafood stock, green onions, thin slices of kamaboko, and Elodie had added shredded nori.
Pid hadn’t been so sure about the dish at first, but he’d grown to love it after living in Hawaii for a while.
Monica had been polite but distant. Pid could tell Elodie was a little disappointed, though he recognized the spark of determination in her eyes. It was obvious she would do whatever she could to make Monica loosen up.
After lunch, Lexie had stopped by with a stack of clothes for Monica to choose from. She hadn’t seemed bothered by the other woman’s reticence, babbling on happily about how Kenna was sorry she couldn’t stop by, but hoped to meet Monica before she had to leave.
It was now dinnertime. Pid had dished up some of the chicken and rice casserole Elodie had brought over, and he and Monica were eating out on his deck. He had a small table out there he rarely used, but it seemed appropriate to do so now.
Monica hadn’t talked much, but Pid tried not to take it personally. He’d never met anyone as quiet as she was. “I’m sorry you haven’t gotten to see much of Oahu yet,” he said, desperate for some sort of conversation.
Monica’s gaze met his, and he watched her swallow carefully before picking up a napkin and daintily wiping her mouth. The woman had impeccable manners. Pid felt like a Neanderthal compared to her.
“It’s been one day,” she said after a moment.
“Still, this is an amazing place and I’d love to share some of it with you.”
Monica shrugged.
Several minutes went by before he tried again. “You don’t talk much.” It wasn’t really a question, so much as an observation.
She sighed and put down her fork. “At my house, it was frowned on to talk at the table.”
“Really? I mean, I always thought dinner was a time when families caught up on what everyone had done during the day,” Pid said.
“Not my family,” Monica said. “Besides, Dad knew what my mother and I had done all day because he’d been right there.”
“You didn’t go to school?” Pid asked.
“No. I was homeschooled.”
“Did you do any sports? Participate in any activities outside the house?” Pid was fairly certain he knew the answer to that question, but asked anyway.
“No.”
That was it. Just “no.”
Pid was disappointed by her simple answers.
Every minute he spent in her presence, he wanted to know more.
He leaned his elbows on the table and said, “As you’ve seen, I’m not that keen on conventional rules.
I’m messy. I argue with my boss. And I’m not overly concerned with always doing the polite thing. ”
“Like not putting your elbows on the table?” Monica asked.
She didn’t smile, but Pid knew she was teasing him.
“Exactly,” he said with a grin. “It’s obvious you don’t like to talk about your family, and that’s okay.
But in my home, you can do whatever you want.
Talk with your mouth open, eat dessert first, lay around and watch TV all day.
I don’t care. I just want you to relax, Mo.
I have a feeling you haven’t relaxed much in your life, and while you’re here in Hawaii, it’s a perfect time for you to do just that.
No one here will judge you. Or hurt you.
Or make you do anything you don’t want to…
well, besides be here in the first place,” he finished lamely.
Monica stared at him with her big blue eyes.
He could see the confusion there, and the longing.
For what, he didn’t know, but he wanted to give her anything and everything she needed to feel more comfortable.
The kicker was that he knew she wouldn’t ask for it.
Her left hand was a painful reminder of what happened when she asked for assistance with anything.
“Mo?” she asked.
Pid chuckled. Figured that was what she focused on out of everything he’d said. “Yeah. You seem like a Mo to me.”
“What does a Mo seem like?” she asked.
Pid shrugged. “You.”
Her lips twitched, but not enough for her dimple to show itself. “You’re weird,” she said.
Pid laughed outright at that. “Yup. I’m an electronics nerd, as I’m sure you gathered by the amount of computer parts in your room.
I’m clumsy as hell. I live in Hawaii, yet prefer rainy, cloudy days to sunny ones.
And my house is usually messy as all get out.
I’m weird all right. But I am who I am, and I’m all right with that.
Life is short,” he told her. “I could live my life trying to be perfect, to live up to the expectations of everyone I meet, but that would drive me crazy. I’d be unhappy and an asshole.
So I let most of that shit roll off my back. ”
Monica’s gaze was glued to his as if she was soaking in his words, straight to her soul. So Pid continued.
“I had a good childhood. My parents were great, and even when I fucked up by skipping school and smoking pot with some friends, I always knew they loved me, and I was never scared of what they’d do to me if I made a poor decision.
I can’t pretend to understand anything about your childhood…
but I can admit that I’m glad your father is dead.
I feel sorry for your mom, while at the same time, I’m pissed at her for not protecting you the way she should have.
“But, Mo, somehow, you survived. You got out of there. And look at you. You’re successful, your charges love you enough to make sure you were safe from that situation in Algeria, and you’ve got a backbone of steel.”
“I have baggage,” she said.
“Who doesn’t?” Pid replied. He wasn’t sure how they’d ended up having this intense conversation, but he wasn’t sorry about it.
“I’m not trying to make light of what happened to you, but honestly, the human race is fucked up.
I’ve seen things I never want to think or talk about ever again.
Horrible things. But I’ve made a conscious decision to not dwell on them.
If I did, I’d be curled up in a ball somewhere, my brain a pile of mush.
“What happened to you doesn’t define who you are. It says more about the kind of people your parents were than it does you. Your dad was an abusive bully and your mom was weak. You are neither of those things. You’re a survivor. You’re Monica Collins—and you’re pretty damn amazing.”
Pid couldn’t regret the tears he saw in Monica’s eyes. He wanted her to know how much he admired her. He had a feeling no one had ever praised her before.
Eventually, she got control over her emotions—which again, didn’t surprise Pid—before saying, “I guess Mo is a better nickname than being called Stupid.”
He smirked. “Yup.”
“Stuart?”
He loved hearing his given name on her lips. “Yeah, Mo?”
“I’m not good at this.”
“At what?”
“This. Idle chitchat. Being…friendly. Other than with kids.”
“You don’t want to talk, you don’t have to talk,” Pid told her.
“It doesn’t bother me. I can babble away.
I just don’t want you to be afraid to talk to me.
You want to talk about makeup and nail polish, awesome.
You want to talk politics and the state of the world, fine.
But if you want to sit there and let me run my mouth, that’s completely all right too.
“You’re safe with me, Mo. I know right now, you might not believe me, but for as long as you’re here, whether that be a day or a week or a month, I give you my word.
I’ll even go out on a limb and say the same for my teammates.
Mustang, Midas, Aleck, Jag, and Slate are also safe zones for you.
And their women. Elodie, Lexie, and Kenna.
Hell, even Carly and Ashlyn. You don’t have to be anyone but who you are around them. Understand?”
“No.”
Pid chuckled. “I love your honesty.”
“It’s just that…I know myself. I’m standoffish. Downright unfriendly at times. People don’t like me,” Monica said.
Pid’s heart nearly broke at her words. “I like you,” he said quietly.
“But you’re weird,” she said.
He couldn’t help but smile. “True. To be honest, so are you. We’re all weird in our own way.
Be your own kind of weird, Mo. Own it. Who cares that you’re an introvert?
Everyone in the world can’t be an extrovert.
We need people who prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch and observe.
To be the voice of reason when we need it the most. Just know that whatever happens while you’re here in Hawaii, you’ve got people who will have your back. ”
Monica looked down at the food on her plate and took a deep breath before lifting her head and meeting his gaze once more. “This is really good. Elodie is an amazing cook.”
And just like that, the heavy emotional talk was done. Pid was all right with that. He’d made his point. “That she is. Her story is pretty amazing too.”
“Her story?” Monica asked.
“Eat,” Pid said, gesturing to her plate with his head, “and I’ll tell you how we met her. We were on a ship near the Middle East, discussing how we were going to get onboard a hijacked cargo ship, when a female voice sounded over the radio…”
For the next twenty minutes, Pid explained Elodie’s harrowing story and how she came to be living on Hawaii and married to Mustang. By the time he was finished, Monica had cleaned her plate and was leaning forward, listening with interest.
“It’s hard to believe all that happened, considering how open and friendly she is,” Monica said.