20. Gilli
Gilli
W ell, that was pure torture.
The four of us gathered around the table, with the delicious scent of fried chicken between us, and almost complete silence.
Aiden put forth a valiant effort at conversing but the palpable tension made me want to crawl out of my skin.
At least the chicken was hot and the mashed potatoes fresh and not from a box. Soren dumped half the container of gravy on top of his and started chowing down like he hadn’t had a decent meal in a decade.
I was equal parts horrified, impressed, and jealous.
It might be the only fast food place in town, giving me qualms about its quality, and damn, it’s delicious. Hot and salty and everything I crave.
I’m feeling so much better now that I’ve eaten. I try to relax and shake off the strain of the day. My hair is loose around my shoulders and my stomach full and happy with the chicken.
I sneak a guilty glance at Tase under my lashes, hoping Soren is too distracted to notice. He’s focused on Aiden and some joke about a fisherman with a leak in his boat.
When I look over to Aiden, his attention flicks to me like he knows.
Guilt is keen and serrated and slicing through my insides. Seems like I’m racking up the guilt these days despite my best intentions.
Who am I kidding? I’m not doing a good job of keeping my hands to myself.
A throat clears and I turn to Soren to find him staring at me too. He’s been doing it more and more lately, although not the glares I expect. They’re hard looks, ones I feel like a physical touch along my skin.
Aiden and Tase both do their best to lighten the mood but it’s clear things are more strained now than usual. Did something happen after I left today? Or is this just an additional thing because of me?
“Thanks for dinner, Tase. That chicken is delicious.”
“I guess it’s normal to call him by his name after working hours are done.”
My attention jerks to Soren. “And why not? Would you rather I start calling you by your last name? Nice to see you, Savage . Have a good day with your head up your bum hole, Savage ?”
Tase swallows over a snort before he crunches into another piece of chicken. Aiden is more open and good-naturedly ribs his cousin before reaching for another breast from the box.
He then pulls out a crispy drumstick and places it on my plate. “Last drumstick goes to Gilli,” he announces as if it’s some grand award.
“I’m full.”
“You had a wing and some mashed potatoes, after not eating all day,” Tase pipes in. “I guarantee you’re not full.”
Soren scoffs. “Let her do whatever she wants. She’s an adult, isn’t she?”
I agree with him. Not the tone, but because I don’t want them to push me or hover over me. Having a protector at my back is one thing, but having them crowding me is an entirely different beast.
I consider smiling at Soren only to find him watching me like an ant under a magnifying glass.
“She won’t tell you,” Tase begins conversationally, “but she almost passed out at work today from not eating.”
“What?” Soren snaps.
“She isn’t really eating when she’s home, either.” Aiden drums his fingers on the table and leans back in his chair. “Noshes like a little bird and probably goes hungry more often than not.”
The peach pit in my stomach grows and weighs as much as an anchor. “Oh, you’ve been watching me?”
“I watch you constantly, Gilli, don’t kid yourself.” Aiden’s tone stiffens my spine.
“You need to eat more,” Soren adds gruffly.
He sounds more condescending than concerned. I’m not in the mood to deal with him tonight.
“Typical. You go from cold to domineering in the blink of an eye.” I offer the statement like a snide aside, meant solely for Soren in this case, but no one laughs.
Soren stares at me with his fork clenched like a mini pitchfork in his hand. “Typical, eh?”
I shrink in on myself a little bit. The attention shouldn’t be on me. Not like this.
Is it not possible to have a normal dinner where we aren’t at each other’s throats? I thought it might be possible until they started in on my eating habits.
“I eat,” I tell them. “And maybe I’ll have a little more to eat in a bit after I’ve had time to digest. Satisfied?”
Aiden gentles, his eyes liquid. “We’re just a little worried about you is all. This isn’t the first time we’ve noticed you don’t eat as much as?—”
“As much as who?” I interrupt. “You don’t know what my eating habits are. This is the first time we’ve been together like this.”
“Honestly? You’re right.” Aiden looks around the table to his cousin and his friend. “But you’re here, and since you aren’t leaving, it’s impossible to ignore your habits. I speak for everyone when I say we’re concerned.”
“Especially since you refuse to tell us why you’re here in the first place.” Soren sneers in a way that makes every hair on my body bristle. “We know you’re running from something.”
“You have the look,” Tase agrees.
A chill rattles along my spine. “The look of what?”
“The look of someone with her past nipping at her heels and closing in fast.” Aiden is solemn.
I’m not sure I care for it. Soren scoffs again, his arms crossing over his chest, but he doesn’t disagree.
“My secrets could get you hurt,” I finally say with a heavy sigh. “It’s safer if you don’t know. I’m running, and they’re fast. So stop pushing.”
I can’t tell them everything, yet I can’t keep lying to them. That feels wrong.
“There are three of us to help with whatever it is you’re up against, Gillian,” Tase says softly. “It can’t be something impossible for us to handle.”
Soren leans forward on the table and uses it to push himself up. He’s a bulky brute underneath a thin layer of civility and I wonder, when he’s showing his multi-million dollar high rise apartments, if his clients consider him the same way. A lion in a suit.
“It’s time for you to come clean,” he says.
My nostrils flare. “So you can use it against me? So you can judge me even more harshly than you’re already judging me?”
He winces. “I’m sorry I’ve given you the worst impression of me. We’ve got our shit, but?— ”
“You want to make sure my shit doesn’t darken your doorstep,” I interrupt Soren. “I’m obliging you.”
He shakes his head. “I want you to get out. I’ve been clear about it, because you’re a problem in my life.” His voice is actually softer than I’ve heard it before. “You come and make me care about you and it throws things into a spin and I fucking hate it.”
“ Stop it . You don’t care about me.” My heart thumps against my ribs.
I see in a flash of insight how it could be if I got close to these men. Any of them. If we started acting like the fucking family his father once claimed we’d be.
I never felt like family had my back. Not really. The ones I counted on were Suz and Lorie because they were there , they were present for the daily struggles, and wherever the chips fell, I knew they would step up.
Not to mention we had nowhere else to go. No one to lean on outside of each other.
With the marriage, there might have been a few more bodies now related to me legally, but we weren’t the way a normal family would be. My mother and Soren’s father, they’ve always been too wrapped up in each other and content to let their children fend for themselves and make their own way in life.
Soren hasn’t answered me, though. Aiden chuckles and says, “Wrong. We care about you. You’ve given us no choice. You’re too sweet for us to ignore. We want to help you.”
He found his way, but he’s not content to let me find mine. Not when my “baggage” is there on his doorstep, like a child playing a prank and lighting the paper bag on fire.
Having him hate me is safer, though, because I know how that feels. I understand the richness of the emotion. Unexpected at first until you think about it and it just makes sense.
Having him care makes no sense .
“Will you tell us who’s chasing you?” Tase asks gently. “And why?”
They’ve ganged up on me. I’m not having it.
I push away from the table and stand. “I appreciate your concern, boys, but I’m handling it. I just needed time to regroup. I wasn’t sure where else to go, so I came to Jersey hoping no one would track me.”
Aiden nods like he’s satisfied with what little I’ve said. Tase looks let down, like he was expecting more from me. And Soren…well, Soren is just Soren and always will be.
“Bear with me, please. Another few days and I should have a better handle on things. Then I’ll leave. You have my word on it.”
That’s all I can tell them for the moment. The others fall into murmured conversation the second I leave the kitchen. Their voices are a low baritone that follows me as I walk down the hallway into my room.
I might want to be out of here in a few days, but something tells me that’s wishful thinking.
I haven’t made any progress on figuring out what to do with my situation.
Maybe if I head into the police station and show the cops the message threads I’ve found online, they’ll take me seriously.
Although I highly doubt I’ll be able to get the level of protection necessary against the guy, if what everyone says is true.
I could move to another state. Make up a fake identity. Be an entirely different person. With what money? Yeah, that would be expensive.
A smaller voice whispers Let them help.
It’s a pipe dream to think Tase, Aiden, and Soren would be able to do anything, no matter how assured Tase sounds.
Maybe their concern isn’t the worst thing in the world, no matter how uncomfortable I am with it. A girl could get used to being cared about, to having people at her back.
That’s what scares me the most. If I let myself lean into their concern and offers of protection, then I’ll come to rely on it, and what will happen when I leave?
Or when they disappear?
Then I’ll be back to the old way of doing things and it will be that much harder because I’ll know how it feels to have the help.
It’s like falling in love. Once you find your person, if things don’t work out, how can you ever go back to the way it was before?
Nothing else is going to compare, and I’ve been through so much already.
I’ve got to keep looking out for number one. Which means getting this handled and disappearing. At least Soren will be happy.
My brain feels overtaxed with all the secrecy, the lies, the tension. I just want to curl up in bed and lick my wounds in private. But first a shower.
They’re still talking as I head to the bathroom. Let them. The situation could hardly get much worse, right?
I take a quick shower, then wrap myself in a towel and hustle back across the hallway to my room, shutting the door tightly behind me.
I glance at myself in the mirror above the dresser, my hair dripping and the towel clenched in frozen fingers. My legs are shapely but my thighs are too big, my hips too wide, and my ass?—
The bedroom door suddenly slams open hard enough to hit the opposite wall as Soren storms into the room.
“What the hell, Soren? Don’t you fucking knock?” Christ, my heart’s jackrabbiting in my damn throat.
I scramble for clothes but they're in a pile near the door and Soren is blocking them with his body. Uh oh.
Soren looks like he’s about to explode. Something is wrong. What happened?
He says nothing. Only holds out his phone and flicks a finger across it so the screen lights.
My throat seizes. There on the screen is one of my earliest cam girl uploads. I’m naked, on my back, playing with my nipples. My legs are clamped shut but it’s only a matter of time before I open them.
“Care to explain?” he asks, his tone deadly neutral.
No. No, this can’t be happening.
Soren isn’t watching the video. He’s watching me, but I can’t look away from the glowing screen.
My heart plummets. They found me out.