Chapter 12—Simon #4
I move closer until my arm brushes hers.
Christa looks down at the escritoire. “Don’t.”
Tate doesn’t stop. “That’s what this started over. You couldn’t get pregnant, you got obsessed with doctors, then you started acting like I was the problem because I wouldn’t jerk off into a cup on command.”
The room has changed for me. The ridiculous parts of this call are gone. So is the satisfaction of hearing Tate panic.
Christa’s face tells me exactly where she is now, back at that dining table with his father discussing her body while Tate let him do it.
Tate keeps digging. “We were fine before you turned having a baby into your entire personality.”
Christa lets go of me.
“Stop,” I say.
She turns her head.
“I’m not talking to you.”
Tate gives a harsh laugh. “There’s your new protector.”
“Simon.” Christa says my name quietly.
I look at her.
She gives one small shake of her head. Her eyes are bright now, but she isn’t asking me to rescue her.
I hate it, but I step back.
Christa moves the phone closer. “Are you done?”
“No. I’m not done.” Tate’s voice rises again, all of his fear and humiliation pouring into cruelty because Christa is the person he knows how to hurt. “You want to destroy my future because you’re embarrassed I got your sister pregnant when you couldn’t give me a child.”
Christa doesn’t move.
Her face empties so completely that I want the shouting back.
Tate delivers the last sentence with vicious satisfaction. “Maybe Nichols will have better luck.”
I want to take the phone and put Tate through the nearest wall.
Christa reaches for it before I can. “There is something I want.”
He almost crows with delight. “I knew it. Name it, and it’s yours as soon as the challenge disappears.”
Her tone is cold. “I want your total emotional, financial, and social ruin.”
He protests with a sound instead of a word.
“Goodbye, Tate.”
“Christa, don’t you dare hang up on—”
She ends the call, and the room returns to the faint hum of the conservation lamp.
For several seconds, I don’t trust myself to speak. Christa doesn’t either. She places my phone on the table with exaggerated care, lining it up beside the folded cloth as though its position matters.
Then she walks across the room, retrieves the coffee she confiscated earlier, and brings it to me. “Your beverage privileges are restored.”
I take the mug. “That seems unrelated.”
“I need mine, and yours was in the way.”
“Ah.”
She retrieves her coffee and drinks some before making a face. “Cold.”
“I can fix that.”
“I know where the microwave is.”
I try to sound normal and suppress my sympathy. “You’re very independent.”
She quirks her lips. “Apparently, it’s one of my more exhausting qualities.”
I follow her toward the kitchen. She makes it halfway there before stopping so abruptly I nearly run into her.
Christa turns to face me. “I’m okay.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were going to.” Her voice is thick.
I nod. “I was deciding.”
“That’s asking with extra steps.”
I put my coffee on the nearest table. “He was cruel.”
“He’s been cruel about this for a long time.” She looks back toward the room where my phone still sits. “I just stopped making excuses for him.”
I touch her waist and wait.
Christa closes the distance herself, resting her forehead against my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her, and this time there are no jokes to cover the first few minutes. Her weight settles against me by degrees until she’s no longer holding herself apart.
When she finally lifts her head, the shine in her eyes has receded. “I don’t want every day with you to be about Tate.”
I touch her cheek to wipe away a lone tear. “Neither do I.”
“I don’t want him taking up all the space.”
“He doesn’t get my house.” I manage a slight smile. “You could take his though.”
That startles a laugh out of her. “I like yours better.” She glances toward the sitting room. “The escritoire is here and needs me.”
“So do I.” There’s no testing in my voice now.
Her expression softens as I catch her around the waist before she can escape, tickling her. The laugh I get from her is quieter than the ones from earlier, but real.
Christa kisses me before slipping free. “You can hold the light.”
“That’s all?”
“For now.”
I follow her back to the escritoire.
My phone remains on the worktable where she left it. Tate doesn’t call again.
Christa positions the lamp, shows me where she wants the light, and returns to the section she was working on before Jai called. I stand beside her and keep the beam where she directs it.
After several minutes, she reaches for a tool and pauses. “Simon?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t move the screw.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
She looks up at me.
I reconsider. “I was thinking about it.”
“I know.”
Christa takes the screwdriver out of my reach and goes back to work. I imagine the ways I could take apart Tate but ultimately keep holding the lamp. I’m willing to dig a hole if she needs me to, but she’s earned the right to drop him first.
I remind myself it’s just a grim metaphor because I’m so angry with him for hurting her. No one is taking him down that way.
Unfortunately.