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I strode over to her and pulled her into my arms. With my nose buried in her hair, I said, “This stops here. No more hiding, no more drinking to deal with hard days, none of it. We’ll deal with the tough stuff together, and I’ll be by your side while you toss this habit like I just did that empty. I’m serious, Storm. You’re done as of now.”
Agatha tried to pull away, but I easily held her in place. She was so small and feisty.
“You’re not in charge of me, Carmen. Get that idea out of your head. I’m not going to be bossed around by a…a…man!”
My voice was even and matter of fact. “Well, darling, until you can prove you’re making better choices for yourself, you most definitely will be. I’m not going to watch you self-destruct.”
Her small frame wilted in my embrace, and I felt her body begin to tremble.
Shit, is she crying?
I didn’t dare loosen my hold on her, though, and have her bolt from the room like I’d seen her do before. Instead, I leaned back from the waist to get a better look at her face. Okay, so no tears, but her entire body was shaking in my arms.
“Talk to me, baby. Why are you shaking like this?” Every conversation was a learning opportunity at this point in our relationship. I felt like carrying a notepad around to keep track of the hundreds of new things I learned about her hour by hour.
“Frustrated,” she mumbled with her face buried in my chest. My dress shirt would surely have makeup battle scars, but the dry-cleaning bill was worth her opening up to me.
“Okay, thank you for naming the emotion. Why are you frustrated?” I asked, and in the back of my mind I could hear Elijah’s voice.
I’d heard him talk like this on so many occasions it was rubbing off. I’d never been to a therapist’s office, let alone spent money on being counseled by one. But he swore by the service. Couldn’t even disagree in the moment that the talk track was useful in getting to the heart of the matter in front of us.
Then, like I’d witnessed before, she took a deep breath and completely erased all expression from her face. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t a fan of this parlor trick. Why had she learned how to do it in the first place? Who in her life couldn’t handle real feelings that made her think she had to don a mask of complete indifference?
Christ. Did I really want to know? Did I really want to get in deeper with this girl? But I already knew the answers to those questions didn’t matter. It was already too late. I was completely into this woman, and I would do whatever it took to make the best of our life together.
Chapter Eight
Agatha
Well, if it wasn’t clear before, it was glaringly obvious now. I was in deep shit with this man.
Why did I keep going to pieces emotionally around him? All he had to do was wrap those perfect arms around me, and I lost my composure. Yes, our bodies seemed to be built for each other. Yes, I fit perfectly against his chest when he held me close. Yes, he smelled better than anything I could even think of to compare his unique scent to.
It must have been the combination of all those things, plus the other things I hadn’t quite put my finger on yet, that made me forget all pretense and simply feel. Just be.
And the fact that he allowed me to just exist while he protectively stood by was the highlight of this whole arrangement.
Because I knew damn well that feeling and surviving in the moment were the two quickest ways to have your heart ripped out and stomped on by a man. Been there, done that bullshit. Had zero interest in repeating the experience.
Each time I forgot myself and expressed feelings around Carmen, he saw the pathway to burrow deeper into my heart. So each time I realized what was happening and quickly schooled my features into an expressionless mask, my husband grew more suspicious. Honestly, the man didn’t miss a thing. He was more observant than any man I’d ever dated, and maybe even more so than most people I knew.
Boyfriends of the past would notice a change but shrug and go about their own business. Too much effort was required to dig deeper into my behavior, so it was ignored by most. People didn’t really want to get to know me better. Most often, they just wanted to know if I had anything they wanted or if there was something in particular I could do for them that another couldn’t.
Figuring out how often I was used made me very jaded when it came to dating. Poor Carmen hadn’t tasted that bitter attitude pill yet, but it was just a matter of time until that side of my personality showed itself too. I figured by that time he would be so fed up with my shitty brashness about everything else, it would be the final nudge over the edge and into the abyss of exes.
In my imagination, I saw a bunch of past dates and boyfriends lying at the bottom of a ravine. Broken limbs and bleeding gashes prevented them from doing more than lying there and whimpering as I peered down into the big pit. I laughed maniacally in my daydream and realized I was doing the same thing in truth.
Carmen stared at me with a trace of trepidation. It just made me laugh harder.
Maybe I was losing it? No job, no actual place to live. A man I just met was the only one to take pity on me and insist we move in together.
When I did tell my family the news, I didn’t expect them to put up a fuss about the arrangements. Knowing how that was going to hurt made me hesitant to have the conversation. I’d just be one less kid my parents had to deal with. Two down, three to go.
Maybe they shouldn’t have created so many extra humans if they were just going to ignore them in the long run? Just a thought. Nasty, yes. But the truth sometimes was.
“You okay?” he finally asked when my laughing died out.
“Yep. Perfect, as a matter of fact,” I said after a solid shoulder shrug, I abruptly changed the subject. “I found these duffels. Should help, right?” I held up the bags with a death grip and tried to get my shit together on the inside. Hopefully he didn’t see the way my hands were trembling before I dropped the totes on the bed like hot coals.
