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“Oh.” She looks a little embarrassed, not making eye contact with anyone while she nods.
Luis reaches over and grabs her chin, forcing her eyes to look at him. “You are perfect,” he says to her firmly.
Then he looks over at me with disapproval. I quirk an eyebrow at him, not understanding what the issue is. He gestures at her with his eyes. Looking at her sad countenance, I realize my mistake. You asshole.
“Getting healthier is not a reflection on your personal appearance. You are a beautiful woman.” I assure her, but my words don’t seem to help much. She looks uncomfortable.
“What are you thinking right now?” I ask her.
She considers me for a moment, remembering our conversation yesterday. “That you don’t need to placate me. I know what I look like.” She says it firmly, her chin raised in a defiant show of strength.
“Look at me,” I demand in a low voice. Her eyes snap to mine immediately. So responsive. “You are a beautiful woman. I guarantee you every man in this room finds you alluring.”
She breaks my gaze to look around the room, making timid eye contact with each of the guys around the room. Jackson and Micah are grinning ear to ear, Lukas nods, and Luis just winks at her, which causes her to blush fiercely.
When she makes it back to me, I make sure to hold her gaze, lowering my voice. “Drink it.”
Keeping her eyes locked on me, she raises the straw to her lips and downs half of it in one go.
“Good girl.”
Someone, probably Jackson, clears their throat and then we all get back to eating. I notice as she steadily eats everything on her plate including the protein shake. She catches my eye and I give her an approving nod.
“Probably worked up an appetite with all of that physical therapy you did,” Micah says, putting emphasis on the words. Lukas coughs into his glass, Luis’ head snaps up to glare at Micah, and her face turns almost purple.
Jackson is bouncing his eyes back and forth between everyone in the room, an amused grin on his face, clearly wanting to know what the inside joke is. You and me both, brother.
I try to catch her eye, but she is steadily avoiding eye contact. Instead, she seems to find great interest in rolling a green olive around her plate.
Luis clears his throat. “This is a good time to mention the new development. We found a small tattoo on the back of her ear. It’s a small number 6.”
Seemingly grateful for the change of subject, she turns in her seat and pulls up her beanie, flattening her ear forward so we can see it.
“Interesting,” I say.
“It doesn’t look professional,” remarks Luis. “But it doesn’t look like it was done with a pen or anything like that, it’s definitely the work of a tattoo gun.”
“Prison tat?” Jackson jokes, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes and smack the back of his head. Micah does it for me. “Ouch! What? I was kidding,” he laughs.
“Well to be honest we don’t really know, do we? It could very well be a prison tat, or some kind of livestock tag even.” She laughs it off, but the laugh doesn’t come across as genuine.
Lukas is surprisingly the one to break everyone’s train of thought.
“Well, come on ‘Six’,” he says, reaching out a hand to her. “A little birdie told me you might enjoy learning to play chess. How about we start now?” She smiles gratefully and allows him to lead her from the room.
“At least I have a name now,” she says, grinning, as they walk out the door.
The rest of the afternoon flies by in a lazy sort of haze. I finish setting up my temporary office, Jackson keeping me company for a while. Micah and Luis watch a boxing match on the TV in the living room. Lukas teaches “Six”, as we are all now calling her, to play chess. And by that I mean he teaches her and then she proceeds to beat him. And me. And Micah.
The more she plays, the more she wins. She seems to have the uncanny ability to learn what her opponent is most likely to do, and then she uses it against them. It’s honestly amazing.
After dinner- lasagna with buttery garlic bread that Six has now proclaimed is her new favorite food- we all take a walk around the property, sitting on the stairs to watch the sunset. And despite the looming pile of things to figure out, the DNA results, my father, whatever Luis is up to, and the full mystery that is Six - despite it all, I feel relaxed.
Before we all head to our separate rooms for the night, I show Six where her nightclothes are so we can help her into them.
“What is this?” She says, holding up one of the nightgowns I bought her. It’s a soft, grey cotton slip.
“Pajamas.” I state plainly, helping slip it on over her head before she unclips her bra and pulls it through the top of the low hem. Luis helps remove her leggings, and I notice that he’s making short work of it, all business and no flirt. I wonder what that’s about.
