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She pauses before offering two quick words. “It was.”
“I’m going to lay it all out there with you, not because I want to scare you off—because I really don’t—but because I want to lay a foundation of trust between us.”
She sucks in a breath, and I stop my pacing.
“I don’t know whether the house I’m in was funded with drug money. I don’t think it was. I bought it in foreclosure, and not as a business asset, and did a significant reno to it. But if it was, it’ll be seized, or I’ll need to sell it. The man you saw on Friday was readying to launch a business but had a job and a home. Today, only the first is true.” Tilting my chin up, I stare at the ceiling, exposing my throat physically and figuratively. “You need to know the baggage I come with.”
The sigh that comes across the line is deep. “I’ll take an honest, ethical man over a rich one a hundred times out of a hundred.” There’s a long pause before she adds quietly, “And you don’t know my baggage.”
“But I want to, Angel. I want to.”
“I know, Ci. I want that too.” I scan the street, always watchful. “I’m just scared.”
“Can we be brave together?”
There’s a longer pause than I’m comfortable with, and I wait, holding my breath, wondering what my fate will be.
“I’m willing. Please don’t give up on me. I want to try.”
“I’d take that one hundred times out of one hundred opportunities, Sariah. And for you, a hundred thousand out of the same.”
“Cian.” My name is a prayer on her lips.
“Right here, Angel.”
“Can I be there for your surgery?” She sounds nervous, and that breaks me.
“I’d love that. By then, I might not be at my sister and brother-in-law’s place. Ayla’s holding on by her fingernails… half love, half threats.”
“Okay?” Her voice is questioning.
“They have a McMansion so I could live in one wing, andthey’d never know, but Ayla is acting like out of her sight equals out of her life, so it’s been different. I’ve been alone a long time. Just me and Eleanor anyway.”
“Eleanor?”
“My dog. She’s a highly trained incredible pound puppy.”
“That you named Eleanor.” Her voice holds a smile that bleeds through the line.
“It fits. You’ll see.”
“What’s that smile about?” Ayla calls from the doorway.
“Is that Ayla?” the voice at my ear asks.
“Yes,” I offer Sariah while squinting my one good eye at my annoying little sister.
“Gimme.” Ayla makes a grabby gesture at my phone.
“I—” It’s the last thing I get out before the phone is swiped from my good side and my sister plops on my bed to chat with my… My what? My girl? My lady?
All I know is she is my past and she is my future.
Sariah
“Sariah?” My name sounds foreign in a voice I can’t mistake.
“Yes.”
