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Her eyes drifted shut, and when she opened them, Galen stood at the foot of the bed. He was naked except for a towel fastened around his hips, and his black hair was absolutely wild. His expression was one of utmost gravity.
“You got me out of that place. I’ll owe you forever.”
His intensity flustered her. “Oh stop. All I did was bail you out. I was lucky the bail bond office was still open. It wasn’t even that much money. Simple assault and battery, your first offense, blah blah.”
The thing she didn’t tell him, couldn’t tell him, was that she’d had to borrow the money from her parents. She’d asked for enough to bail him out and to hire the best defense lawyer she could find.
They’d struck a hard bargain, one she didn’t want to tell Galen about yet.
His frown deepened with each word she spoke. “I really fucked up.”
“What happened?” She beckoned for him to join her on the bed, but instead he wheeled away and paced around the room, past the TV cabinet, to the window, then back.
“He ‘took responsibility,’” he spat. She could hear the air quotes crystal clear. “Forgave himself. Moved on. Made some boundaries between him and us. The way he talked, it made me sick. Like he’d seen the light and moved beyond any kind of guilt over the shit he did. ‘I forgave myself.’ Well, good for him, but what about me? What about that kid whose world you fucking blew to bits? Doesn’t he count for anything?”
Brenda knew it was a rhetorical question, and held her tongue. Galen linked his hands behind his head, his back to her, tension screaming from every line of his body.
“It was the therapy shit that really got me. Like all he did was go to therapy and learn a bunch of words he could use to let himself off the hook. And maybe fool some people too.”
“He didn’t fool you.”
“Fuck no, but only because I know that’s not what therapy is. It’s about being real with yourself, not letting yourself off easy.” He turned around and faced her, looking thunderous. “I don’t regret punching him in the face. I just wish I hadn’t broken his nose. He paid a lot of money for it. On second thought, maybe I don’t mind after all.”
She laughed despite herself, and slowly a wide grin broke through his stormy mood. “Don’t laugh, I’m up a creek if he decides to press charges. How many wilderness trips does it take to pay for one nose job?”
“I bet he’ll want to move on.” Brenda wasn’t quite as confident as she sounded, but close.
“How do you know that?”
She didn’t want to tell him yet that she’d talked to a lawyer and paid him a retainer. He might ask where the money came from, and she wasn’t ready to share that information.
“Have you forgotten that I write crime thrillers? He’s a former criminal who’s got a new gig in the legit world. Above all else, he won’t want to mess that up. If he goes through with a trial, all kinds of information will come out. Maybe his reality show knows about all that, but he still won’t want to stir it up. My prediction is that he’ll drop it, or maybe try to get some money from you.”
“I’m not giving him a fucking cent. I’ll punch him again if he asks.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“He deserved it.”
“Why do I feel like I’m with my fourth graders right now? Of course he deserved it. But there’s a reason we don’t hit other people. Because we might go to jail and jail is a very scary place.” She smiled brightly at him, hoping her teacher persona would cheer him up.
“Are you trying to say that civilized people use our words to settle conflicts?”
“Exactly.”
“You know I’m not civilized.” A flash of heat in his whisky eyes. “I’m a barbarian.”
“Can we go with civilized in the streets, barbarian in the sheets? And sometimes the two get mixed up?”
He threw his head back in a laugh, and finally, the last vestiges of the traumatic night seemed to roll off his shoulders. “I can live with that. Speaking of sheets…”
He advanced toward the bed. “Woman. Good. Mine.”
She made a show of scuttling back toward the headboard like a heroine in a monster movie. “Oh my! What kind of beast are you?”
“A horny beast.” He ripped at the knot holding his towel up, then winced. “Ow. Also a clumsy beast. Hang on.”
She laughed as he worked the knot. Galen could always make her laugh because he was always, purely, authentically himself. In her eyes, that made him like gold. It was worth sifting through gravel, like a gold-panner, to find someone as true-hearted as Galen.
