I glanced at Tray. Smirking, he averted his gaze. He was leaving this one all for me.
Wuss.
“No, I won’t. Because I’m going to start fighting again.” I sucked in a breath and let it out again. “Tray’s okay with it.”
“I think okay is a bit of an overstatement, since she just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago. But I’m dealing.”
He’d also deal when I set up a rematch fight with one Ms. Evelyn Pierce. That wasn’t a maybe. That was a when.
“I’m better off mentally when I’m fighting.” I lifted a shoulder and winced at the pull in my arm. I was always forgetting it was broken, which was kind of ridiculous considering the pain it still caused me. “I need that outlet, otherwise my mind just spins.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps you could also try other, safer outlets.”
“Oh, don’t worry. We still have rough sex too.”
Tray coughed into his fist.
“I won’t be fighting for a while obviously,” I added, pointing at the cast in my lap. “So if the medication helps, maybe I’ll change my mind by the time I’m in fighting shape again.”
I highly doubted it, but I was trying to be more open-minded.
The conversation went to other usual topics. A bit about the Olivia situation—which wasn’t much of one, because I had no evidence except a bunch of phone calls and a few texts—and what it meant for our relationship with Slater. I didn’t have much to say about it. Tray had nothing.
Slater wasn’t responding to us. Period.
It hadn’t been that long since everything had exploded at the fight, so I was trying to convince Tray to give his best friend time to come to terms with everything. He wasn’t nearly as patient as I was. His solution was to break down Slater’s door and force him to talk to us, and then knock some sense into Slater for falling for a psychopath. His phrase not mine.
Probably not the best approach.
And I wasn’t even going to get started about his desire to see Olivia in jail. I didn’t know if that would ever happen. She wasn’t bothering me anymore. That didn’t mean I wanted to forget the whole thing, but I’d adopted a wait-and-see approach.
Tray answered a few questions about his parents, and his mom in particular. She was still living with us, but she’d found an apartment to go see next week. She hadn’t mentioned filing for divorce or anything that permanent, but we were trying to take it day by day.
That was pretty much our life motto at the moment.
“Mia’s recent change in financial status has to have impacted your lifestyle.” Dr. Phelps consulted her notepad. “I imagine it’s been a big transition.”
The biggest transition I’d been dealing with lately was not sticking my big nose in Carly’s love life. She’d gone out with the Salad Hut dude again, and I hadn’t said a word. I also resisted try to put a lock on her jeans when Giovanni came around, something he was doing with distressing regularity now that Tray and Slater were on the outs.
I still didn’t like the guy, but nothing was going on with him and Carly that I could tell. And everything was all quiet on the Lorenzo front.
For now.
Tray locked his hands behind his head. “Not really, because Mia won’t touch the money.”
I frowned. “That’s not exactly true.” Mostly true.
Aunt Patty hadn’t exactly enjoyed being confronted about the settlement money, but she’d handed the bulk of it over with surprisingly little argument. She hadn’t wanted me to pursue legal action, though that had never been my intention. She’d already spent some of the cash, and I’d told her to keep a large chunk. The rest she’d given up fairly willingly, saying the Lord would provide.
Why that hadn’t occurred to her when she’d hoarded all the money that wasn’t rightfully hers in the first place, I didn’t know.
“Do you feel undeserving of good fortune, Mia?”
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t help it. “What do you think?”
Tray cleared his throat and I tried again. He was trying in spite of his many reservations when it came to therapy, so I had to also. Even when it was hard.
Especially when it was hard.