“What is this? I’ve been meaning to ask, but then I thought I might look dumb because I didn’t recognize it.”
I winced when I felt its weight as I picked it up and tucked it carefully under my free arm. There was no way it hadn’t hurt when it’d landed on his ankle.
“My brother brought it back for me from a trip to Greece. It’s a weight fishermen used on their nets centuries ago before moving to metal ones. I had it mounted on a stand because I thought it looked so cool, but now I’m rethinking that.”
I hadn’t expected that explanation and took a closer look as I placed it on the counter in the kitchen. The stone was oval-shaped, and you could see the chip marks around the hole in its middle, which had then been smoothed over by something. They’d probably done the last bit so any sharp edges didn’t cut the line or rope.
“Huh, that’s pretty neat.”
“I thought so,” Remy said from right behind me, making me jump. I hadn’t heard him come into the room, let alone walk up so close. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Giving him a smile over my shoulder, I shifted to the side in case he needed to get something from where I’d been standing. Instead of doing that, he just tilted his head and looked at me until Toby made a farting noise with his mouth.
“I’ll take him while you unpack, then we’ll order something for dinner,” he suggested, reaching out for his son. “Why don’t you take the bedroom next to his.”
It all sounded so domesticated and normal. It also sounded nice… too nice.
The change in Remy was amazing, but at the same time, I was just waiting for something to flick his switch and for the old version of him to come back.
Yes, I believed people could change, but that quickly? That completely? Granted, at twenty-three, I was young, so I hadn’t experienced enough to say it was impossible, but I also wasn’t stupid.
What Pawpaw had said before he’d left yesterday hit me as I walked up to my room, only stopping to pick up my backpack on the way.
“People change, and that change can either be slow or in the blink of an eye. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt while keeping your guard up until you’re satisfied the change is going to stick. If you were in the man’s shoes, you’d want people to believe in you, too, wouldn’t you?”
Given that he’d been my own personal Yoda since I was little, it was hard not to hear the words and for them to resonate with me.
SEVEN
SANTANA
11.57 pm…
I felt like I was doing something illegal. Just to say, I wasn’t, but it definitely felt like it.
I was lucky that my laptop had almost silent keys as I tried to reach and exceed my word count for the day, otherwise, I’d be screwed. The only light in my room came from my screen and the little light I had attached to my computer, and every time I heard even a tiny noise, I’d freeze until I was sure it wasn’t Remy walking around.
Really, him finding out I wrote books wasn’t the end of the world, but I just didn’t have it in me to answer his questions or for him to read the books. Yeah, I was that sure he’d read them if he knew, even if it was just to be polite, and I couldn’t hack it.
What if he thought I was a psycho because they were thrillers and didn’t let me look after Toby again? What if he thought I was a pervert because they were also graphic romance novels? What if he hated them and thought I was a loser?
Picking up my notebook, I frantically scratched out a note for one of my characters, so I didn’t mess up a detail later on, then froze when I heard a floorboard creaking outside my room.
“Tana?” Remy called softly, tapping on the door.
Almost frantic with panic, I flipped the little light off and slammed the lid of my laptop shut, praying I hadn’t just broken the screen or deleted the words I’d managed to write. Shoving it under the comforter, I turned the lamp on and watched as Wrecker paced to the door, his little butt wagging with the force of his tail.
“Yeah?” I croaked, then realized I probably looked like a total dick.
I’d found a pimple before I’d gone to bed, so I’d put some toothpaste on it, hoping it would make it disappear by morning. It’d worked when I was a teenager, but what did I know about acne back then versus acne at the age I was now. Maybe as we got older, they became wiser to our tips and tricks to get rid of them, a bit like tonsillitis and antibiotics.