What, did he have night vision or something?
I was still standing directly where he’d left me when he came back.
“I didn’t.” I paused. “What’s rolling them up going to do?”
He showed me a few seconds later by rolling them up and managing to keep them in the same place.
“Rolling them up makes the waist smaller,” he said as his knuckles ran against the soft skin of my belly before pulling away completely. “See?”
I did.
“Oh,” I answered.
He caught me around the elbow and started to lead me back through a maze of hallways.
For it being so close to the back deck and the kitchen on one side, you had to practically follow a map to get back to the kitchen from his room if you went through the house.
“Your dad told me you just broke up with your fiancé of two years.”
CHAPTER 5
Work hard. Make it happen. Fuck people up if they get in your way.
-Text from Sabrina to Faye
SABRINA
“Isn’t that a little invasive to be looking for information like that with someone you just met?” I asked carefully, feeling my ire rise.
It wasn’t this man’s fault that I had a bad taste in my mouth when it came to Cole.
But Cole literally was an asshole, and I couldn’t stop myself from reacting when it came to thinking about him.
“About two weeks ago, yes,” I started, tamping my reaction down. “We were supposed to get married last weekend.”
I felt his hand twitch on my elbow where he was dragging me through the hallways.
“Why do you sound like you want to stab me right now?” he questioned, sounding amused.
I gritted my teeth hard. “Because, as you know, I broke up with him not long ago. Which I don’t know why my dad told you, but whatever. And you should maybe ease into a topic like that. Or hell, not even bring it up at all. My ex triggers me.”
I expected an apology.
Fool me for thinking that.
“Your triggers are your responsibility. It isn’t the world’s responsibility to tiptoe around you.”
I blinked at the words that this man, the man that had always been painfully honest, said to me.
“Um, what?” I asked carefully.
“You heard me.” He refused to repeat his words. “You want something done right, you do it yourself. You want something someone else has, you work your fuckin’ ass off and get it. If you want someone to be respectful of your triggers maybe you should make them to where they can’t trigger you anymore.”
Damn. He did say that.
“So you don’t think that people should be respectful when they know that someone could be easily hurt or offended?” I asked. “I just broke up with my fiancé of two years because of his caveman thinking…”
But, where it was annoying coming from Cole, it definitely wasn’t coming from my hero.
“We’re not seeing each other,” he said. “We’re not friends. We’re… something else. I don’t know what.” He tilted his head to look at me. “The world is a harsh place. Trust me when I say this shit won’t ever get easier. Take, for instance, my sister. She was hurt in a way no woman should be hurt. Violated to the point where she was scared to be in a room with a man in it. At work, they gave her special accommodations that made it to where she didn’t have any male patients. At least, they were supposed to. You want to know what they did anyway? They gave her male patients. Because life is a bitch, and you can’t ever count on someone else. You can only count on family or yourself… and sometimes, you don’t even have family you can count on fully. So yeah… you want real? Here’s real. Make it to where the world can’t hurt you. Be a bitch. Fuck everyone and everything. You do you, and fuck everyone else.”
He had a really good point.
The world would never accommodate me. Even if there were people that were supposed to.
“I feel like we got really far off topic,” I admitted as I pulled the leg bands down over my cold toes. “But I feel like it was something I needed to hear.”
Maybe I was too nice.
Maybe what I needed was to look out for myself, and not anyone else.
Maybe it was time to put me first.
“Probably,” he said. “And this thing you have with being in a roomful of people? Them looking at you? You need to get over that.”
Just after he said that, he once again led me into the living room with all the people in it.
This time, they were all gathered around the long table that ran the expanse of the room, and they were playing what looked like dominoes.
It was then I realized that I could see.
“Whose turn is it?” Cannel asked. “Y’all are taking forever. I don’t know my next step.”