The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

It would’ve been nice if such things could heal that big bleeding hole.

It only dulled the edges of the pain.

So obviously I turned on a megawatt smile to hide it.

“Don’t you two have like, jobs or homes to go to?” I asked cheerfully, walking toward the kitchen and snatching my reusable coffee cup from the counter.

“I don’t have a job since they kept sending me home,” Lucy huffed.

“Babe, you couldn’t fit behind your fuckin’ desk,” Keltan said dryly.

“Make one more remark about my size,” Lucy shot. “I dare you, soldier boy.”

I smiled as I filled up my cup with hot water and tea.

There was a pause.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Lucy said. “Keltan owns his place and the whole point of owning a business is so you don’t actually have to go to work.”

“Not the point of owning a business, at all, babe,” Keltan cut in.

“How is it that you have the bravery to continue baiting a pregnant woman with access to a knife?” she asked curiously.

Keltan chuckled. “Lucy, I confiscated your knife about three months into your pregnancy when you threatened to slash the tires of the guy who cut in front of you at Taco Bell.”

I fastened the lid and grinned at Keltan. “Good call.”

He grinned back at me.

He was one of the only people whose grin was almost genuine. Maybe because of what he’d experienced from war. Because there were parts of him that had been broken and he knew that there was no healing them by treating me like glass. I was sure Lucy and Rosie knew this too, since they had experience with pain, but they didn’t want to admit it.

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever, dude,” she muttered. “If this kid’s a girl then I’ll be sure to hide all of the firearms on her first date, see whose laughing then.”

Keltan’s eyes darkened. “No fuckin’ way is my daughter dating until she’s forty,” he hissed.

I laughed.

It was almost genuine.

“We’re here because we thought we’d take you out for breakfast,” Lucy said, deciding to go back to ignoring her husband. “This new healthy vegan place just opened in Santa Monica and it’s supposed to not actually be terrible.”

Right.

This was just one in a long line of excuses that had one or both of the two of these people at my door.

It was part of the ‘wait for Polly to fall apart’ schedule.

I didn’t blame them. Firstly, they loved and cared about me. And second, I was Polly.

So there were impromptu breakfasts, shopping trips to decorate nurseries, movie dates. Lunch dates.

And in Rosie’s case, a day at the gun range. Or she’d planned it to be a day, but it had to get cut very short when I refused to touch a gun.

“As much as I love a good vegan restaurant, and I love watching you trying to eat vegan food without insulting someone’s fashion choices, and I do,” I smirked at Lucy, “I’ve got a class to go to.”

Lucy’s pretend smile dimmed immediately.

“What?”

“A yoga class,” I clarified, moving across the room to strap my yoga mat across my shoulder. “It’s part of my teaching certification.”

“No, you can’t go to yoga,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked, meeting her eyes. “Because I’m meant to be passed from one person to another, to be coddled and protected from the very world that has already done the damage?” I smiled. “No, Luce. As much as I appreciate and love you for everything you’ve done, and I do, I need to get back to my life.”

I hadn’t told Heath about this.

Not because I didn’t think he’d let me go. I knew he’d support me moving back toward my old life, even if I was just going through the motions. I hadn’t told him because I was scared of where that conversation would lead. Terrified it would lead to somewhere I couldn’t control my emotions. Somewhere too close to the truth, the past.

“There’s no rush,” Lucy said, stepping forward. “I know you’re Polly and you’ve been in a rush to do everything including leave the womb six weeks early, but this is something that you do not need to rush.” Her voice was only slightly more than a whisper when she took my hands in hers.

“I do,” I whispered back. “Because rushing was my life. It kept me sane. Kept me, me. Staying still doesn’t work for me, Luce. It works for you and it warms my soul that it does, but if I stand still for much longer I’ll scream.”

Lucy gauged my words. With shimmering eyes and pain in her face.

She squeezed my hands again.

“Okay. I get it,” she said finally. “I don’t get the whole yoga thing, it sounds fucking insane, but I get the rest. And I do kind of get we’ve been hovering. I know it’s selfish of us to suffocate you like that.”