Counterfeit Love

She took the bags from me, tucking them into the backseat, then climbed into the front, saying nothing.

And I let her mull it over as we walked up to the window to pick up our food, and drove back to my new place.

"There's nowhere to sit," she realized, belatedly, something that didn't seem normal for her.

"Nope, but luckily, I have this," I said, going into a box to produce a blanket I'd taken from the apartment since I didn't have one of my own. I flicked it open on the clean floor, waving down at it.

"I haven't had a picnic since I was a kid," she admitted.

"Me either. Think maybe my joints aren't going to like this. I know, I know, you're not quite at the 'my joints hurt when I stand too fast or sit cross-legged or sneeze to hard' point in life, but it is coming," I told her, watching as she sat cross-legged across from me, reaching into the bag to scatter the contents between us.

"I already have aching joints," she admitted, voice quiet. "I train a lot," she added, pulling the tops off of each container.

"What kind of training?" I asked, figuring if she was in the mood to talk, I was going to get as much as I could out of her, because I had a feeling this mood of hers would be fleeting.

"A little bit of everything. Krav Maga. LINE. Systema. Jujutsu."

"Kinda hot that you could probably kick my ass," I admitted. "How long have you been training?"

"About eight years."

"Do you do the Xena shit like Ferryn does?" I asked, reaching for my fancy Hamburger Helper type meal.

"No. That's all on her. I just train for self-defense. And exercise. But I'm not like Ferryn."

"She's your adoptive cousin, right?"

"Yeah. Her uncle, Cash, is the vice president of the MC here in town. And Cash married Lo, who runs Hailstorm. They adopted me."

"So you two grew up together?" I asked, noticing the way she stiffened at the question, letting me know we were getting close to touchy territory.

"No," she answered, avoiding eye-contact. "I wasn't taken in by Lo and Cash until I was sixteen. And then Ferryn left home. We never really connected until she came back."

Those were some interesting turns of phrases.

Lo and Cash took her in.

And Ferryn left home.

I wasn't an expert, but I felt those distinctions said something. It, at the least, implied that Chris wasn't your typical system kid.

Had she been a runaway? Had Lo and Cash found her, brought her in off the street, then just kept her on as a daughter?

And, as far as I could tell, Chris and Ferryn were pretty much the same age. So Ferryn didn't leave home. She ran away. At sixteen. Why?

What the hell had these two young girls been up to in their late teens? What had happened to make Ferryn so cold and violent? What had happened to Chris to make her so fearful and distrustful, so obsessed with her comfort zone, so anal about everything being just so?

I had no idea.

But I wanted to know.

And, what's more, I wanted Chris to tell me.

In a town like Navesink Bank, that information could likely be found pretty easily. And for a very small cost. But it felt unexpectedly wrong to go behind her back like that. What's more, I wanted to earn her trust enough to have her open up to me.

It wasn't like me at all.

But I had never been the sort to fight himself on shit. I wanted to get to know the beautiful woman with sad eyes? That was what I was going to do.

Without analyzing the fuck out of it.

I had a feeling she would do more than enough of that for the both of us.Chapter FiveChris"Finch, it is two in the morning," I grumbled into my phone, staring off into the perfect darkness of my room as I had been for the past hour and a half.

"And yet you sound fully awake. Were you waiting for me to call? I can read you a bedtime story if you want. But in this one, the princess will save herself, and then her man will service her properly for all her hard work defending her kingdom."

"Finch..." I was trying for stern and disapproving, but I could have sworn I heard humor in my voice.

It was a week and a half since we had picked out furniture for his new place. A week and a half since we stood in the middle of the furniture store arguing over cushion colors.

I mean, really, who wanted a lime green sofa?

Finch, that was who.

Though, a part of me was seriously wondering if he had picked the color just because he knew it would get a rise out of me after I had insisted the gray or the light brown would be best in matters of practicality. A gray or brown couch would wear much more gently than a lime green one. It was illogical to go for something crazy. Especially with a larger investment, like a couch, that would be around for years.