Casanova(60)

“A good asshole.” I laughed quietly. “That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”

“Maybe...” She glanced down as she smiled. “But you kept it up when you didn’t need to. Three years, Brett? That’s dedication.”

“They need me.” I slide her hand down my face to her lap. “I don’t do it because I want to. I do it because I have to.”

“But why do you have to?”

“Because someone has to. Where would they be—where would their kids be—If nobody cared enough to help them? Do you have any idea what they go through? It’s hell on Earth. If the kids are lucky, they see bruises. If they’re unlucky, they have their own. I can’t wring their husbands’ necks, as much as I’d like to, but I can do this. I can make sure they get to smile.”

Lani kept her eyes trained on me. “You see yourself the way everybody else does, don’t you?”

“I see myself the way I know I am.”

“I think you’re horrible,” she said quietly. “I think you’re brash and rude. I think you don’t consider the consequences of some of your actions and you think everyone will do what you want because of who you are. I think you’re spoiled and sometimes, really freaking not great to be around.”

I wanted to speak, but the shadowy glint in her eye told me not to.

“But I also think you underestimate yourself.” Her pink lips parted and she sighed. “I’ve seen hundreds of truly cruel people, Casanova, and you aren’t one of them. It’s an outer shell for you. Beneath that you have such a big heart. I don’t know why you won’t show it to anybody, but I’m thankful I got to see you to show it to people who deserve it. And for everything that you do that you refuse to take credit for, I think you’re really quite wonderful.”

I reached out and trailed my fingertips across her hairline until I tucked her hair behind her ear. “Would it make you happy to write about what I do?”

“Yes, but only because I think everyone sees you as some beast, when you’re not.” She looked down and turned her face into my hand slightly. “Today...you reminded me of the person you were in high school. The good guy always looking out for people. It made me realize he’s still in there somewhere.”

He was still in there. That guy has always been a part of me.

I just forgot him when I lost my best friend.

“Write about it,” I said softly. “If it matters that much to you, write it. Just don’t name the shelter, Sali, or any of them. Don’t even tell the location. Just...say what I do.”

“Really?” Her gaze snapped up to mine. “Why the change of heart?”

“Because it’s important to you.”

“But is it important to you?”

“No.”

She leaned back, making my hand fall away. “No? You don’t care?”

I shrugged and smiled. “Not really, kitten. I know what I do. I know I’m not the person they think I am. I told you; I don’t need their approval for anything I do. I don’t need credit or recognition because I don’t help Sy or Eliot or Hilaria or their moms or anybody else for myself. I do it for them. Nobody else was gonna buy Sy a scooter today. Nobody else was gonna help Hilaria make her mom a daisy chain necklace. Nobody was gonna make it possible for Eliot to race Sy. Nobody was gonna throw a party or put in a surprise grocery shop so Sali doesn’t have to bother this week.”

Fuck.

I didn’t mean to say that.

“You…you did that?” Lani stared at me, her mouth open. “For real?”

My gaze flitted from her to the sea several times before finally resting off somewhere in the distance. “Yeah. This morning, before you came over. It’s Sali’s birthday tomorrow, and nobody is allowed to make a big deal out of it. So I bought food for the main kitchen for a week instead of getting her a present.”

Lani covered her face with her hands and looked up as her fingers dragged down the sides of her nose. She dropped her head back for seconds before she stood and walked away from me. Barefoot, she padded across the sand and closer to the shoreline. She stopped right as the wet sand met the dry, and even from where I was, I could see how her toes sunk into the wetter, darker sand.

I rubbed my hands over the back of my neck. She was right. The two sides of me didn’t mesh, but how did she get that? How did she put together the guy who wanted to fuck her voice out of her with the guy who did what I’d done today? There was no way to do it.

The puzzle pieces didn’t fit.

The sides didn’t go together.

Unless you put her in the jigsaw.

Then it worked. She went in the middle. She made the sides of me make sense.

She always had.

And she had no idea.

I stood up and slowly walked toward her. “Lani,” I started softly.

“How?” She wrapped her hands around the back of her neck. “How does somebody so seemingly egocentric, selfish, forward, and self-obsessed do something so kind and giving and perfect on such a regular basis?” Slowly, she turned to face me. She slid her hands down the side of her neck. “How the hell does such a fucking self-centered asshole become such a selfless, hopeful light of a person in such little time? Is there a switch? Is there something inside you that makes you go from one to the other? How, Brett? How does that happen, for the love of fucking god?”