Grievous (Scarlet Scars #2)(105)

Sasha doesn’t argue, trudging out of the kitchen. Once she’s gone, Scarlet slips into the chair across from me. I can tell she has shit she wants to say, so I just sit here, waiting her out, sipping from my juice pouch, knowing she’ll get to it eventually.

Her voice is quiet when she finally speaks. “What are you doing, Lorenzo?”

I glance down at myself, just as confused by that as Sasha had been about wearing her breakfast. What does it look like I’m doing? “Sitting here.”

“No, I know that, I just mean... what are you going to do now?”

“Probably keep sitting here for a while.”

She smiles softly. “What’s your plan?”

“For today?”

“For every day.”

“For every day,” I repeat, not sure how to answer that. “I’ve never been good at making plans, Scarlet... even worse at keeping them. I kind of just get up and go and hope for the best.”

“Any idea where you might be going?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On how long it takes you to quit beating around the fucking bush and tell me what it is you want,” I say. “Because the rate you’re going, I might not ever make it out of this chair.”

She makes a face at me, like I’m being a pain in the ass, but I’m not a mind reader. I’m not in the business of making assumptions, so while I could guess what she’s getting at, I need her to just be straight.

For her sake.

For my sanity.

Because there’s a kid off somewhere in my house, probably flooding my fucking bathroom, and she needs us to be on the same page about this. If there’s going to be a ‘we’, it’s not just ‘her’ and ‘me’, since there’s also a little ‘she’ that has to be factored in somehow.

A little ‘she’ that complicates shit greatly.

“I’m just trying to figure out where I fit,” Scarlet says. “Trying to see if there’s even a place in your life for me.”

“For you both, you mean.”

She nods. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for, Lorenzo. That’s why, when Declan gave me your message, I tried to respect it, and I still will. I understand if we don’t fit in your life. It’s okay. But I just need to know. Because if we don’t fit here, I have to figure out where we do. She’s been through too much for so much of her life to be uncertain. She deserves to belong.”

“So do you,” I say.

Scarlet doesn’t react to that, just staring at me, waiting for something more.

“Look, your plan is what matters here,” I tell her. “Don’t try to squeeze yourself into somebody else’s life, like you’re just a guest in their universe. Because yeah, that’s fitting, but that’s not belonging. I could fit my cock in a million holes, but that doesn’t mean my cock has any business being in any of them. So why don’t you tell me what your universe looks like, Morgan... what life looks like for you and Sasha... and then we’ll decide if I belong there.”

She stares at me for another moment, like maybe she doesn’t know what to think, before finally, she says, “I just need it to be a place where we can be ourselves—where she can be who she is, and I can just be me. I don’t care if there’s a picket fence. I don’t need a boy to turn into a stupid bird. I just... I want to be happy.”

“What makes you happy?”

“You do,” she says quietly.

I think about that, those words bouncing around in my skull. “How do you feel about Florida?”

“Florida?”

“Nothing permanent, just maybe get away for a while, you know, decompress. The guys can handle business here. It’ll give my brother a chance to do his own thing without me looking over his shoulder and breathing down his neck, and it’ll give us a chance to test the waters a bit.”

“Florida, huh?”

I nod. “Florida.”

Scarlet’s quiet for a moment, staring off into space, before Sasha comes running back into the kitchen, not much cleaner than she had been.

“Hey, sunshine,” Scarlet says, grabbing the girl, pulling her toward her. “How do you feel about Florida?”

“What does it have?”

“Uh, sunny skies.” Scarlet glances at me. “Alligators, maybe? Help me out here.”

“Beaches,” I say. “Oranges.”

“A lot of oranges,” Scarlet says. “Oh, and Disney World is in Florida, too.”

Sasha’s eyes widen. “Can we go, Mommy? Please?”

“If you want to go, sure.”

A grin lights up her face as she leans over, cupping her hands around Scarlet’s ear, whispering something to her.

Whatever it is makes Scarlet’s smile grow, a laugh escaping as she says, “Of course.”

The kid lets out a squeal as she runs away, literally running in my house, yelling, “I’m gonna tell Buster!”

She’s gone in a blink.

I stare at Scarlet in silence for a moment before curiosity gets the best of me. “What did she say?”

“She wanted to know if Mommy’s friend could come with us to Florida,” she says. “She likes the way he makes his pancakes and she thinks it’s funny that he doesn’t tie his shoelaces.”