No Perfect Hero(24)

In the only pub in town.

Remember to breathe, I keep telling myself.

It’s a job. And with Wilma letting me stay rent-free – and promising I can come up to the main house to see her any time, when part of the large building is private family quarters – I've got this.

This being the most crazy, humbling position I've had since...ever.

But I’ll be able to put my tips and wages aside for my Chicago fund. I don’t know how long it’ll take. Maybe a month or two, if I’m lucky.

Of course, I’ll have to ship Tara back home to her mother in a couple of weeks, as school draws nearer, but until then we’ll just have a little fun. I can make sure she’s bedded down and safe before I leave for work every day. Wilma told me that although Tara would be perfectly fine in the cabin, really she’d feel better if my niece spent the nights with her, and I could pick her up when I got off shift.

I don’t know why it’s so much easier to accept Wilma’s assistance than it is to take Warren’s handouts.

Maybe because Wilma’s just giving me the hand up I need to do this on my own, while Warren keeps trying to buy me off like money is all that matters and I’m perfectly okay with letting other people pay my way.

I’m so not.

Right now, though, I’m not thinking about that.

I’m not thinking about the stilted phone call with Marie, which I hadn’t even wanted to make when I’m interrupting the first vacation she’s had in years, and it’s awkward.

We don’t talk about our feelings or our misfortunes if we can help it. Dad's ghost still makes us stop just short of acting like real sisters.

I know she's hurting over something. I hear it in her voice. She talks up Maui and its beauty and beaches, how her and John fell in love years ago the first time they went down the Road to Hana with its wicked, pinprick turns. But when I asked her if it felt like old times, there's something missing from her voice.

No spark. No soul. And no freaking clue what it means for her or her rocky marriage.

Poor Marie. Poor, closed off, confused Marie.

And poor John, too. If these two can't make it, I don't know who can anymore.

Feelings were one reason I fell for Eddy, snake that he was. He had a way of getting me to open up with this effortless charm, giving me this outlet, this relief. But now I can see how superficial and self-serving that charm was.

He only wanted me to talk to him because it made him feel good about himself. A shitty, psycho savior complex if there ever was one.

The fact that he was so good with women even the defensive, temperamental Haley West melted for him.

I guess once the conquest was over, the challenge wasn't so interesting.

No.

I’m not going down that path right now. I’m in my zen place.

Packed up, moved back to my side of the duplex and away from that asshole Warren. Tara happily watches rom-coms in the living room with an orange cat in her lap.

Whose cat, I don’t know. He kind of wandered up while I was bringing our stuff over from Warren’s, and I guess he’s ours now.

I can't mind it much while I’m out on the back deck with an easel, a canvas, paints, and a stunning view of clouds lit up from beneath in neon peach-pink colors until they glow like bioluminescent creatures swimming across the dusky ocean sky.

I’m happy, in this moment, as I look over the horizon and let my mind wander along idle thoughts of scene composition and color blends.

Until I hear the door creak open behind me.

My shoulders tense.

I already know, from the bristling cloud of stormy tension at my back, it’s not Tara.

Sighing, I pray for patience, but don’t look up from the horizon.

A faint groan of porch boards is my only warning before Warren shifts to lean on the deck railing next to me, propping himself on his elbows and folding his thick hands together.

Do I dare?

I do, risking a glance from the corner of my eye.

There’s a pensive knit to his brow, dark and heavy, adding somber lines to his handsome face. The shadow of stubble says either he doesn’t give a damn or he’s too tired to bother, and I have a sneaking feeling it’s the latter.

“Congratulations, Hay,” he says slowly, “you got your way.”

“It’s not about getting my way,” I bite off – then stop, setting my brush and palette down on the little folding table I’d set up, turning to glare at him. “You know what? You're right. It is about getting my way. Because I still don’t understand why my life or what I do with it has to be any of your business just because you’re from this town and I’m passing through. Renting the room next door doesn’t grant you authority in my life decisions, and I’m pretty damn confused why you think it does.”

Somehow, his silence is worse than any quip I could imagine.

I fold my arms over my chest. “So yeah. I got my way, no thanks to your grandma, who seems to understand personal autonomy a little more than you do.”

“Grandma doesn’t understand that the person who did this won’t stop at red paint and fake feathers,” he growls, his eyes flashing as he straightens, glowering at me like he’s going to stare me into submission. “I don’t give a good goddamn what you do with your life, as long as you don’t get killed on my watch.”