Page 24 of Love Finds Home

“Yes, we are suckers for a pretty girl.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” I tell him.

We’re making the last trip up the stairs, having sent Elle to the shop so she and Barbie could order us food, when Jorge finally looks at me.

“I don’t know what the two of you have going on—”

“Why does everybody insist that we have something going on?” I interrupt by asking out loud, but not directly to him. My thoughts are just loud today.

Jorge puts a hand on his hip and gives me that look. You know the one—the you’re a fucking dumbass look.

“Honey, anyone looking at the two of you can see there’s something going on. I just don’t know what. Are you enemies to lovers? Friends with benefits?”

“This isn’t a fucking romance book, and we aren’t friends.”

“Nice. Enemies to lovers, then.”

“We aren’t enemies.” Are we?

“Then what are you?”

“If I knew that, I’d be a fucking millionaire.”

“No, you’d just be fucking a millionaire. Which you already did.”

I do finally laugh at that because he’s right. I did bang a millionaire against the wall in this room.

“She didn’t tell me specifics. But I am going to tell you she’s a fragile heart. I know you hear the stereotypes about artists being flighty, or, you know, sensitive, and she is those things when it comes to her art. But as a person, she’s fragile. Just don’t hurt her. Please.”

I look at him and realize he’s being her friend and doing what a true friend should do. My respect for him grows. Yeah, I like this guy. He’s good people.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody. And I don’t want to be hurt.”

“Then you understand me.”

I nod my head. “I understand you. I also understand that I gave up women four years ago when I caught my wife fucking my brother. I will never put myself in that position again.”

He smiles like he just heard the funniest joke. “Oh man, this is going to be so much fun to watch.”

“What’s going to be fun to watch?”

“The two of you.”

“There is no ‘two of us’,” I remind him. “She is her, I am me. The only thing we have going is a transactional relationship where she pays me for the privilege to use all this shit,” I wave my hand over everything we carried up the stairs, “in this room.” I know my voice is rising, and I’m in defense mode. He might be her friend, but he does not get to be privy to my life or thoughts or feelings.

“Don’t,” he warns. “Do not minimize anything that you might have. I’m telling you I will personally rip your balls from your body if she ever sheds a tear and your name is attached to it. And I don’t give a flying fuck if that name is Jonathan or Cross, or fucking Ranger, or whatever fucking name you want to go by that day. I. Will. Hurt. You.”

I nod my head in acknowledgement, but don’t say anything in response. There really isn’t anything to say, is there?

“One more question, and then I’ll leave you to your broody, moody self. What’s the security like in this place?”

I perk up at his question. “Why? Is there something going on I should know about?”

“No,” he answers. Quickly. Too quickly. “There’s just a lot of money in this room right now and I honestly don’t want to do the fucking paperwork if something happens to it.”

I let his answer and lie slide, already knowing there’s something going on, and tell him about the security system while making my own plans to add to it. If there’s something to worry about with Elle, I want her safety to be the least of those worries.

We make our way down the stairs that lead into the shop, and when I get a glimpse of her, I’m reminded of the first time I saw her when she was talking to the girls. She’s having a moment of stillness now and she might be the most beautiful creature I’veever laid eyes on. Her pain drapes her body like a cloak, her eyes windows to her soul. I recognize that look. It’s the same one that stares back at me from the mirror every morning. I know she’s been betrayed. I know she’s been hurt. And as much as I don’t want to know, I feel like I need to know what happened to her. The more I learn about her, the more I’m drawn to her. And that’s a very dangerous road, isn’t it?

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