Page 41 of Wild Justice

“You were with Lisa all night? I guess we were right. She does like you.”

Henry wasn’t smiling or laughing. He just sat there, staring at his keys and making them jingle every few seconds.

“You know, for a guy who spent the night with a beautiful woman, you don’t seem all that happy. Was it weird or something? Is she into something awful?”

Henry rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“No, it was not weird or awful. She’s not into anything bizarre. We had a nice night. She’s a terrific woman. Nice, funny, intelligent. She’s going to school to become an actuarial.”

The coffee finished, and Lulu poured two cups, sliding one in front of Henry.

“Have you told your face that you had a nice time and liked her? Because I don’t think it knows. You look miserable.”

“I’m thinking of backing off.”

“Henry,” Lulu sighed, knowing exactly where this was going. They’d been down this road before. “If you tell her, she might understand.”

Henry didn’t have time to respond, however, when Kai strode out of the bedroom while pulling on his shirt. His hair was damp from his shower, and he smelled amazing even from a few feet away. He stopped abruptly when he saw Henry, still dressed in the clothes from last night, sitting at the table.

“Good morning,” Kai said, his gaze darting back and forth between Lulu and Henry.

It appeared that he didn’t quite know what to say. It had suddenly become rather awkward.

“You were worried about me?” Henry asked, his face lit up with a grin. “Right. I doubt you gave me a second thought. Hey, Kai. Nice to see you. Let’s not let it get weird, okay? No judgments. I just came from a woman’s house, too.”

Kai’s shoulders relaxed, and he pointed to the coffee pot.

“That sounds like a good plan. We’re all adults here. I don’t suppose I could get a cup of that?”

“You can,” Lulu said. “And then you can help me talk Henry out of doing something stupid.”

“What does Henry want to do?”

“I can speak for myself,” Henry said with an exasperated sigh. “I went out with Lisa last night. As you can see, we got along great. One thing led to another. Anyway, I may not be cut out for a relationship with…a human being. I have issues. Lots of them. Did you tell him?”

That question was directed at Lulu who shook her head.

“It’s your story to tell. Not mine.”

“Maybe you and I can go out for a couple of beers, and I’ll tell you the more detailed version,” Henry said to Kai. “But the short version is that I’m pretty fucked up from what happened in my childhood. I was taken hostage by a kidnapper. A family friend, no less. To this day, you might say I haven’t worked through all the issues this episode left me. I like Lisa a lot, and I don’t want her to have to deal with my fucking baggage. She’s too nice a person for that.”

Kai glanced at Lulu, his brow raised, before turning back to Henry.

“I didn’t hear you ask for any advice so I’m just going to shut the fuck up.”

“Henry and I have a pact where we don’t wait to be asked. We just tell each other what we think. It was his idea,” Lulu said, shaking a spoon at her best friend. She loved him like a brother, but sometimes he acted like an idiot. Today was one of those days. “Henry, you are one of the smartest people I know, but you’re making a big mistake. I don’t want you to be alone in life. You deserve to be loved.”

“Are you planning to ditch me?” Henry joked. “Because I have you.”

She didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t want to remind him that they were still young, but someday, she might get married and have kids. She’d be busy working and parenting. She’d seen her own mom and dad juggling kids, jobs, family, and friends. It wasn’t easy, and there was always someone who was getting neglected at some point.

From his sad expression, he knew what she hadn’t wanted to say. It was the elephant in the room as they each grew older with more and more responsibilities.

“You’ll always have me, but you need your own person,” Lulu pointed out. “You need a partner in life. Lisa is a lovely person. If you told her, I’m sure she’d understand.”

“I’ll eventually run her off,” Henry said. “She’ll get tired of me being well-armed, or that I scream when I sleep sometimes. When I have a bad day and don’t want to leave the house, she won’t like that. She’ll start to resent me.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Lulu replied. “Maybe she has her own issues that we don’t know about. Hell, maybe she screams in her sleep even louder than you do. You don’t know. And you won’t know unless you give it a chance.”

---