Page 16 of Dravin

“Dravin!” I shout over the roar of the mower. “I- okay. We can talk. But just stop for a second. Please!” He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow. He’s getting dangerously close to the line of poppies scattered amongst the towering hollyhocks. After that, it’s just half a second until they all get mown down.

Those flowers are the one bright spot in my life right now.

My mom used to plant them in our tiny front and back yards. She had every different color. Buttercream yellow, red so deep they were almost black, scarlet, purple, and at least five different pinks.

“Dravin!” I take one step forward to charge after him. I don’t know what I could do to get him to stop short of leaping on his back, which would probably do nothing because he’d keep on mowing with me up there like a rabid monkey all the same, or roundhouse kicking him in the face, which would only piss him off and he’d probably run us both over by accident.

He lets go of the mower and it shuts off instantly. He’s still vibrating the same way I am, feeling like I’ve been locked in the cage of my own body for the past year.

Unfortunately, my eyes go straight to his body no matter how I try to rip them away. I never thought a sweaty man would do it for me, but here I am, fascinated by the slow dripand roll of those beads of moisture over the natural ridges and valleys of his body.

I’ve spent the past year questioning if I’d ever feel like a person again, if I’d ever be able to paint again, feel again, hope again, find joy in even a single thing. If I’d ever bemeagain.

That twinge that hits me right in the bottom of my stomach has me both incredibly annoyed and so relieved that my eyes get dangerously wet.

“The flowers for you to come to the clubhouse on Friday night,” he barters.

That’s two days away.

“And your participation in a few activities with the old ladies and their kids.”

I manage, through sheer force of will, to keep my eyes on his face and not lower them down to where a scrap of black elastic from his boxers sticks out above his jeans. I very much would like to trace the lines of his Adonis V.

“Isn’t that very public?”

He studies me hard, his gaze boring a hole through my head.

“Okay! Okay.” I hold up my hands in a gesture of peace. “I’ll agree to something at the clubhouse and if a few of the women can do something lowkey, then… maybe.”

“Why do I feel like you’re promising me whatever I want to hear?”

I thrust my hands onto my hips. “Maybe because I want you to stop angry mowing. Rage and heavy machinery don’t mix. You’re scaring the flowers so bad that they might not recover.” I let out a shaky breath. “I’m just trying to follow your rules about keeping my head down.”

“My rules clearly aren’t making you happy.”

I blink at him.

Why did I never consider that he might actually care how I feel?

I’ve tried to hold out. I’ve locked myself in the house, stayed in the yard, and brooded. I’ve cycled through every single emotion. I’m so tired of feeling hopeless and helpless. I was so angry at Dravin for doing this to me, for bringing me straight into the throbbing epicenter of my pain.

“You can’t keep living like this,” he adds, but his tone is missing his signature gruff, bossy certainty.

“I can’t oryoucan’t?”

He stares at me for a few moments then turns, grabs the mower and wheels it roughly to the shed even though there are a few patches of lawn that haven’t been touched. He didn’t move any of the lawn chairs. He’s nearly there when he turns and stalks back to me. My heart just about plummets straight out of my chest and the amount of heat in my body could roast an entire spitted pig.

He stops a foot away, giving me just enough space not to feel crowded. His brows knit together, and I don’t like his expression. It’s too open, festering with pain, regret, and confusion, brimming over with feelings I didn’t even know he was capable of.

That’s on me.

Being a judgmental, horrible bitch. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Marcus would have chosen to ask this man, of all people, for this favor. Marcus made a lot of questionable decisions after he went back to civilian life. I just didn’t get it, but maybe that was a lie I was clinging to so that I could stay mad. It helps to have a scapegoat for your rage and grief. I can’t very well tell myself I didn’t understand and at the same time, know that Dravin was the rock I clung to when everything else was flooded around me. I can’t admit that I trusted him and still harbor that wild, misplaced animosity.

“I don’t like…” He swipes sweat out of his eyes and forces out the rest. “All those red canvases. They feel like a metaphor.”

How did I fail to see that this is extremely painful for him? Because Iassumed. I was selfish in my grief. I could only see what was right in front of me and that was my own overwhelming misery. It bled into every part of my life, erasing my regular sense of compassion and empathy.

It didn’t help that he told me pointblank what he did. That he tracks down people who don’t want to be found and he’s paid well to do it. I just assumed that he was working for the kind of people who made sure that his jobs were erased in the end by the most unsavory means. I thought a person like that couldn’t possibly have a heart. In one sense, that made him the right man to help me disappear and keep me alive. In another, it made him the kind of shadowy beast that clings to the night and feeds off people’s terror.

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