Page 82 of Furever Loyal
“I won’t lie, it hasn’t been easy. I freaked out. But I didn’t do anything wrong. I was never the criminal. The people who did the bad things, who tried to frame you, they got punished. It’s not the punishment that I’m used to, but I suspect that the civil authorities would never have apprehended those men. They would have been free to keep doing what they were doing. It’s a different world, but Kincaid—it’s not my world, so therefore, it’s not my place to judge.
“Why should I be able to dictate your world by my world’s standards. That’s not right, nor is it fair. You look human, but at the core of it, you aren’t human. You’re kind of my little alien boy,” she teased, running a hand playfully along his stomach.
Kincaid laughed and hugged her. “Thank you for talking to me about it.”
But she wasn’t done. “I also learned a lot about myself during this time. I learned that I was so wrapped up in following the rules, I wasn’t letting myself doanything. I had no friends, no love life, nothing at all. I was tied up in a locked room and I calmly thought my way through it and escaped!” she said proudly. “Do you have any idea how foreign a concept that would have been to me a week ago? If you’d suggested that would happen, I would have had a meltdown or something. This wasgoodfor me, Kincaid. I didn’t know it, but I needed it.”
“Glad I could help,” he said, kissing the top of her head.
“You did. You pulled me out of my shell. But I can’t stop now. I need to keep going. I need to call Danielle again. To see if maybe she wants to hang out, outside of work. I have a man, now I need friends.”
Kincaid growled and lifted her clear of the floor, spinning her around and kissing her.
“Damn right you have a man,” he said fiercely.
39
“Hey.”
Shaking her head, Haley pulled her gaze from the window. “Sorry,” she apologized with a smile. “Just thinking.”
“About Kincaid?”
Haley stuck her tongue out at Dani. “No, actually. In what I swear is a totally non-creepy way, I was thinking of you.”
“Me?” Dani leaned forward. “Why me?”
“I’m having fun. It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun.” Haley looked down briefly. “You’re the first friend I’ve had in quite some time.”
Dani smiled. “Aww, you’re gonna make me cry!”
“Really?”
“No!” Dani laughed. “I’m just glad to see you finally open up. I knew there was a fun person in there. I just didn’t expect it to take years to happen.”
Haley laughed, sitting back into her seat. They were having coffee at a little café that Dani had recommended when she’d asked to hang out. The cozy little atmosphere was helping her to feel relaxed and open up.
“If I’m honest, it all happened so slowly over a period of years, I never even realized how I was detaching myself from the world. It just became so normalized to me.” She took a sip from her mug. “Looking back on it now, I can’t believe how numb to the world I’d become. It’s crazy. I feel like I was living in a bubble, or black and white. Now I look around, and everything is just so vibrant.”
Dani nodded. “You feel alive again.”
“Do I ever! Friends. A man.”
“Yeah, speaking of your man,” Dani said slowly. “I was wondering something.”
Haley focused on her new—and still only—friend. “What?”
“Things seem to be going well there between you two.”
“I think so,” she said happily.
“Well, um. This is kind of embarrassing, but does he maybe have any friends?”
Haley was mid-sip when Dani finally spat her question out, and she nearly spewed coffee everywhere.
“Hey, come on!” Dani pleaded. “This is embarrassing enough that I can’t meet guys on my own, okay? You don’t need to laugh at me in public.”
Taking pity, she fought her laughter down. “I’m sorry. I thought you were going a totally different way with this. That you were going to ask aseriousquestion.”
