Page 25 of The Trust We Broke
I hate to admit that he’s right, but there’s not much I can do. Not with Lucy’s mother and half the town watching.
But it’s the look in Lucy’s eye, and the slight movement of her hand down by her side, encouraging me to drop him, that solidifies the decision. No one else could make me let go, except something about her can.
I throw him to the ground and step over him.
Then, I remember I’m not the old Grudge. And she’s not the old Lucy. And Lucy’s mother is glaring at me like I’m something she trod on.
So, I say the only sentence I can think of. “What the fuck are you all looking at?”
6
LUCY
“Let’s go, Lucy,” my mother says, her tone filled with distaste and snobbery.
She never could understand what I saw in Grudge. But it was everything I just witnessed. He had a rare power, deep masculinity, and a brave recklessness.
It was exciting. Heady. It never scared me. Because he wrapped me in a kind of safety I never found anywhere else. He was exactly who he was—no pretense. And because of that, I could be utterly who I wanted to be around him too.
So, it’s no surprise to realize how wet I am.
Somewhere between watching all the videos of the two of us while I was in the bathtub and seeing the man himself ride down Main Street like an avenging angel to throw the men out of the bar my mother informed me is owned by Ember Deeks, I’ve become ridiculously turned on.
And despite his snarl, I know all he would have to do is press two fingers over my clit and circle hard, and I’d come.
The admission is embarrassing.
Which is a breakneck speed of change in mood from the boring dinner I just had. The most exciting thing that happenedwas that the restaurant forgot to put my mom’s dressing on the side.
Douglas and Helena were mundane company. Conversations were anchored around the next election and the impact of trade wars, peppered with updates about random individuals I neither know nor care about.
I embrace the shift in pace between the stuffy and proper interior of the restaurant and the crisp and wild night air. My chest expands as I take a deep breath.
“Go to the car, Mom.” I fish the keys out of my purse and hand them to her before gesturing down the street to the lot where I parked.
“I’d rather not go off on my own late at night.” Her eyes flit to where Grudge is standing, hands on his hips, looking at us with fury. “Dangerous men roam the street.”
“Oh, get the fuck over yourself, Vanessa,” Grudge says. “None of my men will lay a finger on you, although, keep looking at me like shit, and I’ll be tempted to kill you myself.”
I bite down the smirk. The day Grudge first came to my parents’ home as my boyfriend, he was so nervous that his hands were clammy. He wanted to make a good impression on them, even though I told him it would be impossible.
Even though I had told him all the different ways my father had tried to convince me to put an end to our association.
He bought some new jeans, polished his boots, and wore a black shirt from his father’s closet that fit him to perfection. When he knocked at the door, he was holding two bunches of grocery store flowers. One for me, one for my mom.
His eyes had traced the outline of my body in my dress, and then, he noticed the circular table in the middle of the entrance hall with a large, oversized vase stuffed full of intensely perfumed flowers.
“They’re beautiful,” I say, taking the bunch he offered me.
I press my nose into them. Their scent is less overpowering.
“They cost five dollars,” Zach says hopelessly. “Take ‘em and hide them, Luce. Throw them out, if you have to.”
“No. Because I won’t ever be embarrassed by anything you ever give me.”
He points to the floral display. “You should be, given you’ve got a whole florist sitting on a table in an entry hall bigger than my whole apartment.”
My parents looked down at him with the kind of contempt they save for unhoused people. My mom, who has never worked a day in her life, seems to think that there are thousands of jobs available. And she’s one of the few who still believe that “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” is more about noble workers going from rags to riches than being steeped in racist and privileged ideology.
