Page 15 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Across from me, Kellum does the same, and for a little while the only sound is forks and the hum of the fridge and the biggest moth outside throwing itself against the porch light like it believes it can marry the glow if it just tries hard enough.

When the plates are empty and the world has narrowed to us as the quiet settles deep, he tips his chin at my notebook. “All right, Kristen,” he begins gently. “What do you want?”

The question lands like thunder with no storm attached. I look down at the black cover of the notebook, then back up at his face. He doesn’t look like a man who will laugh if I say something stupid. He looks like a man who will sit there until I say something true.

“I don’t know,” I share, my voice is small.

“Then work backwards, start with what you don’t want.”

That’s easier. The list unfurls before my mouth even decides to move.

“I don’t want to be… owned. I don’t want to be a fixture in a house.

I don’t want to wake up wondering if I’m going to get punished for asking a question.

I don’t want my entire identity to be someone else’s reflection.

I don’t want to be quiet just because it makes a room look nicer. ”

“Good,” he encourages, like I gave the right answer on a test only I knew I was taking. “What else?”

I blow out a breath. “I don’t want to owe anyone so much that they think they can pull the floor out from under me. I don’t want mirrors everywhere.” The last one slips out and we both smile, because it’s absurd and exactly right.

“Okay.” He points at the notebook again. “Put those down.”

I do, scribbling, my handwriting messier now that the engine is running. The pen digs grooves where the words feel like they need to be carved deep to make them stick. When I’m done, I sit back. The page looks like a map of dangers marked in red.

“What do you want?” he asks again, like we didn’t just go through this already.

I stare at the ceiling, at the hairline crack that runs toward the corner.

“I want…” The words gather like birds in a cage trying to find their opening.

“I want something I can be good at. Not decorative, not a presentation, not to be an armpiece. Useful. Purpose driven. I want to matter. I want friends. The kind who’d tow my car if I asked, not because they’re being paid, but because I needed help.

I want a front door where the code doesn’t change without me.

I want the ocean when I want it, not when someone else’s calendar says we’re free to experience it. ”

He doesn’t interrupt. He’s still in a chair. The kind that gives you permission to keep going.

“I want to wake up and not be afraid I said the wrong sentence yesterday.” I laugh once, a small, ugly sound.

“I want to learn how to fix something, with my hands, even if it’s just a shelf.

I want to wear sneakers without feeling like I failed an invisible test. I want my phone number to be mine.

I want to go to work and earn a living for myself. ”

“Not bad,” he says, and there’s approval in it that doesn’t feel like a leash. “Any of that can happen.”

“How?” The word cracks with something that tastes like hope and terror in equal parts.

“Same as anything.” He taps the cover of the notebook with one finger while reading over my notes.

“Steps. Next thing. You’ve got a phone. You’ve got shoes.

Clothes. Those are good first pieces. Tomorrow we get you a PO box.

That’s an address that can’t lock you out.

We’ll hit the DMV when you’re ready and change whatever needs changing with a new address.

Bank—if you’ve got your own accounts, move what you can.

If you don’t, we make some. Not ideal, but doable. ”

I nod, writing as he talks. The pen scratches the paper loudly. A thought hits me, and I scribble it down. Resume?

The word makes me sigh. “I don’t have a resume.”

“You’ve done things,” he says. “Maybe not on paper. You make lists. You show up. You learn. Those count more than men in ties like to admit. Meanwhile, if you need a job to stop your brain from chewing your own tail, the shop always needs help for Pami at the front desk that isn’t scared of phones or people.

I’ll warn you. It’s loud. It smells like oil.

People will try to talk down to you and you’ll have to learn how to shut that shit down, even from the guys.

You’ll be safe. Brothers won’t let anyone put hands on you or talk too much shit.

And you’ll leave and be able to leave work at work.

Occasionally, you will help Maritza at the mini storage office if she’s got to step out but it’s not often. ”

My head jerks up. “Are you offering me a job?”

He shrugs, a big-shouldered, nonchalant thing that doesn’t match the size of what he’s handing me.

“You don’t have to take it. There are more than a hundred other places.

But if you want a place to sit where your next thing has fewer teeth to chew you up, I can give you a chair, a phone, and a stack of forms.”

A laugh breaks out of me, startling and bright. “I can handle forms.”

“I figured.” He sits back, studies me like he’s checking my pulse. Satisfied, he nods once. “Thursday morning. Nine. If you show, then I’ll put you to work. If you don’t, no one’s hunting you down to make you explain yourself.”

The ease of it, the if/then simplicity, soothes a place in me that is raw and tired of negotiating invisible tests. “I’ll show.”

“Okay.” He stands moving to the sink with his dish.

He sets his empty bowl in the sink and runs water not because dishes can’t sit for ten minutes, but because his hands like doing things.

Mine do too, it turns out. I stand, take the sponge, and scrub.

He doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t praise me for washing a plate like I’m a child.

We do the dishes like two humans who made a mess and trust each other to help clean it.

When we’re done, the house feels lighter. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the way tasks stack inside my chest like bricks instead of boulders with Kellum.

“Tell me about your parents,” he inquires suddenly, not looking at me, which is merciful. He keeps his body angled toward the counter, as if he asked a question into a mirror as we move back to the table because we’ve finished the dishes.

“My parents?” I take a breath that tastes like dish soap and humid evening.

“They were good people. Kind. We lived in Delaware. Typical suburb life. My dad taught high school history and my mom ran the library like it was the beating heart of everything. Books made her happy. Summers we drove out to the beach and ate terrible fried shrimp on paper plates and my mom would read mystery novels in a cheap plastic chair she brought from home because she said rental chairs were for people who didn’t plan.

Later, I figured out it was because they charged for rental chairs and the trip to the beach took everything they saved for the entire year to get us there.

The extra wasn’t worth it to her so I could have ice cream or other extra treats.

They would have hated Brian if they had gotten to know him.

” The truth makes me smile for the first time without that tight ache.

“They would have asked him what he was reading and he would have tried to lie to sound sophisticated and they would have seen through him in ways I couldn’t. ”

“When’d they go?” he asks genuinely carrying this conversation.

“Four almost five years ago. A drunk driver.” The words don’t scrape skin off the way they used to.

Maybe the scar is finally blending into my heart a little.

“I got the call on a Tuesday. I flew home from college. Handled things at the funeral home, and learned quickly what being an adult was like when the mortgage payment came in and I couldn’t pay it.

After negotiating with the bank, the house went up for a quick sale and the little profit there was, I kept myself afloat at school.

I never let myself look back.” I shrug one shoulder.

“Brian liked broken things. They made him feel necessary, I think because he liked me broken.”

“People like that don’t want to fix you,” he states casually “They need you to be broken so they can manipulate the situation to their benefit.”

“Yeah.” The word lands bitter and sweet. “I wanted to belong to someone. It felt like love.”

He doesn’t tell me it wasn’t . He doesn’t have to. The silence is honest between us.

“Tomorrow,” he states finally. “PO box. Shop. We’ll see about the rest when we get there.”

“Okay.” I run my thumb over the edge of the notebook. “Thank you.”

He nods like we made a deal. I guess we did except there isn’t anything in it for him.

Later, after we’ve both showered and the day has leaned itself fully into dark, I take the notebook to bed like a child with a treasure.

I lay it on the nightstand and slide under the sheet.

I leave a foot of space between us because tonight I want to see if I can sleep without being held like a drowning person.

I need to fix myself this time, not have someone catch me because I’ve fallen.

My body hums with tired that feels like I might be able to do this.

“If you’re done with writing, light out okay.” he requests, already half on his back, one arm thrown up, relaxed in the way only he does.

“Yeah.” I click the lamp off because it’s on my side. The room glows faint-blue from the streetlight outside. The security light hums. The world is ordinary and it feels like a miracle.

“Kristen,” he mutters into the near-dark.

“Yeah?”

“You did good today.”

My throat closes. I stare at the ceiling and pretend I’m not absorbing the words like the last drop of water in a canteen. “Thanks,” I whisper.

He grunts, which means you’re welcome, and turns a little toward me.

I don’t slide onto his chest even though I want to.

My hands fold on my stomach like prayer.

I wonder for a moment if he’s going to pull me into him, but he doesn’t.

I guess he reads my body language. Sleep comes eventually, not as easy, but I do manage to get there on my own.

Doing things on my own, that encompasses all of the next things. Yes, Kellum is right. I did good.