Page 101 of Unspoken Lies

“Uh-huh. I think the first one was more accurate,” Liliana calls after me as I walk toward the house.

We haven’t had a conversation this easy in years. While part of the reason is that we are banding together for common goals, I’m also fucking tired of being at odds. It’s an adjustment to have extra people in our home, but not a bad one.

I just need space sometimes so I can emotionally regulate. Just because it seems as if I don’t have any, doesn’t mean I don’t. They simply present themselves differently than other people.

Opening the door, I walk inside to find Rachelle.

“The afternoon appears to get the best of her,” Mr. Reyes says under his breath as he sees me, glancing into the living room. “It’s like her eyes just won’t stay open.”

“I bet part of it is the lighting, and some of it is not sleeping well still,” I say, continuing inside. Clapping my hands loudly, I refuse to allow any emotion to show when she startles so hard her body jerks. Fuck. “Up and at ‘em, cupcake. We have a date with some cardio.”

“Ugh, it’s Coach Ken,” she groans. God, she’s so not wrong. If Ken and the army had a love child, they’d get me.

“Very cute. Put the laptop away. I heard from some chatty birdies that you were falling asleep anyway,” I say.

“Traitors,” she mutters, tossing the laptop onto a couch cushion as she gets up. Rachelle is wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top because it’s warm inside of the house, which means I can see the way her muscles shake.

“Ya know what,” I murmur. “Go put on your bathing suit. I think we should do this on the sundeck in the pool. You’ll be able to hold on and go through the exercises I have planned. We’ll work up to other stuff.”

“Are you sure we can’t just stay on dry land?” she asks, the blood draining out of her face.

“Positive,” I say, swallowing hard. I never thought she’d still be feeling the effects of the river the day we threw her in. It’s clear that she is, and I’ve read some of it within the text of her journal.

However, I’m not supposed to have that, which means my sympathy has no business raising its head here. I always thought I didn’t have that emotion, but it turns out I have selective empathy. I looked it up when I felt myself feeling it, because I was really fucking confused.

I thought I was misfiring somehow and broken.

“Let’s go,” I say, tugging on her hand. “Shorts and a sports bra will work if you don’t have a bathing suit.”

Glaring at me, Rachelle pulls back her hand and yanks off her shirt to throw it at me. Unfortunately for me, she is wearing a black sports bra. She stomps out of the living room as I follow her and Calvin looks from her to me in confusion.

“We’ll need a towel or two please,” I tell him, trailing her outside to the pool.

“What’s this?” Liliana asks, brow raised as Rachelle rolls her eyes and pushes down her shorts.

Again, she’s wearing a pair of boyshorts that cover her ass, but this may as well be cute lingerie to me. Elijah and Jared stare as she steps down into the sun deck portion of the pool and sits, looking over her shoulder as if to ask what she should do next.

“Her muscles aren’t ready for a weight room, and having her fall on her ass on the treadmill isn’t the type of exercise I’m going for,” I explain. “The water‘s buoyancy will help reduce the strain on her joints and muscles so she can build the type of strength she needs.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jared agrees. “Why is she in her underwear though?”

“Your wife is a fucking brat,” I grunt, smirking as he barks out a laugh.

“Is it too cold?” he asks.

Her lips are quivering, so he takes that as the agreement that it is. Hitting a switch on the pool’s system, he nods.

“It’ll be warmer soon, wifey,” he says teasingly. “I’ll have to switch it off if you start to fall asleep though.”

“Dick,” Rachelle mutters under her breath, turning as she submerges her body while holding onto the ledge.

The peanut gallery goes inside, while I get to work to warm up her muscles.

“Push away from the wall and keep your head out of the pool by treading water,” I tell her, crouching down to watch.

The pool is created to keep a uniform depth, much like an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Therefore, the entire pool is over six feet deep. Her fear is valid because her feet can’t touch the bottom at all.

There’s terror in her eyes, but she does as I say and her legs begin to churn to keep herself afloat. I watch her the entire time, ready to jump in the second she looks like she may go under. I’m also monitoring for exhaustion, though I don’t have her tread water for long.