Rounding the couch, I sighed as I dropped onto a cushion opposite of her. The dog was in the middle, acting as a barrier to leave plenty of space between us. “I hope you never have to be in my shoes someday to understand.”
“How so?”
The chuckle escaped me quietly. “Being divorced and bitter doesn’t exactly make people want to be around you.”
“Do you want people to be around you?”
I turned my head to look at her, her eyes trained on me like she was trying to figure out my answer before I said it. “Most days? No.”
Her lips twitched.
“But even assholes like me enjoy having company from time to time,” I added, voice even. I didn’t tell her what company I wanted, but she seemed to draw her own conclusions with a muffled noise climbing from her throat.
“Is that your way of apologizing?”
I lifted a shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said next, making me sigh again. Before I could tell her she didn’t, she added, “Are you lonely? Is that why you want company?”
The way her words rushed past her lips made me think she hadn’t really wanted to ask but needed an answer. It was endearing in a possessive kind of way and I shouldn’t have liked her needing to know but did. “What’s it to you, Della? I’m a grown man. I need specific company I doubt you’d get.”
She scoffed this time, her legs uncrossing as she shifted her body towards me. Ramsay was startled and jumped off the couch, curling up on the floor under the aged wood coffee table. “You said the other day that I was a grown woman, so how would I not know what kind of company adults like to keep?”
Eye twitching, I ground out, “You better not know.”
Amusement flickering across her face made me realize my mistake instantly. She’d gotten to me and she knew it. There were days I bet she even planned as much, just like when she was little and demanded my attention, and my attention alone.
I swiped a palm across my stubbled jaw, knowing I needed to shave again soon. I’d been too busy to care, staying home more than not until the running rodent was better trained and could be trusted alone while I was out. “You are an adult. Doesn’t mean I have to like it or what the implications are.”
Her laugh was soft, cut short as she scooted over to me. My body tensed as she put a palm on my knee, not moving or gripping or kneading which would have driven my cock to harden even more than it already was. Della was innocent in the way she touched me right now, but when I met her eyes…
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” She batted her lashes.
I moved her hand away. “Sometimes I think there’s evil under that good girl smile of yours.”
Her eyes dulled as she pulled back. “Why do people keep calling me that? Just because I follow the rules doesn’t mean I’m some goody-two-shoes.”
“Whoa.” I studied her. “What was that about? Who’s been calling you that?”
She grumbled out something I couldn’t understand before scooting back to her side.
“Della.”
“Theo.”
I dropped my head on the back of couch and closed my eyes for a second. “We both know that whatever was happening couldn’t. That’s all. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You didn’t,” she snapped.
I eyed her knowingly.
“I’m just sick of people telling me what I am all the time.” Her admission made me tense, because I knew it meant she’d been going through shit that she hadn’t said a word about. When had she stopped coming to me about things that upset her? “You know how I mentioned I’d seen Sam for the first time in years? Well, it was when I went to see Katrina. Sam and Gina were there making comments. It just…I’m not that innocent and they act like who I am is some boring, too good saint.”
I hated they made her feel like being good, being pure in her truest form, was a bad thing. “Those girls have always been bad for you. It shouldn’t matter what they think. We’ve been over this.”
“And we’ll keep going over it. You’ll tell me that, my therapist will tell me that, Lawrence will tell me—” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, Theo. My brain is wired to care, just like it’s wired to follow the rules like I was always taught. How hypocritical is that? It wasn’t like my father could do the same. Who knows what Mom knew about? Probably everything.”
Brows drawing up over the sudden change in conversation, I’d watched her unload years of pent up frustration that she’d never once talked about. It didn’t matter how many times I asked her if she was okay, if she wanted to talk about her parents, she refused. I only hoped she was at least talking to her therapist about it, but I never asked because the sessions were between them. “You’re not your parents, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look up to them and their values.”
She snorted.
I corrected myself. “The values they taught you, that is. We both know they weren’t bad people. Your father just got in too deep with the wrong people, but he wanted to make it right. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
Nothing.
“They loved you.”
Silence.
I did what I told myself not to. I grabbed her arm gently and slid her body over to me, ignoring the surprised gasp when I positioned her on her side so her head was on my thigh using it as a pillow. Brushing loose strands of hair out of her face, I looked down at the rest that billowed over my lap and couch. “I don’t expect you to forgive him, and neither does the world.”
It was a moment before she said, “I’m angry, Theo. So angry. I feel like I don’t have a right to because…”
Because they were her parents.
I kept combing my fingers through her hair until her body eased. She always loved this when her mother did it.
Telling her she had every right to be angry wouldn’t have made a difference. She’d feel bad about feeling any negative way no matter what I, or anybody else, told her. She’d bottle it up until she burst—until she broke down and shattered for the world to see. And the cruel world we lived in was waiting for it to happen. I knew it, she knew it, and that was why she tried to fight it. But fighting didn’t do a lick of good when she didn’t find a reason to.
So, my hands faltered behind her ear where I brushed more strands. “Do it for me, Della. If nobody else, remember that I was always here rooting for you. All I want is for you to fight. Can you do that?”
The quiet I was given in return sliced through me thick and deep and I wasn’t sure I’d get a response as the minutes passed. It was the deep sigh, the relenting exhale, that gave me hope that she’d do as I asked. It wasn’t because she felt she owed me for the years I’d helped raise her, dedicated to her when she needed me most. It was the unspeakable understanding we had. The one we’d always had that eased her parents knowing I was there for her.
I just needed her to be there for herself, never letting the world beat her down like it so often wanted.
“Sometimes I wish that night between us never happened, because it wouldn’t hurt so bad knowing that there are limits to this,” she whispered, catching me off guard. My hand stopped moving over her scalp completely, stilling as she added, “But maybe it’s better that way. How it ended. We ended.”