by Snow, Nicole
“It’s the easiest.”
“Will it be hard on her?”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Em.” She actually sounds worried, and her fingers curl tighter in my shirt. “I know we’re faking, and she knows, but I’m still going to be a part of her life for a while, and then suddenly I'm gone. Won’t it...hurt her? Even more when she has to lie about why?”
What the hell? Is this woman actually worried about my daughter’s well-being?
Olivia Holly is alarmingly good at inching past every line I meant to lay down between us, and damn it, I don’t want to like her, but I’m starting to.
After working her sister’s gigs, I expected another Milah – rich, reckless, self-absorbed, well aware of her status, expecting others to worship her.
I would say Liv is like everything soft and sweet Milah once shed to become the monster she is, but that'd be wrong. Liv's her own person. I can see it in her contemplative silence, in the way she always restrains something behind her smile.
She looks like the untouched, virginal innocent from the outside. Meanwhile, she holds a piece of herself tight and fiercely guarded, deep down, somewhere no one else’s demands can take it from her.
Just like me.
Damn.
I can’t let her get under my skin when I’ll be ejecting her from my home as soon as the Feds and Landon say it’s safe.
Growling to myself, I mutter, “Em’s managed before. She’ll manage again. She’s a strong girl.”
“She is.” Olivia’s smile is warm, her eyes crinkling at the corners, while she watches Em. “I kind of want to be her when I grow up. Do you think I should take lessons, too?”
I snort at the joke. “You? Why?”
“You never know what might happen in this situation. I might need to defend myself.”
“So you think I can’t protect you?”
She blinks. “No, I just thought maybe I want...” She deflates without finishing. “It doesn’t matter what I want, does it?”
“When it comes to keeping you safe, no. It’s not about what you want. It’s about making sure you don’t get hurt, Liv,” I say. “What Em's learning helps a person fight off a drunken idiot, or maybe a mugger or two. A few lessons on how to knock a gun out of someone’s hand won’t save you from people like them. They’re smart. They know how to fight dirty, and in groups. The Pilgrims are killing machines.”
Her smile is sad yet soft. I realize that this conversation wasn’t about the danger from the Pilgrims at all. We’re talking about two things, but we're only saying one out loud.
“But you’ll protect me, right?” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I answer, throat dry, as Em breaks away from her instructor and comes barreling at us with her eyes bright and a dozen Daddy, did you sees on her lips. “That's my job. Taking care of you.”
* * *
Em is a buffer between us for the rest of the evening.
Over a quick dinner of burgers and fries, she tells us all about learning reverse chokeholds and disabling grips and other beginner self-defense 101 things.
Whatever worries I had with her getting into this ease. I love seeing her glow like this.
So excited. So focused. So alive.
Liv seems curious but restrained. I see her open her mouth several times as if to join in Em’s enthusiasm before retreating back to silence again.
Not just her. We make eyes across the table several times and let Em do the talking.
Once my little girl's showered and collapsed into bed in an exhausted heap, there's no more avoiding it.
It’s just me and Olivia.
I finish tidying the kitchen – Liv tried, but it’s not actually clean – then step into the living room to find her curled up on the couch in a little matching cotton tank top and shorts set that barely covers her chest or her ass. The shorts are powder blue, clingy, and a stark contrast to the bright pink toenails that wiggle with absolute concentration as she stares firmly at a notebook with a pen clutched in her teeth.
Somebody say a prayer for my cock.
I need a damn distraction, stat.
“I think,” I say, leaning against the doorframe, “you’re using that pen the wrong way.”
She looks up, blinking owlishly, then lets the pen go and catches it in her fingers. The middle has teeth marks on it, making white divots in the pink plastic. “Writer's block. Can’t think of what to say tonight,” she says, glancing at me, then back at the notebook with a frustrated frown. “Usually my brain’s more active at night...”
I don’t know what to say to that.
I don’t know what writers do, how that magic in their heads works when they take this idea and put it together into words that recreate the same image in someone else’s head.
I don’t even know if it'd be appropriate for me to point out that she’s just undergone a traumatizing, shocking experience that’s obviously going to affect her creativity.
I’m about to fall back on offering her a drink before bed, something to either loosen up her thoughts or let her set it down and sleep, when she looks at me again. That little wrinkle appears between her eyebrows, right up top above the bridge of her nose.
“Riker? How long are we really going to do this?” she asks. “We talk like it’ll be over in weeks, but I'm not so sure. And I'm not sure you are, either.” She makes a distressed sound, wetting her lips.
I say nothing, guilty as charged.
“Is it ever even possible for me to be safe? Can they really figure out what happened and catch who’s responsible, or am I just...” She shakes her head. “Am I going to keep being someone else’s burden forever? What if someone else gets killed in front of me? Jesus. Those two men are dead. I saw, I watched one get mowed down right in front of me...I...”
I think I realize it’s going to happen before she does.
First her voice cracks, trembling, her lashes shivering, and I push away from the door and settle down on the couch next to her just as she makes a choking sound, jerking like she can’t believe all that spilled past her lips. Then she bursts into tears.
It's a dagger straight to the heart.
Look, I may not want this woman in my life, but I can’t sit here with a stick up my ass when she’s vulnerable and fragile and feeling so unsafe. So I slip an arm around her shoulders, and give her somewhere to hide. I give her someone to hide in.
Me.
Liv's so light, shaking like a leaf, and she makes the smallest bundle as she burrows herself into me and just sobs. It’s one of those ragged, full-body breakdowns that makes someone sound like they’re breaking. I only hope that having me wrapped around her is doing something to help her keep all the shattered pieces in one place until she can pick them up and fit them back together.
They damn sure won’t fit the same way they did before, no.
Still, this kind of release can be cathartic, and what’s left behind might be even stronger than what broke. Someday.
That, I know from experience.
It feels like an eternity while she cries against me, until slowly she goes quiet, her heaving breaths slowing to shallow whimpers, then a tired, drooping sigh. Sniffling, hiccuping, she rubs at her eyes and nose. It’s not hard to see she’s trying to pull herself together.
She stays huddled against me like I’m her only port in a storm. I should pull back, tug my arm from around her.
I don’t.
We remain locked for some time in burning silence.
Me and this stranger, this girl, curled up and tangled around each other like we know each other.
Like we mean something to each other.
I don’t want to admit it eases something inside me, something ragged-edged and tired, to at least be able to do this. To offer shelter, even if there’s not much else I can do now but keep her hidden away from the people who want to hurt her. But finally, she shifts against me, her shoulder against my side, her cheek against my ribs, as she takes a deep brea
th to speak.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, her voice husky and low with tears, but before I can tell her not to apologize, she continues, “I’m...I’m always burdening someone. Milah, my Dad...now you. Here you are stuck coddling me like a baby, when it’s my bad luck that put you in this situation.”
“Your bad luck did,” I point out. “You didn’t. What happened isn’t your fault.”
“But I wasn’t able to fix it myself, was I?”
I can’t help a faint smile. “Bull. Having the mob after you isn’t something most people can fix on their own, Olivia.”
“Liv,” she murmurs.
“Liv,” I say. It rolls off my tongue like a madness.
“Sorry. Daddy calls me Olivia, and it's wrong.” She grimaces. “It makes me feel really...small. Invisible. Liv sounds like a name for someone strong enough to stand on her own. That’s who I want to be.”
“Well,” I point out, “your old man isn’t here now. You are. And if we’re going to make this work without anyone suspecting our ruse, we’re all going to have to pull together. You’ve already shown you’re smart and can think independently. You’re the one who remembered people would expect us to act like a loving couple in public. Not me.”
Halfheartedly, she pokes my ribs. “Whatever. You look like the type who needs his fiancée to pick on him until he relaxes and remembers how to laugh.”
“Is that my type? Really?”
“Yeah. And glowering at me isn’t changing my mind. You're busted, Riker.”
I hadn’t even realized I was glowering, but now I snort. “I’m not a type. What I am is here to protect you. That’s my job. You focus on making this work and on writing your book. Treat this like it really is your life now. All yours, and no one else’s.”
“But it’s just a lie in the end,” she points out softly.
“So are stories. Guess what? Those still have value. Ask anyone who's ever bought a book.”
She doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me like she’s seeing something new and strange, and I don’t know what to do with that. Don’t know what to do with this moment, either.
From the second I met her, I had every intention of keeping her on the outside where she belongs, just a client and nothing real, this paper doll cut out of another picture inserted into all the wrong places in the chaotic photograph of my life.
And from the second I met her, I’ve been unbending in so many small ways for her, because I can’t bring myself to hurt someone who’s already been hurt so much.
It creates an uncomfortable dichotomy between the distance I want and the closeness in the silence between us, in the warmth of her body against mine, in the softness of her flesh where my hand has somehow ended up splayed against her hip. My fingertips just graze the edge of those tiny shorts and come so close to touching naked skin. The air in the room suddenly feels too thin, and I only barely remember to be gentle in disengaging from her and letting her shift to rest on the couch without dropping her, before I’m up and crossing the room to the liquor cabinet.
“Have a drink with me?”
I don't wait for her reply, but I can see her nodding from the corner of my eye.
I take down two tumblers and dump out two fingers of Jack into both, then bring them back to the couch, settle down an appropriate distance from her, and offer her the second tumbler.
She takes it, looking down into the whiskey, then offers me one of those sweet, strange little smiles turned all the sweeter on her swollen pink lips. “Should we toast to something?”
“You have any ideas?”
She considers, then says, “To things that have value...even when they look like they don’t.”
“I’ll take that.”
I clink my glass to hers, then take a sip – while she tosses hers down in a single breath, not even choking or gasping, before wiping at her mouth. She catches me staring, then blinks and blushes.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say, and hide my smile behind the rim of my glass. “I just like a girl who can hold her liquor.”
5
Maybe Just a Little (Olivia)
I’ve daydreamed about being a lot of things. A starship high commander. A princess at a school for magical fighting fairy warriors. A sailor girl in a short skirt with bows everywhere and a moon crescent tiara. A world famous author.
One thing I’ve never daydreamed about, though, is the life of a stay-at-home author and soon-to-be stepmom, integrating into her new home.
Riker’s wood-frame house is nice, but my father’s ten-car garage is larger than this entire building.
Yet I’m finding, as I’ve settled in over the past week, that I love this little house more than I could ever love the sterile hallways of Daddy’s sprawling mansion. This feels like a home, a real one, while Daddy's and Milah's extravagant palaces just feel like properties.
It feels like it could be my home, even if I know that’s just a temporary illusion. Something to strive for one day myself, maybe.
Before, I never really noticed how constantly surrounded I am by people. Whether it was Daddy’s aides or just the household staff, cleaners, gardeners, it was never quiet. I was never alone.
There’s something really freeing about just having space, being alone during the day, when Riker’s at work and Emily’s at school. You’d think I’d be afraid being by myself, but the fact that Riker feels safe with me alone in the house, while he keeps up the illusion of normalcy by going to work, says it'll all be okay.
I keep calling him Grumpy or Beast just because the Disney references amuse me, but right now, I feel like Giselle in Enchanted: completely enthralled by the most normal things.
Last night I did laundry for the first time ever. And managed not to screw it up, even if I only washed my own things. I couldn’t risk Riker’s or Em’s.
I'll admit I was picturing the usual rom-com disaster with the helpless rich girl: soap suds everywhere, the washing machine exploding a mess all over the laundry room.
Turns out, if you just read the back of the box, the instructions aren’t that hard.
Maybe I shouldn’t be proud of that, but I am.
And I was proud, this morning, of making breakfast before sending everyone off to their day.
I’m not really the 'little woman' type, but I’m totally here for the functional family unit where everyone pulls their weight. Riker’s been making breakfast so far, but every day I’ve been asking to help with little tasks.
He has this way of looking at me, measuring me, not like he thinks I can’t do it, but like he’s not sure he wants to give up enough control of his life to let someone help.
But then he steps aside. Puts whatever I need in my hands and shows me what I have to do, guiding me sometimes with a light touch to the back of my hand.
I like it.
Maybe more than I should.
And I loved the baffled look on his face today when he came downstairs to find me shaking powdered sugar over perfectly edible French toast with coffee already going in the Moka pot and a steaming plate of cheesy scrambled eggs waiting to be dashed with pepper and divvied up.
You’d think money could've bought me a million times more happinesses than this, but somehow I’m only finding contentment here. Where I'm hiding for my life and figuring out how to crack an egg on a skillet without getting shell bits into the whites.
Right now, though, I’m staring at my notebook, chewing on a pen and figuring out how to fix a plot hole. Turns out writing a book isn’t just splattering random, overexcited words on a page.
Except...
Okay, it is. It totally is. But making those words actually good is hard. Making them fit together into a real, thrilling story instead of just my own random fantasies is harder yet.
Like, I’ve been writing fan fiction for years, but figuring out how to get past an alien's seven-year mating gap is way easier than figuring out whether or not my hero should have some dramatic tearjerker death in the end
, or if I want to give them a happily ever after.
I’m not sure if I’m worried what readers will think, or if I’m just not really a fan, right now, of stories that end in death.
I’m leaning toward some last-minute Hail Mary play that will hold readers in thrall until that critical final second...
Then my phone rings in my pocket, pulling me from my all-important staring at the page. The ringtone's one of Milah’s peppier songs, meaning it’s Milah herself and the jingle I set for her.
It's kind of my way of remembering happier times, a happier sister, so that even when I’m dreading another phone call needing me to drag her out of some dive where she’s wound up half-naked and barely-conscious?
I still smile whenever I hear that song.
When I pick up, though, rather than the inebriated slur I’m dreading, Milah’s crisp, calm voice gives me another reason to smile. She’s sober. I know I get frustrated when she backslides, but she’s trying with all her heart and soul, and that's what matters.
“Hey, baby sis,” she says. She sounds breathless, probably from practicing a stage routine. “How are things?”
“I’m good, for now. Working on another dance number?”
“No, just hitting the treadmill. It helps with the –” She stops, but I know what’s left blank. The cravings.
Whatever she needs to cope. Now in the background I can pick up the mechanical sound, the whirring, her feet hitting the track. “I’m in Toronto for the week for several shows and just rented out a villa with a private gym. You sure you're okay down there in dumpsville?”
“I’m good, I swear. I’m trying to get some writing in, and Riker’s taking good care of me.”
“I hope Riker’s less of a stick in the mud than Landon. Total straight-edge bore, that one, but he knows his stuff.” I catch a wet sloshing sound, I think a water bottle, then, “Just sit tight. He’ll take care of everything, and Daddy’s got all the costs covered.”
I don’t have a reply for that. Not one I want to say out loud anyway, when I feel so sick and frustrated inside.
I should just be grateful. Say the right words, tell her how glad I am that she and Daddy are taking care of me, putting me in the hands of people who will wrap everything up nice and tidy while I don’t have to lift a finger.
