Page 133 of Penny For Your Thoughts
Echo sniffed and chuffed and demanded attention.
Diem indulged her for a second, letting her smell his hand while reassuring her he was fine. Not once did he take his eyes off Darcy. The kid shrank in on himself when Diem took Echo’s leash.
Diem told Echo to sit and “Fucking relax,” and she did so without blinking.
Darcy’s chin quivered. He cowered, hugging himself tighter as he stared at the ground like he expected trouble or a lecture… or a smack across the top of the head.
“Are you okay?” Diem asked.
Darcy nodded, sniffled, and went to town on the fidget ring. He crisscrossed the toes of his running shoes; a weird quirk I’d seen him do numerous times. “Are you?”
“Gonna take a lot more than a fucking Bentley and a pompous scam artist to take me out, kid.”
“Did I screw up?”
“No. You did good.”
Darcy peeked from under his bangs, assessing Diem like he didn’t believe him.
Then, Diem, the guy who had taken over a year to learn how to share a bed with me, who, when I met him, feared intimacy and touch and bonding and connection of any kind, reached out and ruffled Darcy’s hair before tugging the kid into a hug.
The man-child, the petulant brat who had somehow fallen into our lives, who rubbed me the wrong way every time he opened his mouth, wrapped his arms around Diem’s middle, buried his face against my burly boyfriend’s chest, and cried.
Diem held him, and although he looked ten flavors of uncomfortable and awkward, and although his muscles stiffened with the contact and his forehead rippled with uncertainty, he didn’t let go until Darcy wore himself out. He rocked the kid side to side, he rested his chin on his head, and he told him over and over that everything was going to be okay.
Whatever unfounded jealousy I harbored melted away. Diem’s world grew a fraction larger every day. One baby step at a time, and I couldn’t have been prouder.
We returned to the Jeep in silence. Diem kept one hand on the back of Darcy’s neck—not in a controlling way, but in a comforting way.I’m here, it said.I’m with you, it said.You’re not alone, it said.
Diem drove. One eye on the road, the other on the rearview mirror and Darcy.
The kid sat in the back with Echo, the pair subdued, both peering out the window as the city zipped by.
I took Diem’s blood-spattered hand and examined it, plucking pebbles of glass from the cuts, cleaning them with an antibacterial wipe I found in the glove box. How many times had he punched the windshield to cause the impact crater and spiderwebbing? Diem was strong, but that would have been a feat.
“Are you sure you didn’t break anything?” I moved each finger, checking the joints.
He opened and closed his fist to prove he hadn’t. I must have looked unconvinced. After I finished doctoring him, he weaved his fingers with mine, brought my hand to his mouth, and kissed it.
“I saw the windshield when he raced by me.” My stomach clenched. “That had to have hurt.”
“It did, but my shoulder made the initial crack. My fist did the rest.”
“Your shoulder? Is it bruised?”
“Probably. Doesn’t hurt right now. Ask me tomorrow.”
“What if he makes a report?”
“Then he would have a lot of explaining to do. He’s on camera, trying to run me over, and he chased Darcy through the compound. The same guy who is trying to fly under the radar because he’s scamming old folks out of millions of dollars. The fire department will soon prove that he set the fire in the unit.”
“You’re right.”
I assumed we would return to the apartment and call it a night—the storage facility adventure had gotten out of hand—but we didn’t.
As Diem drove, I figured he was searching for a gas station that sold liquor and cigarettes. It wouldn’t have surprised me. When we passedseveral, and he didn’t turn in, I assumed he was hungry for a specific type of food and was driving to a restaurant.
I didn’t ask and shifted to peer out the window. The rough scratch of papers against my abdomen reminded me of the discovery I’d made inside the storage unit. I tugged them free and unfolded them.
