Page 60 of Souls and Sorrows

Like I would ever harm the best gift anyone has ever given me.

Since Cash told me the building was mine to do with as I pleased, I’ve been coming each morning after he leaves for the office and doing small renovations. First, it was just peeling the torn, outdated wallpaper and furnishing the place with padded benches and freestanding barres for optimal stretching.

Now, I’m working on slathering the interior in a fresh coat of paint, so at least it feels more like a place I’d dance—even if I never get around to it.

Footsteps approach, but I still don’t turn my head as I glide the roller against the plaster.

“They have professionals you can hire to do this, you know,” Cash says, his deep voice making the muscles in my shoulders tighten.

Pressing my lips together, I just shrug, not saying anything.

I guess I’m still a little bitter about him calling me a child the other day even if it was warranted. My ability to hold a grudge—including the unfounded ones—is truly a disease sometimes.

“Ah, the silent treatment.” He chuckles, bending down and grabbing one of the extra rollers. “Very mature.”

My arm continues working as he joins in, painting in columns beside mine and going over spots that need an extra coat.

Every act of kindness is not an attack,I remind myself because my body feels fraught with tension, constantly expecting the worst. It’s like staring at a dormant geyser, waiting for it to burst because you’ve built your life around the hope that it won’t.

I’m used to the eruptions. The fake-outs, where people say one thing and do the opposite.

Maybe that’s what’s so unsettling about Cash; when you’re comfortable in chaos, peace feels like a threat.

Swallowing over the hard knot lodged in my throat, I nod my chin at his handiwork, forcing myself to engage. “Not too shabby there, Counselor.”

“Three summers of Habitat for Humanity in high school. Plus, my sister is an interior designer and artist, so painting is kind of in my blood.”

I can’t stop the soft smile that spreads over my lips. “Are you close with her?”

“Lenny’s a difficult person to be close to.”

Glancing at him from the corner of my eye, I raise a brow. “Sounds a little like projection.”

His roller pauses. “Are you suggesting I’m hard to get to know?”

“I’m just saying, that sounded like somethingIwould say about my sisters. And neither of them is the difficult one.”

Cash hums, dipping back into the tray of paint, and slides down the wall to start on a wider patch. We work in silence for a few minutes, and I realize belatedly that this is the first time I can remember being with a man and not feeling the need to put on some kind of performance.

I can just sit and paint without worrying what I look like, or what I’m doing, or what he’s planning.

“So, you never told me what your plan to kill me is,” he says after a while, shucking out of his suit jacket.

I watch, mouth dry, as he rolls up the sleeves of his black button-down, then removes his glasses, wiping them on the collar of his shirt.

His eyes crinkle at the corners when he catches me staring. Clearing my throat, I go back to my roller, switching out the old pad for a newer one.

“You’re way too casual about that threat.”

“Well, I hadn’t pegged you as theblack widowtype, but I’m more than happy to admit when I’m wrong.”

Squeegeeing the excess paint from the roller, I turn my wrist and work slowly near the baseboard of the wall, considering how to answer the question.

It feels like a trap. Like he knows something he isn’t letting on about.

My gut instinct is to retreat. To clam up and refuse him entry to the deepest, scarred parts of me.

The dark parts I don’t let anyone see.

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