Page 43 of Hustle

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I love you. But I can’t let someone else do this to you. I owe you that much.”

It was exactly what I’d done with Seamus. I’d destroyed our relationship to protect him from my dysfunction. And now I’d destroy my building, something I held just as precious, to keep it from the Stacys’ dirty hands.

It’s like what Seamus had said about Murphy. You always do the important jobs yourself. If my life falls apart, it’ll be at my own hands, and not at the hands of cruel men like my father or the Stacys. Or even at the hands of kind, generous men like Seamus, who care deeply but who cannot understand why I won’t be someone’s project to fix, good intentions be damned.

I pull back with all my might and swing the hammer into the wall. The pop and crack of the bricks as they crumble goes straight through me. I’m crying as I go for the second swing, the force of metal on brick pushing me back a step. I go for the third swing, but something stops me.

Or rather, someone stops me, grabbing the hammer.

“What the hell are you doing?”

It’s Seamus. Of course it is.

“Leave me alone, Seamus. I have to do this on my own. I’m not going to let some fucking Stacy wrecking crew profit from destroying my fucking building.” I’ve only managed to make a six-inch hole in the side of the wall, and suddenly realize how fucking crazy I must look attacking my building.

But I’m just trying to save my own sanity, my own life, one brick at a time. I don’t care how long it takes. It took that hiker who got pinned by a boulder out west five fucking days to carve his own arm off with a pocketknife, but crazy as that may have seemed when he started with that first cut, it’s what kept him alive. If he’d waited for help, he’d have died.

The urgency of the situations are vastly different, but the need for survival, to do something bold to escape the trap of one’s circumstances, feels the same.

Seamus pulls the hammer out of my hands and drops it on the sidewalk before taking me by the shoulders. His worried gaze searches my face.

“You can’t do this yourself,” he says. “And you don’t need to.”

He won’t even let me cut my own fucking arm off. I go cold, realizing how fucking ridiculous that sounds. What’s wrong with me?

My anger vanishes, and I’m suddenly sober, filled with despair I’ve spent my whole life fighting to avoid. My body sags against the dark, heavy weight of it, but Seamus keeps me from falling.

“Can you help me take her apart, Seamus?” I don’t bother hiding the sobs wracking my body. “I can’t watch the Stacys do it. It’ll kill me, and I can’t give them that satisfaction.”

“No.”

And why should he? I pushed him aside for his worst enemy. I try to straighten up but he holds me tighter, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other cradling the back of my neck.

“We can save the block, Evi. All of it.”

What?

How?

Seamus never lies, though. I’m lightheaded from the stress, and Seamus senses this, slipping his arms under my legs like he’s going to scoop me up. He thinks better of it, though, and moves back to just holding me steady.

“Come on, Evi. Let’s go upstairs and I’ll tell you everything.”

He walks next to me as we slowly head up to my loft, his arm firm but gentle around my shoulders. He doesn’t rush, and just waits quietly next to me when my knees threaten to buckle.

When we get to the couch, I force myself to look at him. I don’t want him to see me like this, but it can’t be helped.

“I didn’t want you to have to save me again.” My voice wavers, but I don’t want to make this harder. “You felt guilty all those years because of my shitty father, and if this,” I gesture at my loft, “if I lost this, I didn’t want it to be another thing you blamed yourself for.”

He furrows his brow and presses his lips together. “I wish you’d told me instead of carrying it all yourself, but it’s not like I’ve been a bastion of clear communication either.”

He fixes those bright blue eyes on me. “Do I see you as an obligation? I sure as hell do, but not in the way you think. Not like you’re a charity case I’ve taken on.”

I fold my arms over my chest, and Hank hops over, sitting at my feet and growling quietly.

“You’re an obligation because I love you, and when I love someone, I make a commitment to support them no matter what, no matter how hard things get.”

It’s like I’ve been hit by the sledgehammer. My eyes widen, and I drop my arms to my side.

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