Page 44 of Gonzo's Grudge
I huffed a humorless sound. “That supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” she continued. “It’s supposed to make this part simpler. You’re not lying to me. That’s the only way this works.” She squeezed once. “Are you lying to me now?”
“No,” I said, and let it weigh the air. “I’m not proud of any of it. But I’m not going to pretty it up so you stay.”
“I’m not staying because it’s pretty.” She smiled softly. “I’m staying because it’s you.”
That word did something corroded to me. I turned and caught her jaw in my palm, scaled calluses against soft skin. “She wasn’t wrong about one other thing.”
I felt her shoulders tense under the T-shirt. She made herself meet my eyes. “Say it.”
“I ruin things I touch,” I shared honestly. “Not because I want to. Because trouble follows me. I bring heat. I draw fire. And anyone standing near catches the pain from whatever I start.”
“Okay,” she muttered. Not a flinch in it. “Then teach me to duck.”
I stared, and for the first time since the door opened, I almost smiled. “You don’t scare at all do you?”
“I’m scared,” she said. “But I’m not running because she told me to.”
“She told you I’ll never be faithful.”
“I heard her,” she stated firmly. “I also hear you. Right now. This moment. I also know what I feel and I trust my instincts.”
Moments are easy to promise in and hard to live through; I know that better than most. I leaned my weight back, the counter creaking under my hand. “I can’t rewrite who I was.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” she said. “I asked who you are with me.”
I could have dodged. Given her a half-nice answer dressed up as a vow. Left enough air in it that I could squeeze out if I needed to. That’s a thing I’ve done, even when I meant well. But her faith in me was a blade at my throat and a hand at my back.
“With you,” I said, slow as a loaded phrase, “I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want to want anyone else. I don’t—” I broke off, shook my head, found it. “I look at you and the part of me that used to go hunting for distraction goes quiet. I can’t promise I won’t fuck up. Men like me are built out of bad decisions and duct tape. But if I do, it won’t be because you weren’t enough. It’ll be because I let the old wiring spark. And I’ll own it before you have to ask.”
She searched my face like she was checking for exits. Then she nodded, like she’d found the ones she could live with. “Then I choose you,” she remarked. “And I’ll keep choosing you until one of us decides we can’t.”
“That simple?” I asked, because I’ve seen what simple looks like after return fire.
She lifted one shoulder. “All the complicated parts are already here: outlaws, prison, judges, exes with keys. We might as well keep the rules simple.”
I breathed out and found my hands on her hips, pulling her into my space without thinking. She came easy. That’s how she moves with me—like she already decided and doesn’t need to rehearse.
“You hungry?” I asked, because feeding people is one of the few ways I know how to say the unsayable.
“A little,” she said. “Mostly for the part where you aren’t six feet away from me acting like you’re a storm I should batten down for.”
I grunted. “I am a storm.”
“Then come sit with me while it passes,” she invited.
We ate eggs and toast because that’s what you do when the world tries to knock your teeth out at breakfast. She talked about a paper due and I grumbled about wishing GJ was home and somewhere in it things felt casual again.
When the plates were in the sink, the house felt different. Not safe; that word doesn’t live in head-spaces like mine. But steadier. Stronger. Like the floor would hold if I set more weight on it.
“Walk,” I said. “Perimeter check to give window lock counts to Shanks.”
She didn’t ask why I was worried about windows. This was IvaLeigh, she trusted me even when she shouldn’t. She grabbed a hoodie and followed me out. I checked windows and latches, the shed lock, the gravel where footprints tell stories. Nothing new but the imprint of Cat’s boots and my own. Good.
We stood under the covered front porch and watched a stripe of cloud pick a fight with the morning. Her shoulder brushed my bicep. She fit there like that space belonged to her shape.
“She said I’ll never be faithful,” I said, half to the yard. “I was faithful when it mattered least. I was a bastard when it counted.”
