“Okay! Okay! I get it,” I cut her off, laughing but then not laughing once I see how upsetting it is for her to recount the slum she’s been living in.
“I’m not laughing at you, Trudi. I’m not.” I say truthfully, leaning in and taking one of her hands in mine.
“I’m laughing the bitter laugh of a man who thought he was getting a bargain, but really bought something that needs a lot of work… But also the same man’s laugh who realizes he’s paid a small price for the greatest thing in the world.”
She crosses her brow in a question, but I leave it at that for now. I don’t want to scare her off. I’m pinching myself that I even found her, let alone got her in my car within a half hour. That’s incredible.
“Will you fix up the building, or just demolish it like they all seem to nowadays,” she muses, almost to herself and I feel a stab of hurt as she looks out the window. Away from me and back into the only life she’s known, the one without me in it.
I grind my jaw, trying not to focus on the past, my past without her.
“If you want, we can fix up the whole building, any way you think it would be best for the tenants… no increase in rent either,” I tell her.
If she hadn’t been there, I might well have leveled the whole place, which was the strongest recommendation from the developers I work with. But now, after meeting Trudi, after hearing it’s a neighborhood that could use something positive in it, I’m thinking differently.
“You’re just saying that to be nice,” she says. “Nobody in their right mind would spend a dime on that place. It should be scrapped.”
“Where would everyone go?” I ask her, feeling like the tables have been turned and I’m the one who cares about things, people and places now.
“Not your problem, right?” she says, not even trying to hide her sarcasm.
“Nobody made you stay there.” I challenge her, feeling a thrill as her eyes flash wider on me.
“I really don’t see how that’s your business!” she says, and I know right now, that I’m hooked. I love a girl with her own mind, but I love a girl with her own voice even more.
I chuckle to myself, because she’s right. I’m poking her a little, to see how far she’ll put up with me, but I know I have to be a little delicate too. She’s had a rough morning, rough few days by the sounds of it.
“Tell me about what happened, with your job,” I ask her, but it comes out more like a command.
She wants to have her say about that too, but she recounts the memory of it playing in her features long before she answers me.
“It’s a crappy job, but I like the regulars. They make it bearable, like that cop…”
Sloane.
“But yesterday, there was this guy, I dunno, maybe a tweaker or something. Real freaky looking with shifty eyes, he sits down and asks for a glass of water. My boss grumbled but gave me the nod, some people like to think before ordering.”
I lean forward again, this time because I’m interested in what she’s saying. Her voice, the way her face moves when she talks. I could listen to Trudi all day long.
“So this guy, he sits there for like an hour and I’m starting to wonder, so I ask him point blank if he’s going to order.”
I watch her face fall and her body starts to shiver, like she’s cold all of a sudden.
“What happened?” I press her, knowing I don’t want to know but needing to know.
“He just grabs me, like really hard… He yanks my arm and… he grabbed my chest… and then he…”
It’s too much for her, and she’s crying. Reliving something like that’s too much for her, it’s too soon.
I switch my seat and slide over next to her, my arms go around her and I’m relieved more than anything when I feel her burrowing into me once more.
Safe.
Protected.
I had no idea that’s what happened, and although I’m holding her, comforting her. I’m furious that she had to experience anything so brutal, and then again at the hands of that prick Marco this morning.
“You’re alright now, Trudi. You’re safe. I promise. Nothing and nobody is ever going to do anything like that to you again. D’you understand me?” I ask her, my own jaw grinding my teeth to powder as I try and talk.
I can feel her nodding, sobbing and sniffing again, and once we get to the hotel for coffee, I sit with her until she feels up to it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Trudi
“We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” he says, and I lift myself up from his warmth, his rippled body underneath his suit is something I could just live in.
“I feel stupid, that’s all,” I tell him, because I do. All I’ve done all morning is blubber about the things that happened to me.
“It’s natural,” he assures me, “You’ve had two terrible things happen in two days.”
“Three.” I correct him, and he quizzes me with his eyes.
“I didn’t kiss you when I had the chance…”
I stop with my mouth open. Stunned.
I did not just say that, did I?
“And when was your big chance?” he asks me, smirking, not even missing a beat.
“When you held my chin up with your finger,” I recount to him.
“Like this?” he whispers, and I feel my tongue wetting my lips, wondering if any of this is even real anymore.
He puts his thick finger under my chin again, tenderly holding my face with his thumb and finger. I’m shivering again, but not from cold or bad memories this time. This is the best kind of shivers and he’s the only one who can give them to me.
I watch his eyes soften, a low sound coming from him that mixes with my little whimpering gasp and I feel
