Who knew?
Certainly notme.
And yet, I was acting as if getting my pussy knocked off the hinges by a literal killer was not only a foregone conclusion, but something that wouldn’t leave me crying in a corner, traumatized.
I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
Luckily, I had other things to focus on, like my new house. We were still on high alert, but with Alicia’s people involved now, we were confident enough in our manpower – and firepower – to not be on a full-blown lockdown.
I could go home.
I lovedPredatorterritory no doubt, but I also enjoyed having my space where I could just be Tati, instead ofVP.My mother was coming by the new place today to help me with some projects to help me turn it into something that was more…me.
Even though my base pieces, aka my expensive ass furniture, were remaining the same, I felt like it didn’t make sense tonottake advantage of the chance to do some new things with my décor—feature walls, open shelving, cute light fixtures, stuff like that.
My mother had a DIY streak like mine; she was who I’d gotten it from in the first place. And she was worried about me, always wanting to be up under me since the assault anyway. I’d managed to hold her off; ’cause I knew exactly what she’d subject me to, hours of ranting about Kev that I wasn’t trying to hear.
Now that she’d mellowed, spending some time together would be a perfect opportunity to knock two things out of the way.
“How is your recovery going?” I asked Onyx, forcing myself to not make it any weirder that we hadn’t said anything to each other.
“I’ve got no complaints,” he answered, nonchalant as fuck, with a maddeningly sexy shrug.
“That’s really not what I asked you.”
“Isn’t it though?” he countered and I sucked in a deep breath before I just walked away, ignoring Brandon’s quip about alover’s quarrel.
Asshole.
Back at my house, I took a good long shower and dressed in clothes I didn’t mind getting covered in paint or otherwise; our task list for the day was extensive. Technically the house was a rental, but only in the sense that I’d agreed to that arrangement so I could move in immediately. The purchase was already in progress to make it mine, so I could go ahead and start making whatever changes I wanted. An envelope full of the right amount of cash was good for changing most people’s plans and this had been no exception.
A landlord wasn’t an option in my position, so Keira made it happen.
I’d been at it for a bit by myself when my mother arrived, breezing in with enough food for an army as usual. Despite my efforts to avoid such a conversation, we went through the usual song and dance of her asking a bunch of questions about how I was feeling, what my plans were, and where Kev was.
She wanted him worse than any of us, honestly, which made me scared of what she might do. In general, my mother was a sweet woman, but she didn’t have a reputation fornotbeing one to fuck with for no reason.
Age had calmed her, a lot, but she didn’t play about her kids.
I loved that –cherishedthat – but still.
She knew Kev was stashed somewhere, but what I wasn’t going to do was tell her where. I didn’t want her bumping heads with Alicia and her people and I didn’t want her “taking care of” Kev in her own way.
I hadmyway, that I was still figuring out.
For now, I was letting him fester.
With a bit of insistence I managed to shift my mother’s focus to the actual matter at hand, getting her to give more attention to our list of projects than my trauma.
Aaaand… it took exactlyonequestion for me to reconsider the whole thing.
“Are yousureabout this color?” she asked, referring to the pretty, mauvy gray I’d spent hours agonizing over in front of a wall of paint chips at the store. I’d swatched a big patch of it on the wall so I could see how the color translated once it was dry.
“Yes,” I told her bluntly, and she frowned, looking up at the wall of the bathroom I’d already started amending with a decorative wood trim pattern we would be painting over.
“But it’s sobold,” she complained and I shook my head. “You’re going to be sick of this in six months.”
“It’s not bold,” I argued. “It’s just not neutral. And I don’t want neutral, I want it to be interesting and inviting and pretty. And I like it, so…”