Melody squealed in delight at the suggestion of a shopping day, a love she’d inherited from her mother, and she didn’t notice Mia’s reaction. But I did. I felt shock run through him like a live electrical current and saw as he turned to me with wide-eyed confusion.
“Is that—” He stuttered and had to swallow before he spoke again, his voice so small I feared it would shatter on the current of my apartment’s air-conditioning. “Is that all right?”
“Of course.” I shrugged, putting effort into keeping my voice light, like our conversation really was as casual and unimportant as it should have been. No one’s life should be fundamentally changed over something as simple as clothing. “You need clothes, so we’ll get you some. Whatever clothes you want. Sound good?”
Mia bit his lip, worrying the flesh between his teeth, but quickly nodded, trying and failing to hide his excitement.
I squeezed his shoulder once more before letting go. “Great. Now, Melody, why don’t you show Mia the board games we just got? You two can pick out something for us to play later.”
The distraction worked. Melody forgot about shopping and her previous goal to introduce Mia to all her toys. With a new objective in mind, she took Mia by the hand and brought him over to the shelf of board games, and I was free to slip over to Chantal unnoticed.
“Let me guess,” Chantal said before I even opened my mouth. “You need to ask me for a favor.”
I chuckled lowly under my breath. “You know me too well. Look, Mia needs some new clothes. The few things I’ve managed to get him will only do for so long, but if he prefers to wear woman’s stuff, I don’t know anything about all that. Can you take him shopping? Help him pick out some clothes that’ll work for him. I’ll pay for it, of course.”
Chantal scowled as she watched Melody and Mia together, going through the selection of board games stored on the far side of the room. It occurred to me then, that I had no idea what she thought about a man wearing traditionally women’s clothing. I’d never thought much about the concept, either, but now that it was thrust into my face, I found that I didn’t care. Mia had so many other more important issues going on.
His coma.
The burns he was still healing from.
The vague abuse that seemed to stain every memory of his past with pain and regret.
All of this was much more important than his choice of clothing. If wearing a dress instead of pants made him happy, then so be it. He deserved that much joy, at least.
However, I’d never discussed such a topic with Chantal before. There’d never been a reason to before today, so for all I knew, she might be disgusted by the idea of someone dressing outside their assigned gender.
As I waited for her to respond, I prepared myself to step in just in case I needed to shield Mia from her. While I didn’t think she would attack Mia outright, cruel words could sometimes hurt just as much as fists, and I had a feeling Mia had already experienced plenty of both.
In the end, Chantal sighed and rolled her eyes.
“I do need to take Melody shopping for new clothes. I swear, that girl grows so quickly, I feel like I’m replacing her wardrobe every month. So, if I’m going shopping anyway, I guess I can bring your Mia along as well.”
“Thanks,” I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked over at Mia again and saw the slight smile on the man’s face as Melody continued to babble at him.
For the first time, I realized how out of my depth I really was with Mia. I was a soldier, trained to fight, to kill, and in the best-case scenarios, to defend. Then, I’d transitioned to an FPA detective, but that job mostly consisted of catching criminals and avenging victims after they’d already been hurt. I had no idea how to help someone heal. I barely knew how to support Mia’s physical recovery, and that was only because the hospital had given me specific written instructions to follow. Helping him through the mental recovery of whatever abuse he’d suffered was beyond me.
Between the two of us, Chantal had always been the more nurturing one who was better with emotional issues. As a hairdresser, many of her clients basically treated her as free therapy, venting their problems as they sat in her chair to be pampered, and she somehow always knew exactly what to say.
I desperately needed her help.
“No really,” I repeated even more earnestly, placing her arm to catch her attention. “Thanks.”
She seemed startled by my sincerity, at first, but quickly hid it behind her usual unflappable façade.
“Well, it only makes sense,” she said, studying her nails like her words didn’t matter at all. “We’ll need to get along if your Mia is going to be in our lives from now on.”
I stumbled over my words, not sure whether to address her use of ‘your Mia’ or her assumption that the other man would be staying for a long time. However, before I could untie my tongue and utter a single syllable, Chantal took one look at my face and laughed out loud.
“Oh, please,” she said, clearly mocking me. “You wouldn’t be doing all this for someone you didn’t care about. I’ve known for a while that you were bi. This isn’t the kind of person I expected you to bring home, but it’s hardly a shock, either. You’ve always had a bleeding heart for people in need.”
I wanted to argue, to insist that I was only helping Mia out of charity and not for any other personal reasons, but I couldn’t. Honestly, I didn’t even know why I felt so committed to the man. Something about him had wormed under my skin without me even noticing. Bringing him into my home had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. So, although Chantal’s assumption about my relationship with Mia wasn’t correct, I couldn’t argue and say that she was entirely wrong, either.
All I could do was stand there while she laughed at me and wonder how I’d gotten myself into this situation.
CHAPTER 20
Auggie