“Are you going to stand there and watch?” he asks.
“I’m not sure what I’m doing.”
He smiles. “If you ask me nicely, I’ll tell you what to do.”
“I don’t need a man to tell me what to do.”
“As you wish.”
Immediately, I regret giving him attitude. I wish I could tell him everything I’m going through, but I’m so far deep in with the police and agents who have been protecting me against a major crime lord that I think Connor will end me when he finds out. The cops have been protecting me because I swore to help them put away said crime lord. If I betray them, I’m sure they’ll throw me right back at the man, who will torture me, then kill me. Atthe very least, if I don’t do what I said I would, they’ll remove the protection. Either way, I’ll be dead in a matter of hours.
Connor wouldn’t protect a snitch. Especially not one who would testify against a crime lord. Who’s to say I wouldn’t snitch on the Crossbows? Nobody protects the snitch. I have to remember that.
“Come on, Mamma. I earned some time with you, don’t you think?”
“Oh, that’s not… I wasn’t rejecting the shower or anything.” I take off my clothes and join him, feeling a little shy. I’m not a shy girl. What is happening to me? Oh God, I mustreallylike him.
Connor wets my hair, then drizzles shampoo on it.
“What?” he asks as he rubs the shampoo into a lather.
The head of his beautiful, pierced penis touches my belly, more specifically the baby pouch that’s left after the cesarean. No amount of dieting melts away the fat. My mom has the same pouch so it’s genetics.
“It occurs to me that I like you,” I say.
“Oh,” Connor says. “That explains the horrified expression I saw on your face. I would be horrified too if I liked me.”
I take the opening. “Do you not like you?”
“I hate me.”
I don’t know what to say to that. “But why?”
“Because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The tree is rotten, the land it grew on was rotten, and the apples are all rotten.”
“Hanna doesn’t think you’re rotten.”
Connor pauses washing my hair. I can almost see the glitch in his brain. He pushes me under the stream, and I rinse my hair while watching him struggle with what I said.
“No comment?” I ask
“Hanna doesn’t know me.”
“That’s not true. She knows the side of you nobody else knows.”
Connor shakes his head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Stop arguing with me.”
“Why should I when I’m right, and you don’t want to accept that you can be gentle, kind, and caring? That’s the truth.”
He applies conditioner to his hair, then mine. “What is the truth?”
“That you’re not the monster you think you are. That people can love you.”
“People often love sociopaths. They’re lovable by design. Like a diamond. Beautiful. Admired. Will not return affection because it’s a rock.”