She was right earlier.
It felt good to be around someone who could at least partially understand how I felt about what happened with Victoria. No,Carmen didn’t have the images in her head that I did. But she had the backstory for the woman I’d been lacking.
It was more than the shared trauma, though.
I just… liked her. Her selflessness. Her desire to lift up everyone around her. The soft bits beneath the harder exterior.
I never really considered myself a caretaker. As an eldest child, I was better at management, at oversight and delegation. I didn’t do the soft shit. The back rubbing and the hand holding. My sister was better at that. Hell, Croft was better at that.
That lack of history didn’t change the fact that I suddenly found myself wanting to take care of Carmen.
I wanted to pick up some of the slack. Wanted to take some things off her plate. I wanted to be someone she could come to and unload when she’d been holding everything in for too long.
“Morning,” Sofia said, voice sleepy.
I glanced over, seeing her cheek all pillow-creased and her hair bed-messy.
“Morning. How’d that sleep audition go?”
“Oh, God,” Sofia said, burying her face in Hammy’s neck. “They were orcs. Orc producers. And they wanted me to do my monologue while doing calisthenics.”
“Did you get the part?”
“Nope. Jennifer Aniston was there. Dressed as a goth. She got the job.”
The laugh that escaped me had Carmen grumbling in her sleep, then snuggling closer.
Sofia sat up, her smile soft.
“She’s different with you. I feel better leaving knowing she has you.”
She didn’t, though.
Not in the way Sofia thought.
“What time is check-out?”
“Eleven.”
“Okay. I’m gonna jump in the shower and take Hammy for a walk. Then we can grab some breakfast before heading out.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
And there was no good reason for the way my stomach twisted at the idea of checking out, of helping the girls put their luggage in their car… then watching them drive away from me. All the while knowing I wouldn’t have an excuse to travel all the way up to Carmen’s neck of the woods again. At least not until I found the Jon asshole and took him out once and for all.
Then I could go see her. Tell her that we could finally close that chapter of our lives.
It was Sofia closing the door as she took the dog for a walk that had Carmen stirring.
There was a second when she still clung to me.
Then she flew away from me, eyes wide, almost unseeing for a second.
“Just me,” I told her. “You passed out about a third of the way through the movie. It was like movie night with my great uncle.”
That got a snort out of her.
“Where’s Sof?”