Well I would if not for the fact that she woke up beside me full of purpose with her mouth set in a determined line that makes me nervous. If she’s planning to leave me, she can just forget about that, and that’s final.
I know I’ve gone back on my word about quitting altogether, and I feel like an ass for thinking that I could just drop everything and be okay with staying at home with the family.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy spending time with them. It’s just weird going from working all those jobs at the same time, to waking up and not knowing what I’ll do when my job with the force comes to an end.
For that reason, I’d finally buckled and let it slip that I was quitting IA due to a lack of evidence. I didn’t want Dobson getting too suspicious, so I kept my shit together and gave him as much hell as I always have.
Seems to be working, because they invited me and Roman to a poker game last night and we ended up dropping enough hints about our trust funds just not cutting it and the cost of keeping up the lifestyle without our family money.
Chief Dobson seemed open to us after that, and I know it’s just a matter of time before they start trying to bring us in. Time is the problem, though, because this is just dragging on too long for me.
And then there are those damned assholes who want revenge on my family. Jared managed to plant a few bugs in Veronica’s house after posing as the capable guy and finally meeting his long-lost love, Paulette.
I swear the guy has absolutely no game for someone who seems to get as much tail as a male stripper. But that aside, I get to hear about how much they despise us all and how they’ll get revenge for those assholes Lynn and Bolton.
Part of me would love to walk right up to them and tell them that they’re not dead but rotting away in places they’ll never be found.
But I won’t do that to Pop, not after having seen him mourn his sister this past year and coming to grips with her betrayal. A man can dream, though.
I snap out of it when Clari comes striding back into the room and plants herself beside the sofa with her hands on her hips.
“We need to talk.”
Here we go.
“No. We have nothing to hash out, so you can get that right out of your head, Clari.”
Her eyes narrow and I instantly regret wanting her to pick up some of Ma and Ellie’s attitude. Things were easier when she didn’t enjoy arguing so much.
“Yes, we do,” she says with a stamp of her sneaker-clad foot. “I took the freaking day off work for this, so you can just sit there and listen, Miah Lane. Now, I get that you think that you’re some sort of superman or something, and I find that part of you totally hot, I do, but I’m tired of never seeing you while you kill yourself trying to piece everything together.”
“Clari—”
“No, Miah! I get that you think that everything will be just fine, but the truth is that you’ll still be exactly where you are now in a few months. The cops will only be ready to show their hands when they’re ready. The family stuff, well you can only wait for them to either lose interest or do something about it. As for the militia they’re funding, that’s the government’s problem and you know it.”
Dammit, why does she have to be so right? Jared said the same thing, backed by Roman, Jace, and Wyatt. They’re all telling me that rushing stuff will only get us hurt or killed, and I fought them all, not wanting to hear it.
With Clari saying it now and basically begging me to just relax and let things fall as they may, I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. With her saying that I don’t have to have results right now, and that my lack of progress in finding the ones who wanted to hurt her isn’t upsetting her, I feel like I can breathe again.
This is why I tried so hard to avoid her. I knew that my shit would affect her and our life together.
“I wanted to fix it all now that you’re here and Josh and just…I can’t stand the thought of something bad happening to you or any of the family, Clari.”
She plops down into my lap and kisses me once before taking my face in her hands and looking deep into my eyes.
“You’re enough, Miah, and you’re doing more than enough not to have to kill yourself trying to be this robot. I don’t want you roaming the streets at night following some fat asshole who’s smuggling drugs, or whatever it is they do. You do what you can and come home to us, Miah, and leave the rest up to someone else. Jared wants to help more, and Jace was so pissed off last night when your phone went to voice mail. Please, just slow down.”
She’s begging me to just be me when I’ve been trying to be more than that for weeks now. It humbles me so much that for once I’ve chosen someone who doesn’t want Miah Lane, the super soldier, or the badass who’s just into a good time and sex.