Emotion instantly blazed in Nick’s eyes that I read and maybe my reaction wasn’t healthy.

But I loved it.

Because it was jealousy.

That said, I also had to assuage it.

“It’s over now. Long done. Long dead. But back then, we were in love. We went to Mexico. We were going to run a Jet Ski business and make babies. We were stupid and young and hopeful which made us more stupid. Dad found us. Dragged us back. Taught his lesson.”

My eyes drifted away from his as my words kept coming.

“He told Georgia it was about the money we supposedly stole. But we hadn’t stolen anything. Some of it was mine, some of it was Tommy’s. I think Dad told her that so she’d not question what he was doing. The lesson he was teaching. But he taught it and not just to me. To Tommy. But he also taught it to Georgia. She might be in denial but she learned it. It wasn’t about the money Tommy and I took with us. It was about me and even Tom.”

I looked back to Nick, and lost in my story, I kept telling it. But even looking right at him, I barely saw him.

“My father owned us and we were not free to do what we wished or be with who we wished. We were not family. Tom was not a soldier who disobeyed orders and had to be punished. We were tools who needed to be available to him for whenever he wished to use us. Minions. Slaves. We did as told and nothing else. And Georgia’s three years older than me. She saw men and even had some who were steady before that happened with me and Tommy. Not after. She learned the same as me.”

Still stroking my jaw, Nick held my eyes but he didn’t say anything.

So I asked, “You know what’s strange?”

“Everything about that is strange,” Nick noted quietly.

He probably wasn’t wrong but I didn’t know that life.

I didn’t share that verbally, but I knew Nick still got me when he asked, “But what do you think’s strange, Livvie?”