Olivia rolls her eyes. “Please. Your soul’s more crippled than your leg.”
She has no idea how right she is, and I have no intention of letting her anywhere close enough to find out. I’ve gotten good at shutting people out by pushing them away…being as nasty as possible until they reach their breaking point. But with her? It’s different. And not only because the three-month rule my father’s implemented means I can’t scare her away. I suspect she of all people might realize that the caustic, hostile routine isn’t a routine at all. This girl might just figure out that I’m truly rotten to the core.
It’s better that she does; I just need to delay that realization for a while. Three months, specifically. I’m not saying I’m going to be nice to her. I have absolutely no intention of going all friendly on her ass. But I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent her from realizing that I’m more dead inside than she can possibly know. I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that little Lily gets the treatment she needs.
I will not, however, accompany her on her morning “runs,” and I use that word loosely.
“There’s a treadmill in the gym,” I say, continuing along the path.
“Is there?” she asks, falling into step beside me. “Rumor has it you don’t use it.”
“You know,” I say as though realization just struck, “I just had the best idea. How about we not do this chatty little shared morning together? You go ahead and scamper back up to the house with your ill-fitting shoes, and I’ll continue slithering along this path alone. Yeah?”
“My shoes are not ill-fitting.”
I snort. “Please. Where’d you get them, online?”
She’s silent for a second. “They got great reviews.”
“I’m sure they did. Probably by people who liked the pretty pink color.”
“What’s wrong with the color?”
“For lipstick? Nothing,” I say, even though I have no idea why I’m continuing this conversation. The innocuousness of it feels suspiciously normal.
“Let me guess,” she says. “Your high school track team placed second in the state like a hundred years ago, and you’re still reliving the glory?”
“A hundred years ago? Exactly how old do you think I am? And no, I didn’t run track in high school.”
“You’re twenty-four going on like a hundred.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Is that a crack about the cane?”
“Oh yeah, can we talk about that for a second?” she asks, peering down at the object in question. “That whole snake thing is a reference to your penis, right?”
My footsteps falter. This girl looks like a poster child for a church’s youth group, and penis is so not a word I was prepared for. Not in this context, anyway.
“Seriously?” I ask, annoyed at being thrown off guard. Not only does she invade my personal space and invite herself on a walk she clearly wasn’t invited on, but she’s prying into my past, accusing me of being an old man, and now dropping penis into conversation like we’re discussing the weather.
“I’m just saying,” she says with a shrug. “It’s a snake head, and the way you use it keeps it sort of in the vicinity of, well…your snake head. I figure that can’t be an accident.”
Sweet Jesus.
“It’s a cane. I can’t use it and not have it in the vicinity of—shit. Just never mind. Can you please just trot along back to the house? Your Barbie shoes are going to get dirty out here.”
Olivia shrugs but doesn’t make any move to head in the opposite direction. “Personally, I think you should have gotten a jaguar cane. That would have been really cool.”
I frown. “The python’s cool.”
“No. The python’s creepy and suggestive. But a sleek, sexy black cat? That would up the cool factor.”