He decided to go with discomfort even if it wasn’t just so he could make sure it wasn’t but get her beyond it if it was.
“You need to get back there, Jussy. It’s your home. Work’s gettin’ done for you to be safe in it. But you will not be alone there and tomorrow night until Callahan has your system done, you’re stayin’ here with me.”
There was a pause and no movement before she said again, “Okay.”
She didn’t argue.
Good.
“Talked to Decker,” Deke carried on. “He’s a busy guy but he’s clearing things, favor for a friend. Means he’s on the job. He’s good, Jussy. He’ll find her.”
She lifted a hand and curled it on his thigh under her nose and gave him a squeeze.
She gave him a squeeze but he could feel the tension all through her.
Deke kept sliding his hand in her hair as he asked, “How do I get you to relax, baby? Close your eyes. Sleep a little.”
“Daddy,” she whispered.
“Say again?”
“My phone, Deke. It’s on your nightstand. Can you pull up my music? Play anything. Anything by my dad.”
Deke reached out, got her phone and he knew what he’d play.
It was on Johnny Lonesome’s album Living Room, one of his last, the album her dad and his band recorded in one go during an acoustic session in that same room in his house.
For years before they recorded one, these sessions had been legendary. Everyone knew that all through his career, his band, who never lost a member until Lonesome died (except the drummer who had left him but only to tour with Jussy when she’d done her thing), would jam in his living room just for the fun of it.
So they decided one day, to the gratitude of their fans, to record a session.
It had been brilliant.
And Lonesome had been performing a certain song for years but that was the first time that song was even close to studio recorded. Deke had never seen the man in concert but he’d heard that song, from that album and well before, on live ones.
And Deke learned from what he’d read a few nights ago that Lonesome played his song “Never Missin’ Home” at every concert.
It had some lines Deke thought he got.
But he didn’t.
Never wanna leave my Justice, my home.
So I bring her with me, my baby Lonesome.
Don’t matter, Justice is always there,
Always right there, no matter where I go.
My baby Lonesome,
Makin’ it so I’m never missin’ home.
He queued up the song, hit play and slipped down into the bed, drawing Jussy up so she was resting on his chest, her face in his throat, Deke’s arms curved around her.
Johnny Lonesome sang about his daughter as she curled deeper into Deke and rubbed her face in his throat.
“Perfect,” she whispered over her father’s voice.
It was. He knew it.
He knew it because in bed with Deke, held close, her father right there with them, it took only three songs and she was out.
Chapter Ten
Catch You
Justice
It was after my nap.
It was also after the girls coming back, cleaning the trailer and stocking the cupboards and fridge. They stayed. We gabbed. Then they left.
And last, it was after Deke and I camped out in front of his small television which was fed from a satellite dish and we watched The Professional.
One of my favorite movies.
And I’d found it was one of Deke’s favorites too.
I also found that Deke’s face got soft when he noticed me crying when Léon had to let Mathilda go down the exhaust chute. It got soft right before he pulled me out of my corner of the couch into him in his and he held me throughout the rest of the movie (so he didn’t see when I started crying again later, though with the way he started tangling his fingers in my hair, I think he guessed).
It was dinnertime and I was sitting cross-legged on his couch, watching him in his tiny kitchen frying bologna and making toast.
Frying bologna and making toast.
The girls had brought huge amounts of food. So much of it, some of it was taking up what little counter space Deke had. They hadn’t prepared us for a few nights hanging at Deke’s trailer. They’d prepared us for a three-month-long siege.
And he was making me fried bologna on toast, the American cheese slices out and at the ready.
Just like I’d told him I liked it.
It was with that—not to mention every moment of that day since I heard Deke’s bellow at the police station—that I knew.
I could do his boundaries.
No.
I could so totally do his boundaries.
Sure, those boundaries didn’t include sex and a possible future that included me birthing big baby boys with hazel eyes.
But with all Deke gave me, the care, the cuddling, the protection, the cuddling (worth a second mention since Deke was so good at it), making me feel the impossible after what had happened—safe in his sphere and especially in his arms—I could take that.
I had a lot of friends and family who loved me. The closest of them would do all the same things.