Free Dust by Mandy Harbin Page B

your life instead of giving your mother any credit?"
    "I..." But I didn't know what to say to that. He had a point. A good one. It didn't change the fact that my father was a crazy man; his DNA was a part of me, but so was my mother's. Maybe the good in her helped keep the beast within me leashed. It was plausible. If I were 100 percent evil, there'd be no logical side to me. Yet, I usually never acted before thinking. Gabe and I had horrible baggage, and he knew just how to provoke me. His case was unique to my regular interactions with people. I still had a short temper, got pissed too easily, but I didn't just attack people out of the blue. There was a side of me that fought those urges. Not necessarily a good side, but a decent one. "I get it, Mr. Noble. I do."
    He nodded slowly, relaxed his arms, and picked up his pencil. "Any encounters with women over the last week?"
    "I don't see how that's any of your business." My response was met with a quirked eyebrow. "Fine. Yes."
    "And you still don't want to see a woman regularly?" He was back to looking at what he was writing.
    Why did Liv's face come to mind just then? Technically, she was a woman and I did see her outside of the classroom. But we weren't intimate. "I made a female friend. We're just friends though," I said quickly.
    That got his attention. "How did that come about?"
    I could go into all the details, but I knew he would pick them apart. I'd need to keep this as condensed as possible. "She's a transfer student who needs help in art and is going to help me with my research paper because she's a writing major. In fact, the first time we met to work on it, she had an awesome idea on how to tackle the paper."
    "Interesting."
    Fuck, I knew he'd read too much into it.
    "Do you like her?"
    I looked at my phone to see how much time I had left of this. Too long. "Sure. She's nice. Different."
    "Different how?"
    Why the hell had I called her different? Of course Mr. Noble would lock onto that word. His knack for picking apart my words was disturbingly accurate. "She just is. She's a friend," I reiterated. It was nice texting with her. She was easy to talk to.
    "There's nothing wrong with having female friends, Killian."
    "I know that." But why did he feel the need to tell me this?
    "Do you?"
    Great, back to the mind game that was psychology. "Yes. I know it's okay to have friends of any sex. I just don't want to ruin our friendship with anything intimate."
    "You're not attracted to her?"
    "I didn't say that." She was plain but pretty. Then again, the female form was a beautiful thing, and I liked that she didn't flaunt how beautiful she actually was. "But that's not the point."
    He stared at me, not saying anything. Finally he nodded. He wrote something down, but I didn't care. As long as he was going to drop the subject of Liv.
    "How's your home life?"
    I leaned back and rubbed my thighs. "Not good. Granddad is having a rough time. I don't think he has much of it left, actually. He's been talking about some guardian angel coming to save me." I shook my head. "And he's been hiding Grandma's ashes almost daily now. Even hid her outside. I called some nursing homes to see how I should handle this. Their advice was to either hire a nurse or enroll him in an adult day center. I like the day center idea because he'd be around other people his age and maybe find new hobbies, but he's a very private man with a lot of money. I don't think his pride would handle a daycare for old people." I'd called a few companies who specialized in in-home nursing care, and actually found one that would care for him and find ways to get him out of the house and around people his age without him being stuck at a center all day. It was expensive, but the better option.
    "Killian, the fact that you take care of your grandfather shows how good of a person you are. If you ever doubt yourself, I want you to think about him. And remember your mom. There were and still are good people in your life.