Not many women would’ve opened their arms to a traumatized stepdaughter the way she did to me, or taken the time to find out why she was in such a mess, or ensure she received therapy.
She even kept her word and never told Dad what Viper did to me.
Ty scowls, but it’s not directed at me, and a shiver skates along my spine.Please don’t go there…
“You would’ve made the best mom.” It sounds like an accusation, but the pain is still there, buried in each word. Jesus, I don’t want to talk about it. Why does he want to, after all this time?
Closure.It screams through my head, but this isn’t what I meant. I suck in a harsh breath, try to focus. “Who knows?” My attempt to keep my voice light fails dismally.
Silence beats between us in tandem with my heart. I should’ve known we’d discuss this, but I didn’t think he’d care after all this time, and I sure as hell had no intention of reminding him.
“You would.” His voice is flat as if that’s not up for debate. “You ever think about what might’ve happened with us if we hadn’t lost the baby?”
Chapter Seven
Ty
Jas doesn’t answer right away, but she grips her fingers together on her lap, and I have the crazy urge to pull her into my arms and tell her everything’s going to be all right.
Like I tried to that night, after she called me while I was working at Viper’s junkyard, so hysterical I could hardly understand what she was saying. I had to break down the front door to find her in her mom’s bedroom on the floor.
“I don’t know.” Her voice is soft, and she looks at me with those beautiful brown eyes that, despite pretending otherwise, have haunted my nights since the day she left. “It wasn’t just losing the baby. It was…everything.”
Nothing we couldn’t have sorted out. Fuck, Ihadsorted it out. I just hadn’t told her so before everything went to hell.
I don’t even know why I dragged up the past. It won’t change anything. Except there’s something about that night, something about Jas, that’s always ground into my chest like a rusty spike, and I don’t mean because of the obvious.
Something staring me in the face that I should’ve seen, but could never grasp.
“We were too young.” My voice is gruff. Why did I start this? I don’t want to remember how completely helpless I was that night. How nothing I did or said made any difference because it was already too late before I got there. I’d always looked out for her, protected her, and when she needed me most I couldn’t do a damn thing.
“Maybe.” There’s a wistful note in her voice that tears me up inside. I expected her to agree. “But it didn’t really have anything to do with our ages, did it?”
Up until two days ago, I’d convinced myself that Jas threw everything back in my face and left because she was too young and had never wanted what I offered.
Two fucking days. That’s all it’s taken to challenge the ironclad convictions that have shaped my life for the last ten years.
Except I know I’m lying to myself. Deep down, another truth’s always lurked, and only now, when she’s sitting so close to me, can I face it.
She always tried to hide it from me, but it was my family’s opposition she couldn’t cope with. When she found out she was pregnant, she made me swear not to tell anyone, not until she was ready. She lost the baby before she was ready, and I kept my word. Never even told Zach.
A week later she was on a plane to Florida.
I thread my fingers through hers and tug her hand from her lap. She gives me a half smile, her eyes big and sad, and I can’t take it.
“You’re not seventeen anymore.” I don’t even know why I say that, or what it’s supposed to mean, but she doesn’t call me out on it, almost as if she understands something I don’t.
I kiss her knuckles and the tension seeps from her. After that bloodied night, she never let me touch her again. It was like she thought I expected sex, when all I wanted was to hold her tight and try to make things right again. But she wouldn’t even talk to me and didn’t tell me her plan to go live with her dad until the day before her flight.
I’m not proud of the way I handled that news, but what the fuck did she expect? I was only nineteen, and my whole damn world was falling apart.
The baby was my kid, too.
All I want from hernowis sex. Except that’s not true. Even after all this time, I want to fix things between us. It’s more than a few hot fucks so when we split at the end of the week, everything we ever had is finally finished.
I want us to part as friends.
Jesus. Friends with a chick? That’s a new one for me. My brothers would never believe it, and I don’t fucking care that it’s something I’ve never considered before.
