Deacon’s features take on a look of concern. “Okay, I think I get that. But, Sky…I feel like I’m missing a whole heap of information here. You’re talking as though Jackson’s the only person to ever cater to your emotional needs.”
I nod. “He is. Well, him and Steph, I guess. But it’s different.”
“What about your parents? Your family?” Deacon presses.
“Jackson and Stepharemy family.”
Deacon hits me with a probing look that tells me I’m not getting off the hook this time.
Fortunately, a server approaches our table at that moment and sets our drinks down. If I have to tell this story, I’ll definitely be needing a drink.
I bring my drink to my lips and take a sip, nodding in approval when I taste it. “Good choice. You know, there’s a bar in Williamsburg that—”
“We were talking about your parents,” Deacon prods.
I scoff. “No, we were fucking not. I never talk about them so that’s something I can guarantee.”
Deacon’s face goes ashen, his eyes widening. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you. I didn’t know—”
I groan, tossing my head back. “Fuck. Now I’ll have to tell you, otherwise you’ll let your imagination run wild and assume I’m one of the Turpin kids.”
“Well, there were a lot of them,” Deacon offers with the slight quirk of one brow.
I give a wry shake of my head and take a sip of my drink. “Okay, how about this? Let’s make it a happy story but with a bit of fucked up shit thrown in,” I suggest.
Deacon nods, offering a soft smile. “It’s your story, Sky. Tell it however you want.”
“You were asking last week how Jackson and I met,” I begin. “We were seven, and he and Steph moved into the single wide next to us in the Fuck Hole trailer park, Shitville, Pennsylvania.”
Deacon’s eyes widen with obvious surprise before narrowing doubtfully. “I’m going to assume those aren’t the actual names for the places.”
Okay, I know a lot of trailer parks—or manufactured home communities, or whatever else they’re called now—aren’t horrible places to live. And some of them are actually really nice—like where Steph is now, in Lehigh Valley. It’s right on a pretty lake, with lots of greenery around, and playgrounds, and a basketball court, and everyone is really friendly. And Steph’s house might be portable, but it’s as big as our apartment, and way nicer. I would have loved to be somewhere like that instead of the shithole I spent my childhood; although considering my family barely had two pennies to rub together, Steph’s place would have been about as conceivable as a mansion on Park Avenue.
I give a dismissive wave. “You don’t need to know the names. There’s no amount of money that’d make you want to go there.” Considering he’s dating a billionaire, there’s probably no amount of money that’d make Deacon do anything, but whatever.
His brows shoot up curiously. “It was that bad?”
I sigh. “I’ve probably built it up over the years to be way worse than it was, but it was a shithole, let’s leave it at that. And my folks were…not great,” I add with a grimace. “They weren’t violent, or into illegal shit or anything, but it was clear from a very early age that I wasn’t wanted. If I was in sight, I was a verbal punching bag—the reason everything was going wrong—and if I was out of sight, I was out of mind. Even if I was still in the same room. One of my earliest memories is from when I was, like, three or four or something, sitting on the kitchen floor eating potato peelings out of the trash while my parents screamed at each other about…whatever the hell the problem was that week, and then…made up….vigorously.”
“Jesus, fuck, Sky…” Deacon swipes a hand over his face, eyes swimming with a mix of anger, regret, shock, and sympathy.
I shrug. “Whatever. The important thing is Jackson and Steph moved in next to us when I was seven. That was my Big Bang moment.”
Deacon’s brows draw together. “Big Bang moment?”
“The cataclysmic event that created my universe,” I explain, although it should have been obvious. “Do you think I’d be sitting here now,whoam now if that hadn’t happened?”
He studies me with a thoughtful expression for a moment, then asks. “So how long did it take you and Jax to become you and Jax?”
“About five hours.”
Deacon lets out a soft laugh. “Love at first sight?”
I smile softly, vividly recalling that moment I first saw Jackson over twenty years ago, clinging nervously to Steph’s side while she smiled and introduced herself and Jackson to me when they came across me crawling around on the ground outside our trailer, chasing after a lizard. She’d just suggested Jackson might want to look at the lizard too when my dad came out and scared the shit out of all three of us, demanding to know who the fuck Steph was. By the time everything got cleared up, neither Jackson nor I were in a lizard-hunting mood, and the last thing I heard as I slunk back inside was Steph telling Jackson it was almost time for bed anyway, and did he want to read about Ramona or Jack and Annie? I’d readMagic Treehouse,but I had no idea who Ramona was and the curiosity ate me alive. I also remember feeling a visceral, bone-deep envy toward Jackson in that moment. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more jealous of anyone in my life than I was hearing Steph talk about reading with him.
“More like love at first cuddle,” I say, letting out a wry breath of laughter at Deacon’s wide-eyed confusion. I tell him all about my first interaction with Jax, then add, “A couple hours later, my parents got into it again in the living room. And I knew it was only a matter of time before…things gotresolved,” I tell him, screwing my face up. “That was the cycle: fight, sex, some modicum of peace until the next fight. So I knew once they started arguing I wouldn’t be getting out of my room for ages, and there’d be no chance of dinner—not that there was ever anything much anyway. And I’d have to lie there and try to go to sleep, trying not to hear them yelling at each other about shit like birth control and abortions and not needing another brat while they fucked on the kitchen counter. And all I could think about was the boy I’d met earlier and his nice mom who read books with him. And for one night I just wanted that life.”
Deacon groans, carding a hand roughly through his hair. “Fucking hell, Sky.”
