Frowning, I sip my wine. “He’s always been that way. I know he tolerates me hugging him, and once in a while, I’ll press my luck and kiss his head, but no. He doesn’t like to be touched.”
Ry scowls and leans on the counter. “Do you know why?”
“I assume because Sabrina was a shit mom who had men coming through their lives constantly, and who knows what that poor kid was subjected to?”
Ryker swallows hard.
That describes his own childhood.
“Ry—”
“I’m fine,” he says, shaking his head. “I know you’ve told me the story before, but lay it out for me again. What the fuck happened?”
He’s rinsing off the potatoes and shaking the colander so they drain.
“Well, you already know that Sabrina is my bio dad’s daughter from a previous relationship. I’m younger by a few years.”
“Never met her,” Ry reminds me.
“And you never will. She died a couple of years ago from a drug overdose.”
He fully faces me now, his face falling. “Christ, Wills, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“I didn’t, either, for almost a year after she died. I hardly knew her. We didn’t grow up together, as you know. Hell, you and Gid were more siblings to me than Sabrina ever was.”
He circles the island and tips my face up, then settles in to kiss me long and slow, igniting every cell in my body.
“I’m not your brother, baby.”
“No.” I blow out a shaky breath. “But you know what I mean.”
His eyes narrow, he wipes his thumb across my lower lip, and then he backs away. “Go on.”
“I didn’t even know she’d had a baby,” I continue. “I hadn’t seen her in a long,longtime. Mom had died, and I was doing my own thing, as you know.”
He nods and forms burger meat into disks. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but your mom was a bitch.”
“It always shocked me how different my mom and Debbie were. Like two sides to a coin. And let’s be honest, Ray and Deb raised me in all the ways that matter. Mom couldn’t wait to dump me off here on the last day of school every year so she had the whole summer away from me.”
“Christ,” he mutters and glances at me. “She told you that?”
“It was written all over her. You should have seen how gleeful she was. As the end of school approached, she got giddy. Told me all about her fun plans for when I’d be out of her hair.”
“I’m never violent with women,” he says. “But I’d like to punch her out.”
“Yeah, well, other men took care of that for you. Never while I was around, surprisingly. It was weird how she seemed to have morals about not bringing guys home when I was there, but then as soon as school was out, she ditched me and probably slept her way all up and down the West Coast.”
“Did you not want to be here?” He looks stunned as he asks the question. “I always thought you liked it here.”
“I would have lived here full-time if I could. Aunt Deb asked Mom to let me just be here with you guys, but Mom refused. Anyway, that doesn’t matter.”
“It fucking matters,” he grumbles, but I keep going.
“Gideon and I traveled with you to Toronto for a game—this would have been about ten years ago or so. We always went with you.”
“We won that game, two to zero. I remember, Wills.”
I lick my lips. “Yeah, well, when I got home, Sabrina was waiting in front of my apartment with Aiden. She had a suitcase packed for him, told me she didn’t want to be a mom anymore, and to have papers drawn up and she’d sign them. And then she left. We never saw her again. But I had to take Aiden to the hospital that night because he wasso sick, Ry. He had bronchitis so bad, he could hardly breathe, and he was burning up with fever. And she just left him.”
