He laughs and ruffles my hair, planting a kiss on the crown of my head. “I’m sure he tried. It wasn’t all that successful. I wasn’t nearly as tall as I am now, but I was still a big kid.”
“What about the next time?”
“They all kind of blend together.” He leans his head back against the booth, closing his eyes. “I beat a kid in the playground. He was teasing Caylon about something. Probably being a smartarse in class, he was good at that.”
“Didn’t your father ever try to send you to a shrink?”
His laugh tells me the answer to that one. “Could you imagine? I’d be on so many drugs, I could become a dealer.” He stiffens a little, then shakes his head. “Sorry.”
“Are you seriously apologising for referencing my short stint as a drug kingpin?”
“It must’ve been tough.”
“Maybe.” I pull my hand away long enough to rub my eyebrow where it’s twitching, then slot it back into the warmth of Zach’s hand. “Mostly, I just remember desperately wanting to feel better and always ending slightly worse.”
“Is that when you met Tessa?”
The sides of my jaw ache the way they always do when I hold back tears. “Yeah. We’d met before, spent about three months with the same foster parents when we were younger, ten or eleven, but this was the first time we were the only kids in the same house. She helped a lot.”
“I bet she loved that.” Zach’s face softens as he delves into his own memories. “She would’ve made a great parent.”
“When did you meet?”
“Fourteen or fifteen. Something like that. She used to hang out at a lot of parties.”
“Yeah?” It’s a side of her I missed out on. By the time they placed us together, she avoided all of that. Or she made me avoid it at least. Perhaps she was always off doing her own thing, and I just didn’t notice.
“She used to be in this place. I don’t know what its official name is. She called it the boarding kennel.”
A nickname for one of the worst group homes. “I know it.”
“Her and two other girls used to sneak out. A lot. She’d doss down on couches, sleepouts, back seats of cars. Anything to avoid spending the night there.” He pauses. “I guess you both had it really rough.”
I butt my head into his arm. “It’s not a competition.” If it was, I’d lose. I’d give up the rich dad and the large house if it meant I didn’t have to find the dead body of my mother.
“She moved so often, we fell in and out of touch. But she was always kind. That’s what I remember most about her.”
Sniffing back the tears doesn’t work. They spill forth, more dropping with each blink. “I miss her so much.”
“I didn’t mean to take her away from you. I just… didn’t think. Robbie was always such a fuckup. I never noticed he had a mean streak.”
My body tenses and I can feel him wanting to ask, wanting to poke and prod until he gets an answer, but he doesn’t. Just lets me absorb the information and turn it over in my mind, slicing and dicing, turning it this way and that. Seeing where it fits and how it changes my narrative.
Then the pizza order arrives, and I can’t think over the rumbling of my belly.
I’m halfway through my second slice before I come up for air. Zach stares at me through amused eyes. “What?”
“You’re the only girl I’ve seen who eats like she’s hungry.”
I shake my head. “It’s those good looks. You’re scrambling everyone’s brain.”
He reaches over to tuck some strands behind my ear. “But you’re immune to my charms.”
“I’m not immune. I just had an atrocious upbringing, so lack the manners everyone else in your circle has.”
“Right.”
I chew with my mouth open to prove my point and he drapes a napkin over my head.
