“Was there mold?” Hadley asked.
“In the guest bathroom.” He sounded amused.
“So are there other people in your life like Robyn?”
“Yes.”
Hadley wanted to know more. “Who?
“Mr. Penney, a math teacher, and Coop, a custodian, from my high school.”
“Good guys?”
Blaise nodded. “At times, I resented them, but I had no idea how desperately I needed them. My life was a hot mess, and they helped me. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.”
The affection in Blaise’s voice told Hadley how much those people meant to him, but he hadn’t mentioned his parents. “What about your mom and dad?”
His muscles tightened, and his breath stilled. The only movement, if she could call it that, was the rapid beating of his heart.
“Blaise?” she asked.
“I… It’s…” He took a breath and then grimaced. “It’s not a pretty story.”
“Most real-life ones aren’t.” She leaned into his side, laying her arm across his chest. “I’d like to hear it if you wouldn’t mind telling me.”
He twirled the ends of her hair with his finger.
Physically she couldn’t be any closer to him without scooting onto his lap, but his silence seemed to push them further apart.
“My parents were drug addicts.” His voice cracked. “Heroin. It started when I was eight and went on for ten years.”
His caretaker comment suddenly made sense. “You took care of them.”
He nodded with a faraway, almost haunted, look in his eyes. “Thank goodness my mom had inherited my grandmother’s house or we would have ended up homeless. As it was, there never was much food, but at least we had a place to call home. Though, when their sketchy friends came over to party, I took off for the night. Those people scared me.”
Hadley tried to compare what his childhood must have been like to his life now. Tried and failed. “Where did you go?”
“Wherever they weren’t.” He half laughed.
The tortured sound made her cuddle closer. She wanted to do something—anything—to comfort him.
“I begged them to go to rehab, but they said no. They didn’t want to help themselves.” Blaise took a breath and then blew it out. “I did what I could. Worked odd jobs until I was old enough to hold a regular one so we could buy groceries, but I had to keep the money hidden from them.”
Hearing the resignation in his voice broke her heart. She hugged him. “They were lucky to have you as a son.”
Blaise shrugged, but his expression was the opposite of indifferent. He tried to turn away from her, but she wouldn’t let him. “They loved heroin more than they ever loved me.”
The rawness of his words broke her heart. “Blaise…”
“It’s the truth.” His words were stilted yet dripped with emotion. His eyebrows squeezed together, a deep V forming above the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t want to believe it then. But, I know that now.”
“I wish you hadn’t experienced that.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Thank you.” He pulled her so she was half on top of him. “Do you mind?”
Hadley didn’t know if he needed the closeness or the warmth or to just know he wasn’t alone. “It’s fine. Nice.”
And it was.
