“Youwere scared of the rain?”
“Yeahhh, Slim. I used to be so scared I’d run and hide in her bed as soon as I heard thunder rumbling. I’d crawl under the covers with her and she’d pull me up on her and rock me.” He huffs. “Up and down and side to side…”
“But what about your mama? Where was she?”
“Oh, she was around.”
“But?”
“But there’s some things she’s always loved more than me and it ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
“It is, but I’ll mind my business. Your dad already thinks I’m some naive loser who sees the world through rose-colored glasses.”
He chuckles.
“How long did you hide in Arnez’s bed?”
“Until Senior caught me one night.”
I turn around and catch the light from the moon reflecting on his bloody mouth as he smiles. “He snatched me out of her bed and dragged me through the house with Arnez on his heels, hollering and screaming. She followed us all the way to the front door. When we got there—he looked at her, looked at me, then opened the door and tossed my ass right outside and shut it.”
I hold in my gasp.
Somehow I can picture Rich’s memory as if I were there. I see his stoic dad, the horror on Rich’s baby face, and I hear his sister’s screams intermingling with the rumbling thunder even though I’ve never met her. It’s like I’ve lived in his head before. I guess Ireallycan see him too.
“You ever been out in a storm by yourself in the middle of the night?” he asks.
“I have.”
“So then you should know how scary that shit is, huh?”
I did.
I know what it’s like to flail around in the dark with nowhere to go—nobody to run to—nobody who cared enough to pull me into the light.
“What your dad did is cruel, you know that, right?”
It was abuse, but Ireallyneed to mind my business.
“The first rule of breaking a fighter is to take him off the tit and make him stand on his own. You can’t wean him off, though. Gotta go cold turkey. If you don’t, he’ll always try to run back and latch on. He’ll always chase that coddling. He was doing what he had to do to make me a man.”
“Make you a man?” I scoff. “At how old?”
“Seven…”
The gasp comes barreling out my mouth this time. It makes him snake his hands around my waist and plop me onto his lap.
“Aw, don’t start that,” he mutters.
I think I fit best in his lap.
Here, I feel his heart beating against my back, his firm dick nudging my ass, and I’m drowning in that rosemary and oakmoss scent that makes me question how I can still sit comfortably in his arms after the bad things I saw him do.
“I survived. See.” He stretches his arm out, twisting it around, letting the moonlight shine on the ink etched on his skin and the deep scars embedded underneath it. “I’m here.”
“But your dad?—”
“Made me a man.”
