31. Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

Roman

I ’m flying high as I drive home. Yes, it was an incredibly emotionally charged day, but I think that I reached a turning point with Beck. I’m not sure how I should handle things now—whether I should text him or if I should just let him come to me. I didn’t realize until today how deeply I hurt him when I left. Honestly, I’m a little surprised by how visceral his reaction was to seeing my tattoo. I didn’t even think about it when he took my shirt off. As much as I hate that he was so hurt—as much as it ripped me apart inside—I’m glad it happened the way it did.

It would have been easy, so fucking easy, to let him take me to bed. But it wouldn’t have changed anything. If anything, it would have hurt us. No, the talk we had was much needed, even if it did threaten to rip my heart out. It’s only made me more determined to make things right and earn his trust back. I meant what I said; I don’t care how long it takes. As long as he’s willing to let me try, I’m willing to work for it.

When I pull into the driveway at home, I see Holden sitting on the front porch, and my stomach drops. Fuck, did my dad do something to him? I throw the car in park and run up the steps but stop short when he looks up and smiles at me.

“Fuck, Hold. You scared the hell out of me. I thought my dad did something to you.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s all good. He’s pretty out of it. I don’t think he even knows who I am right now. I wanted some fresh air. This property is really gorgeous. Have you thought about cleaning it up?”

“Why?”

“Well, for one, it’s our home for the time being and two, it’s yours, right? When he dies? It’ll go to you.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s not like I’m gonna live here forever. Or hell, even stay in this town forever.”

Holden says nothing, just smirks at me.

“What’s that look about?” I ask.

“You can’t bullshit me. I know you. Where were you?”

“Um, I was talking to Beck.”

He snorts. “Talking to Beck. And you really think we’re not going to stay here?”

I sigh and sit down beside him. “I have a lot of work to do, Hold. I really fucking destroyed him. I don’t think I realized the full extent of that until today.”

He bumps his shoulder against mine. “Yeah, but you’ll win him back.”

“And what if I can’t?” I ask, fear gripping my chest.

“Not a chance. I’ve seen you two interact for all of twenty minutes total, and I can already tell that you’re perfect for each other.”

“He used to be so self-assured, and now he’s just… not. I don’t know what to do.”

Holden hums softly, sitting quietly for a second. “He’s scared,” he finally says. “Once he realizes he doesn’t have to be, I think it’ll be okay.”

“I hope you’re right.”

My phone buzzes, and I nearly fall over trying to grab it from my pocket. Holden chuckles, and I shoot him a glare. My heart pounds as I look down at the message.

Beck

Thank you for today.

I respond immediately—no way in hell I’m going to make him wait.

Me

No, thank YOU for today.

He doesn’t respond, and that’s okay. I can be patient. After ten years of being without him, I can damn well give him the space to learn to trust me again.

I turn to Holden with a smile. “I think you’re right, but we’ll have to see. Also, we probably should get this place cleaned up. I’ll call soon and see about getting a dumpster.”

I think I may have too many bad memories in this house for it to be a home for me, but maybe I’ll give it to Hold. He deserves something that’s all his.

Holden claps his hands and lets out a giddy laugh. “Good,” he says. “I like this town. I wouldn’t mind sticking around for a while.”

“I’m gonna head in and talk to Dad.” I’ve been avoiding him since I got here. Holden’s been sitting with him a lot, and I appreciate that. At some point, though, I’m going to need to pull it together and have a conversation with the man.

“Want me to come with you?” he asks.

“Nah, that’s alright.”

“Okay. Just holler if you need me.”

I nod, stand, and walk into the house.

Well, Holden is not wrong—Dad really is out of it. He doesn’t talk to me so much as talk at me. About me. Which is strange. It’s like seeing into his mind without all the layers of bullshit, without all the years of trauma. It’s almost like, in his mind’s eye, he doesn’t see that I’m his grown son. I’m just a random person he’s talking to about younger me. It’s no wonder Lianna thought he cared about me. The way he talks does paint a pretty picture.

“He’s just the sweetest kid, wants to be with me all the time,” he says.

“Oh, yeah?” I remember a time when that was true. He was everything to me. Until he wasn’t.

“Yeah,” he says, “I love reading him bedtime stories at night. His mom gets mad at me for it, but I don’t care. That’s my boy.”

I don’t know how many years it’s been since I’ve heard so much pride and happiness in his voice. Part of me wants to rage at him, but it wouldn’t be fair. He doesn’t even know who I am. And the Roman he’s talking about was cared for and loved. It’s not like he’s lying.

“Tell me more about him,” I prompt.

He smiles softly. “He’s so smart. Way smarter than me. He loves to sing. I sing him to sleep sometimes. He always falls asleep with a smile on his face.” His voice trails off, and his eyes go a little unfocused. I wonder, not for the first time, what the fuck happened . I know Mom leaving messed him up. But this man doesn’t seem capable of hurting me. I don’t understand it, and I don’t think I ever will.

“He looks like her, you know?” he says after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah?” I don’t really remember what she looked like, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been told this. At least this time, there’s no fist accompanying the words.

“He’s beautiful. Just like she is. My perfect little boy.”

Fuck , this is harder than I thought it would be. An ache blooms in my chest, and I rub it with my fist, as if that can somehow ease the pain. “Tell me more about him tomorrow. I think we both need some rest, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, a hint of sadness in his voice. “Do you think he’ll come see me?”

I don’t know how to answer that. The boy in his mind obviously can’t come see him, and even though I’m right here, I know he’s not really talking about me. “I’m not sure,” I say.

“I hope he does.”

He closes his eyes, a little smile on his face. Fuck me, this is awful. I stand and walk from the room, trying to get a grip on myself. When I step back outside, Holden is still sitting on the porch, staring off into the distance. I walk over and sit back down beside him.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, and he rests his head against my shoulder with a heavy sigh. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it really is. How can I be mad at him when he doesn’t even know what’s going on?”

Another sigh. “You’re allowed to feel however you need to feel. And if this is too hard for you, we don’t have to stay here. We can find a rental or something.”

I’m shaking my head before he even finishes talking. “No, I need to see it through. He won’t know either way, but I will. I came here and I just… I need to see it through,” I repeat.

He nods. “Yeah, I figured as much. I’m always here if you need to talk.”

“I know, thank you, Hold. I don’t think I could do any of this without you. I think I’m gonna go lie down.”

“I think I’m going to sit out here for a bit, but I’ll be in before long.”

He raises his head off my shoulder, and I stand, ruffling his hair before I head back into the house.

I’m almost asleep when my phone rings. Reaching for it blindly, I see Beck’s FaceTiming me. Holy shit . Tiredness forgotten, I sit up and fumble with the phone, dropping it twice in my lap before I actually manage to answer. His face fills my screen, and even with his puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, he’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid eyes on.

“Hey,” I say, trying to sound cool and collected even though I’m anything but.

He stares at me for a second, unmoving. Just as I start to wonder if I have a bad connection, he blinks and finally responds. “Hi. I’m glad you answered.”

I smile. “Were you testing me?” His cheeks flush, and his eyes dart away. “It’s okay if you were,” I say, rushing to reassure him. “I told you I’d answer every time, and I meant that. I’m more than willing to prove it until you trust it.”

He’s lying in bed, snuggled into his blankets, his head resting against the pillow, blonde hair splayed out around him. He looks cozy and comfortable. “You look cozy,” I say when it’s clear he’s not going to say anything.

“Can we talk?” he asks, and I have to fight down the panic that rises inside me at that question.

“Of course. What do you want to talk about?”

He adjusts, and the screen goes blurry and pixelated. When it settles again, it looks like he’s propped the phone up on something. He’s on his side, one hand tucked under his head, the other resting on the mattress in front of his chest.

“You,” he says softly.

“Me? What about me?”

He shrugs, settling deeper into the blankets. “I want to know about you,” he says, voice cracking a little on the last word. “Holden knows so much more than I do.”

His expression is filled with disgust, and I have to stifle a smile. I know Beck will eventually love him. But right now, I think a lot of his issue is that he thinks Holden has more of me than he does—which may be true in some ways. But in all the ways that matter, Beck has the most of me. He always has.

I lie down on my side, mirroring his position, and prop my phone up on my nightstand. “Well, what do you want to know?”

“How did you meet Holden?”

“I can’t tell you everything because I don’t want to violate his privacy. I can tell you more later, when I can ask his permission.”

He hesitates, then nods. “Okay, I understand.”

“I met him about three months after I left. I was living out of my car at the time, staying in this parking lot at night. Holden hung out there a lot. If you can believe it, he was even smaller back then—just this tiny little slip of a person. But he was so fierce. I watched him scare off men twice his size.”

He grumbles a little, and I want to laugh about how adorable it is, but I don’t. His feelings are valid, and I would never make fun of him for being upset about something like this. “Would you like me to keep going?”

He nods. “I’m not trying to be an ass. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not being an ass. It’s okay. I promise. Anyway, I talked to him one day, and we struck up a bit of a friendship. I kept an eye on him at night—not that he ever needed my help. Then, one night, it was pouring rain, and I saw him walking through the parking lot. I thought, what the hell, man? Why doesn’t this kid just go home? I rolled my window down and offered him a ride home. He looked at me like I was the dumbest person alive. For all the shit I went through growing up, it never even crossed my mind that he might be homeless. I thought he was a bratty kid rebelling against his parents.”

Beck gasps, his eyes going wide. “He was homeless?”

I nod. “Yeah, unfortunately. He said, ‘I don’t have a home, you fucking moron.’ I was shocked, but I told him to get in the car with me. He was a little hesitant, and it took some convincing, but he eventually did. He was soaking wet and shivering by then. I got him some dry clothes, and he changed. And after that, we just stayed in my car together. When I found out what he’d been through, I decided pretty quickly there was no way in hell I was going to let him stay on the streets. I was working at a fast-food place at the time, but I hadn’t saved enough for an apartment yet. Eventually, I got us a little studio. It was one room, and it didn’t even have a kitchen—just a sink, stove, and mini-fridge. It wasn’t much. But it was ours. He was only sixteen. He’d been on the streets for almost two years at that point.”

Beck gasps again. “He was so young.”

“He was. But yeah, that’s how we met.”

Beck’s quiet for a minute. “How did he become a nurse?”

I smile softly, and this time, there’s no grumbling. “Being around Hold really forced me to grow up. He used to say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a nurse.’ When I grow up. That really broke my heart, you know? Here he was, sixteen years old, living on the streets, talking about what he wanted to be when he grew up. God, that was such a gut punch. Eventually, I got a factory job. It wasn’t anything special—making car parts on an assembly line—but they offered a lot of overtime. I worked sixty-hour weeks and put him through nursing school.”

“That was really nice of you,” Beck says, though I can’t tell if he’s being genuine or sarcastic. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have changed what I did for anything. My friendship with Holden is one of the few things I don’t regret.

I shrug. “I owe him a lot. I think I would have lost my mind more than once if it wasn’t for him.”

He hums and seems to think for a second. “Obviously you don’t work at a factory now. What do you do?”

“I work for a non-profit. After Hold got his nursing license and started working, he took over paying our bills and told me I could go to school if I wanted, and he’d pay for it. I was already volunteering my time with the non-profit and I wanted to do more, so I did that instead. Worked my way up, and now I get paid for it. Not a lot, but enough to survive.”

He yawns, his eyes crinkling, and I smile at him. “What do you do?” he asks.

“We help kids like me and Holden—kids displaced because of abusive households, or parents who don’t accept who they are. We do a lot of work with homeless youth, which is something I’m really passionate about, especially because of Hold. I also give talks at schools about my childhood, what to do if they’re being hurt or neglected at home, or if someone in their house is drinking to excess or using drugs. I really enjoy it.”

Beck smiles, the little gap between his teeth on full display. My heart skips a beat at the sight. God, I’ve missed that . I can’t help but smile back.

“That’s really awesome. You must love it,” he says, his smile still in place.

“Yeah, it can be hard. But knowing I’m taking what I went through and doing good with it? It’s unlike anything else.”

We talk well into the night, until my eyes are heavy and we’re more or less just staring at each other, slow-blinking and barely saying anything at all.

When I wake up, the call is still going, and Beck’s sleeping face fills the screen. I can’t help but watch him. He looks older for sure—little lines are forming around his eyes, and his features are sharper than they used to be. The round face of his youth is all but gone. He’s different in some ways, but he’s still my Beck. Still so fucking gorgeous. I could stare at him forever, just watching the rise and fall of his chest, listening to his soft, even breaths. His nose twitches, and then his eyes open slowly, confusion spreading across his face before his eyes land on mine through the screen.

His voice is rough with sleep when he speaks. “You’re still here.”

“Of course I’m still here.”

“We fell asleep together,” he says with a little chuckle, and my heart nearly explodes.

“We sure did,” I say, unable to help the smile on my face. “We can do it again if you’d like.”

He smiles and nods. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

Me too. Me fucking too.