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“You didn’t cause shit. You were just teenagers doing teenager stuff. He’d have found something else to get pissy about and hit me. I mostly managed to keep him away from Mom and Dylan—not always from Mom. She had to tolerate some abuse.”
“And Dylan?” My voice was brittle, crisp, a crunchy autumn leaf under a boot.
He shook his head. “I don’t think she knows. We did a great job, and he worked long hours, disappearing days at a time when he was in the midst of his binges.”
I thought back to the flippant comment Dylan had made about her father passing when she had come to Dad’s funeral and didn’t know if Row was right in his assessment. Knowing Dylan, she did know but figured Zeta and Row took comfort in her obliviousness.
Taking a step toward him, I said, “That’s why your mom flinched when Rhyland touched her.”
The column in his throat rolled. “He’d drag her around the house by the hair when Dylan was at school. Kick her ribs. One day he—” He stopped.
I put my hand on his chest. His heart was beating wildly. Our scents, heat, and breaths swirled together, and I felt closer to him than I’d ever been before. Even when we’d had sex. “You can tell me,” I whispered softly. “I want to be your safe space too.”
“One day, Dylan was sleeping over at your house. You stole his Tito’s. It was his last one, and he was too broke to buy another. I told him it was me. I was afraid he’d drive to your house and fight you for it or something. He’d cracked my rib only two weeks earlier. So this time, Mom tried to protect me. He hurled her against the stove while it was on. Gave her a second-degree burn. Her entire arm was pressed into it, the skin melted onto it.”
Was that why Zeta always wore long sleeves? Even in the summer?
“Then, when she was sobbing on the floor, clutching her arm, he took his dick out and pissed on her. ‘There, honey. That’ll put out the fire.’”
“Row.” My fingers curled around the fabric of his Henley, clutching him tight, breathing him in, putting him back together.
Row.
Row.
Row.
I’d always felt this kinship between us. Like our souls were a two-part friendship necklace. Now I knew why. Because we’d both tasted darkness. Looked evil in the eye and survived. We were always destined to connect. Mac and Bitchy. Row and Cal.
Row’s eyes dimmed. “When I saw him do this to her, something snapped in me. I couldn’t take it anymore, living in this never-ending nightmare, losing sleep over the idea he’d hurt Mom, or Dylan or…or you.” There was a tense pause. “I beat the shit out of him. So bad I punctured his lung and broke his jaw.” I could imagine the entire scene in my head. Row taking back his power, finally controlling the narrative. “Mom was hysterical. More about me landing in jail than anything else. The only reason I didn’t finish the job was because he wasn’t worth shitting all over my future.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Your conscience wouldn’t have survived it. You are too good…incorruptible.” I shook my head, tears flying off my cheeks. “What happened next?”
“He came back home after a week and a half. No one went to visit him. We told Dylan he had a stroke and that he didn’t want her to see him like that. She never questioned it. I made it clear to him he wasn’t welcome in the house unless he sobered up. So…he did.”
“Just like that?” I squinted.
“No, I’m giving you the bullet-point version.” A rueful smile touched his lips. “There were tears, arguments, and meltdowns. Furniture and promises broken.” He scrubbed his jaw. “We couldn’t afford rehab, so I had to lock him in my room. He climbed the walls. He begged and bargained. Tried to assert power over us again. But in the end, I tired him out. He kicked the habit.”
A ragged breath passed between us. It felt like we were sharing oxygen. Row continued, “But it was no victory. There was no happy ending. The trust was gone. Mom was scared and resentful, and Doug became a shadow. Moving around, casting darkness everywhere he went.”
“How did he die?” I rasped.
“Liver failure. The damage was too much, even after he quit. Can’t say it was a sad day for me. I never forgave him.”
“Unpopular opinion…” I trailed a finger up his chest. “It’s okay not to forgive people who destroy our lives.”
Row clasped my hand over his heart. He leaned into my palm, and it felt like the universe was giving me the rarest gift, tying us together in a red satin bow. I wondered how drunk we were. If we were going to regret our confessions tomorrow morning. Or if it would finally break the corroded wall we’d built between us all those years ago.
“Opening Descartes was my fuck-you moment to him.” A broody chuckle escaped him, and he was especially gorgeous now, bare and vulnerable, swimming in the dusk like a mythical creature. “He’d always wanted to open a restaurant. It was his dream. He went to culinary school when he was young. Had to drop out when Mom got knocked up with me.” A sharp exhale. “I was a mistake, and Mom’s Catholic parents didn’t like out-of-wedlock mistakes. So, in a way, I stole his dream twice. Once when he quit school, and a second time when I got accepted to one.”
“You never asked to be conceived.” I rubbed the edge of his neck with my finger distractedly. His erection was pressed against my belly, but now wasn’t the time to concentrate on it.
“He wanted to show the world he was more than a blue-collar drunkard.” Row sucked in his teeth. “But the truth was…he wasn’t.”
“You opened an entire restaurant to spite a dead man.” I shook my head, chuckling at the madness of it all. “That is so…unlike you.”
“Why?” he asked.
