Page 118 of Forget Me Not

She smiles softly and pulls out of my grasp, spinning around in the tub to face me.

“Let me wash you, too.”

After Nova determines I’m clean enough—taking extra care with my dick because she knows my sanity is on the verge of collapse—it ends with her head on my chest and my arms wrapped around her, cradling her in the midst of the vanilla-scented bubbles.

She’s quiet, looking at the scars on my hand that she holds in front of her while I struggle not to fall asleep.

Getting up at four in the morning tomorrow will be hell, but it’s worth it.

“What’s your favorite place you’ve traveled?” she asks out of the blue when she traces the line of a scar on the back of my hand.

“Ireland,” I say, without hesitation.

She looks back at me over her shoulder, like she’s surprised.

“Where did you expect me to say?”

She shrugs, letting my hand fall to her stomach. “I don’t know. Somewhere tropical, I guess. More fish.”

“Nah. Too many damned bugs.”

Nova laughs, her voice echoing slightly in the bathroom.

“Thought a big, tough guy like yourself wouldn’t be afraid of bugs.”

“I fucking hate cockroaches,” I murmur, wrapping our fingers together. “A couple of my foster houses had them and they would get in everything. Crawl on you when you slept.”

Nova’s quiet, her fingers tightening around mine and I realize . . . she’s probably never had to deal with that.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, her thumb rubbing over the scar on the top of my hand. I got it a couple years ago, when a sharp piece of metal cut my hand. Sometimes I hate looking at it because the memory of that night is haunting. Other times . . . it’s like a damned trophy, reminding me where I’ve been.

“Don’t be,” I grit. “Just shit that happens.”

She doesn’t respond for a moment, taking it in. I wonder what she was like as a kid. I can see her shit-eating grin, blonde curls flying wildly like they do now, and her trying to bring home every cat, dog, rodent, or bird she found on the street.

“Reid,” she starts, her voice careful. “How many foster homes were you in as a kid?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I moved around a lot, so I lost count.”

“That’s sad.”

“That’s life without good parents.”

“What were your parents like?”

I steel myself, my entire body tensing.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Nova says quickly, dismissing the idea. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“Mom died young from cancer. Dad was never really the same after that. Mom was a good person, though.”

“And your father?”

“A drunk,” I shrug, laying back against the edge of the tub and pulling her with me. “He was an angry bastard. Used to beat the shit out of me because I was a shit kid. Taught me to fish, though. Asshole died when I was twelve. Went to foster care after that because what family we had left was either shit or dead.”

“Were they good people? The foster families?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes, not. I was a bad kid. I got in a lot of fights in school and failed a lot of my classes. I argued at home.” I don’t know why I’m telling her all this. I’ve never talked about it with anyone, but now that I’ve started, I realize with some disdain, I don’t want to stop. I want her to know. I wish I could tell her the full story. What really lies in the recesses of my mind, but I know, the moment I do, she’ll run, and I wouldn’t blame her. “I left when I hit eighteen. Never went back.”

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