Page 131 of Unexpected

“What’d she tell you?”

She took a steadying breath. “She didn’t mean to, so please don’t be upset with her. She assumed that I knew, and when I didn’t tell her otherwise, she just kept talking. I should have stopped her,” she pleaded, her words becoming increasingly desperate. “I should have told her that it was something you would talk to me about when you were ready, but my curiosity won over. And by the time she started, I realized she had already said too much. I’m so, so sorry. I feel like I broke your trust or something, and I—”

“Angel,” I pleaded, her tears were freely flowing, and she was speaking so fast her words were blurring together. I reached forward with the intention of cupping her cheek in my hand and hopefully calming her rapid breathing. But it had the opposite effect.

As my hand moved toward her face, she gasped and flinched away, cowering back into the booth. I froze instantly and began rethinking my entire plan.

She thought I would be mad at her, that I would be upset that she found out about my parents through someone who wasn’t me and someone who had probably had way more tequila than they ever should have. She thought I’d be mad, and after years of abuse and not knowing how I would react to being upset with her, her body’s reaction was to hide and cower. Because the last man that was angry with her beat her.

Touching her wasn’t going to help the situation, and by the time I lowered my hand, Hazel was also realizing what her reaction had been.

I kept my voice calm and whispered, “Hazel, I’m not angry and I’m not even upset. Honestly, Amanda probably did me a favor by telling you because I had been holding off for weeks now. It’s a story I’m not fond of telling, but I know it’s a necessary part of my past. But please hear me when I say that if I was upset or angry or pissed off at you, I would never hit you or want to inflict pain on you. Recovering from what that piece of shit put you through is going to be an uphill battle, so I will be careful with my actions, and I will tell you as many times as you need to hear that I will never hurt you.”

Her tears had slowed, and her eyes stayed steady on my face, so I knew she heard me.

“Now, may I touch you?”

“Yes, please,” she said and so slowly that it was actually painful, I cupped both sides of her face in my hands. I brushed away a few stray tears with my thumbs.

“I’m not upset, and I’m not going to hurt you. So, please stop crying. It breaks my fucking heart when you cry.”

Out of nowhere, she laughed, and although I was taken aback by the sound, I didn’t question it and just smiled down at her.

“That’s not what you said the other night when I was choking on your cock and crying off my makeup.”

My laugh could be heard throughout the restaurant, and I didn’t care who I disturbed. “Damn right, beautiful girl. I loved those tears, but I’m not a fan of them when you’re sad.”

I kissed her forehead, letting my lips linger for a moment before dropping my hands and reaching for the dessert menu.

“We don’t need to talk about it, but I just wanted you to know,” she said, taking the menu when I handed it to her. “It felt like I was keeping something from you, and after what Ronnie just said about honesty…”

“When I was sixteen, I came home from a friend’s house to find that both of my parents were dead. My dad lay next to their bed, slumped onto the ground with two gunshot wounds through the chest. Once I kicked down the bathroom door,” I began, cutting right to the chase. “I found my mom leaning against the bathtub, sitting in a pool of her own blood. There was so much blood I could taste it when I walked into that bathroom. I thought it had been a break-in and told the cops that when I called 9-1-1. But when they showed up, they found the gun had fallen between my mother’s body and the bathtub. It had fingerprints from both my mom and my dad, and as they continued investigating, they found obvious signs of abuse. My dad—” The automatic story I had told what seemed like too often in the nearly fifteen years since my parents’ death cut off just as the part where I usually described, in a few words, the abuse my father put my mother through. The words were stuck in my throat, and for a moment, I didn’t know if I could force them out. “My dad had been hitting my mom off and on for my entire life and probably before that. She had several broken bones that hadn’t healed properly and had bruises from that night. She also kept journals that described a few of the worst arguments. The police believed that my mom fought back after he shot her, fought him for the gun and shot him before she died.”

She died.My beautiful, caring, enthusiastic and book-loving mom was killed by my father.

“My father drank a lot and some of the worst fights were on the nights when he’d binged the entire day. But my mom shielded Josh and me from it our entire lives. She tried, but I also knew that something was happening. I knew something was going on, but when I was a kid, I didn’t understand and when I was a teenager, I didn’twantto understand.”

After years of therapy and soul-searching, I knew that it wasn’t my fault. That I was the child, and it wasn’t my job to protect my parents. The guilt and rage I felt that led me to fight—a lot of illegal fighting—I was eventually able to control, and until I met Hazel, I thought it had almost gone away completely after Valerie and I divorced.

I didn’t catch on to all the signs that my dad was hitting my mom, but I knew when they’d at least had a bad argument and would steer Josh clear of them the best I could. He eventually caught on, but not until right before they died.

Lost in memories of that time, I was overcome by them until I felt the faint brush of hands on my face. I blinked a few times and watched Hazel’s sympathetic face form a soft smile as her hands moved over my face. “Now, you’re the one crying,” she said.

Was I? My hands brushed over my cheeks and sure enough, they were wet. I hadn’t even noticed that the tears had begun to fall. I sniffled and brushed away the tears as her hands dropped to my thigh.

“Now you know, and that’s enough sad shit for one night.”

She opened her mouth to say something but quickly snapped it shut, nodded, and picked up the dessert menu. “Cheesecake for me and don’t even think about asking to share.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” I laughed.

“Have we decided on dessert?” Ronnie asked, appearing out of thin air.

We ordered and settled back into the booth to finish our drinks. No more sad shit for the night, but the shit wasn’t nearly over.

FORTY-SIX

Luke

---