Page 61 of Smith

“I don’t miss mine, baby. She was a shit mom and an even worse human. I can see you losing your mom marked you—you loved her, you miss her. All I felt was relief when I got the notification. I didn’t go home. I didn’t claim her body. I didn’t clean out wherever she was living or claim her belongings. I can’t say I was happy. What I can say is I felt relieved it was over. No more middle-of-the-night calls, drunk off her ass to yell at me about something I did when I was five. No more worrying if shewas going to get behind the wheel drunk. No more getting calls from jail asking me to bail her out. She was a thief, a liar, and a horrible person. She was all of those drunk or sober. I can’t say much about my father except I’m grateful he stopped coming around when he did. It’s arguable which one of them was worse—the wife-beating asshole or the woman who got drunk, got in his face, and beat him. It was all-around dysfunction.”

After I’d shared more than I’d intended, Aria had lost the sympathy and looked downright disgusted.

I understood that look. I saw it every time I looked in the mirror.

Total disgust.

Regret and self-loathing of the highest order.

I came from shit. Then I’d turned into shit.

“He hit your mom,” she seethed.

“Yup. And she hit him.”

“They hit each other in front of you?” she all but screeched.

I didn’t know what to make of her outrage so I said nothing.

“That’s…that’s…terrible,” she spat.

I still had nothing to add. But the angrier she got on my behalf the harder I found it to breathe.

“My parents loved each other. They loved me. They were good parents, my dad still is. My mom rarely raised her voice. When I did something wrong she’d talk to me, explain why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do whatever I’d done. My dad talked to me and watched movies with me. When he was gone on deployment he wrote me letters and called. My mom taught me to be proud of my father’s service, the sacrifices he made being away from us. She did that by example. She never complained, she never argued with him when it was time to leave. I’m sure they fought and argued but they never, ever did it in front of me. So, yes, I miss my mom. Every day, ten times a day, I think about her and wish she was here. My dad’s my best friend. So I cannot beginto understand what it was like growing up with two worthless assholes and them being horrible to each other and to you. What I can say is I hate that for you. I hate more that your mother was the type of woman who would make her son feel relief instead of sadness at her passing. I hate that—not for her, she didn’t deserve your sadness—but you sure as shit deserved a mother to mourn.”

My breath was coming in short choppy pants I could barely cover by keeping them shallow.

There may’ve been a time when I’d deserved that—a good family, a nice home, a mom who showed me love the way Aria’s had. But I stopped deserving it when I fucked up and caused three people to die because of my stupidity and selfishness.

“Aria—”

“I get it, you don’t want to talk about it. I wouldn’t either. So we’re moving on. How’d you like your pork?”

I couldn’t help it. There was nothing funny about her mom dying and my parents being wastes of spaces, but the way she spat out her curt question had me busting a gut.

By the time I got my hilarity under control, she was smiling.

“Good call using the air fryer,” I told her.

“And you doubted me,” she clucked.

I had doubted her.

But the more time I spent with her the more I began to realize I shouldn’t. That realization led to me wondering—if I told her the truth, the reason why we’d one day have to end this—if I could keep her as a friend. If we could still have this—hanging out eating dinner together sharing a closeness only true friends had.

I doubted it.

But damn if I didn’t hope.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

My eyes slowly came open. I was on my side, Smith’s chest pressed close, his arm heavy resting over my middle, our legs tangled. But my attention was on our hands—his palm on the back of my hand, his long fingers threaded between mine.

Holding hands.

There I was in the curve of his body. Snuggled tight and warm against him. Holding hands.

I lay in the dark unmoving, thinking about everything that had happened yesterday. Not the stuff that happened at the house. That just plain freaked me out. Smith had told me Kira had not delayed running the pictures he’d found through some fancy facial recognition software she’d created and identified all the girls. He also told me their ages were all close to George Jr. and seeing as the box was found under the floorboards in his old room, I was holding out hope those pictures were taken by him of girls he’d maybe dated. I didn’t want to think about alternate scenarios. Smith had also told me that Kira and Layla would be talking when Layla got back to Maryland about the best way to approach these women. I liked that—not that I didn’t think men didn’t or couldn’t have a woman’s best interest in mind But Kira and Layla taking over contacting the women said somethingabout the team mostly comprised of men. They understood how delicate the situation was.

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