Page 92 of Look My Way
“No. I thought I was an only child. It makes sense why she’d give him away, though why she kept me, I don’t know.”
“You wish she gave you up too?”
“No.” He looks ahead. “At first, I wished things were different, and it turns out they could have been. Instead of being like me . . .” He swallows hard. “I could have been like him. Daniel handled his trauma like me but in a worse way. I guess I forgot that was possible. To be worse than what I am.”
I keep listening quietly, studying his expressions and having no doubt in anything he says.
Taking a breath, he continues, as his hands shake in his lap. “He and Jared made films. Death was too good for both of them. I wish I knew that before giving one the easy way out. What they were doing down there . . .” His voice shakes, and I’ve never seen him like this before, so lost for words and disheveled. If he truly was all bad, he wouldn’t be any of these things. He wouldn’t care what Daniel and his friend were doing in that house.
“Who killed your dad?” I ask, shifting the conversation, seeing that he needs a break from the topic at hand.
“My mother. In order to protect me. She said sometimes you have to save yourself when no one else is with you. Those words stayed with me all this time. With my uncle, my foster parents, and with—”
“People like Daniel and Rick,” I finish for him, and this time I’m the one offering him my hand. He smiles down at it and takes it. I don’t ask any more questions, and the silence stretching between us is only broken when a detective walks in. We make separate statements, repeating basically what we told them yesterday, and they promise us they’re looking for Daniel, saying they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent him from coming after me again.
I thank them calmly and act satisfied by their words because I don’t need them to keep me safe from anyone or anything. Not when I have a Daddy who already does that. Zavier wraps an arm around me, his mouth brushing my ear. “I have another confession to make.”
“Yeah?” My heart thuds.
“There’s this pretty boy with red hair who paints pretty stones and likes being stalked who I’ve fallen madly in love with.”
My lips spread across my face, my head light and spinny. “I think I might know him.”
“Do you?” He knocks into me, grinning.
“Yeah, and from what I’ve heard, he feels the exact same way.”
“Even after everything?” His face tenses.
“Yeah. Even after everything.” My face closes in on his and he breathes me in, rubbing his lips over mine.
“I can’t wait to take you home.” His words tingle over my lips.
“Our home,” I say.
“Our home.” His smile matches what mine feels like, and I kiss him.
Daniel hid behind the uniform of a good citizen, and Zavier has always had who he was laid out on the surface for anyone who got close enough. I never thought I’d say this about someone like him, but I’m lucky to be one of those people. I get to see him like he sees me—mostly the good parts.
Thirty-Six
Zavier
I’ve spent the past week waiting for Liam to push me away and change his mind about me moving in. He hasn’t yet, but keeps talking about where my furniture will fit next to his, which doesn’t matter to me because I’d gladly give it all away tomorrow in order to speed up the process. Things are just that . . . things. But my boy, he’s so much more than that, and if he was all I could have here, he’d be more than enough.
“I don’t know what to do with Daniel’s stuff. You know, what the cops didn’t take in for evidence.”
“I can take it to the dump on my way to work tomorrow.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, that works.” He holds his hand up to his neck and I rub his back.
“Something on that mind of yours that has you worrying?”
“You haven’t told me where he is yet . . . Is he still alive?”
“Yeah. He’s still breathing with a pulse.” Would I call it living? Probably not.
“So that’s all you’re going to give me?” He lifts his gaze to me.
