“Reno, what did you do?”
He shrugs a little shyly. “I’m just proud of you. I never realized how much goes into writing a book. I mean, I knew it was a lot of work, but watching you try to make every single word perfect…” He lifts and lowers his shoulder again. “You’re pretty fucking amazing.”
Tears sting my eyes at his sweet words. I rise from my chair and take the flowers before laying a long kiss on his lips. “Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
After I put the flowers in the pretty vase he got me a couple weeks ago, we take a walk to the beach. It feels good to be outside in the fading sunshine.
“Do you want to eat in the formal dining room or the diner tonight?” Reno asks. We discovered the resort’s casual diner this past weekend.
“Diner. I could use one of those big burgers with the slice of grilled pineapple.”
Concern immediately weaves its way into his voice. “Are you hungry now?”
I chuckle. “Not a bit after all the fruit and cheese I ate. Thank you for that, by the way.”
He squeezes my hand before we remove our shoes and leave them in one of the cabinets reserved for that purpose at the edge of the beach. “You’re welcome.”
We walk until our toes are in the surf, and Reno loops an arm around my shoulders and tucks me close to his body while we take in the sultry air and the sounds of the sea.
“Why are you always so obsessed with me eating?” I ask teasingly, but his reply is anything but teasing. It's as serious as a heart attack.
“I can’t stand the thought of you going hungry.”
I look up at the tight clench of his mouth as he stares out at the water. Something is bothering him, some distant memory, and a horrifying thought pops into my head. Stepping in front of him, I massage the muscles of his jaw until they relax a bit.
Then I leap directly over the line we’d sketched out for rule two—limit talking about our personal lives—and ask, “Did you not have enough food growing up?”
Reno closes his eyes so tightly, tiny wrinkles appear at the corners. “I never went hungry, but my mom did.”
Oh. My. Heart.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it, but I’m here if you want to.”
His green eyes open and stare down into mine for a long moment before he cups the back of my head and brings my cheek to his chest. Message received. It’s too hard for him to look at me right now.
“My father was a piece of shit,” he begins. “He used to hit my mother. Me too sometimes, but when he came home drunk, Ma would usually shove me out the door and tell me to go play with the neighbor kid. When she would call and tell me to come home, it was usually obvious he’d been hurting her. He didn’t leave bruises where they were visible, but there were other signs. She moved more slowly, sometimes with a limp.”
“God, I’m so sorry, Reno,” I said, feeling the pinch of tears on the insides of my eyelids.
“When I was ten, I’d finally had enough. I was already pretty big for a kid that age, a little over five feet, but I was still a lot smaller than my father.” Reno’s hand drifts absently up and down my back, and I wrap my arms around his middle. “Anyway, when my mom sent me to the neighbors’ house, I didn’t go. I waited on the front porch, and when I heard what was going on inside, I went back into the house.”
He’s silent for a long while, and I give him a squeeze, trying to lend my strength to him.
“He didn’t hear me come in,” Reno says quietly. “They were in the kitchen, and the fucker was… he was standing over her. She was on the floor holding her stomach.”
I feel the enormity of the moment as if I were standing there myself, seeing a scared ten-year-old boy watching his motherbe abused.
“So I picked up a metal pot from the counter and hit him in the back of the head,” Reno says, and I weirdly want to give him a high-fucking-five. “Knocked him out cold.”
“Good,” I say fiercely even as my tears leak onto his dark-green palm tree shirt. “What did your mom do?”
“She crawled over to me and hugged me, like I was the one who needed comforting,” Reno says bitterly. “Then I laid down the law.”
I smile against his shirt. “Of course you did.”
“I told her I was tired of this shit and I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. She either called the cops and left him, or I was running away from home.”
Jesus, what a brave little boy. One who’s grown into an amazing man. “What did your mom do?”
