Reno chuckles. “She told me not to sayshit.” He kisses the top of my head. “Then she apologized for staying so long and making me have to live like that. I could literally feel her backbone growing back. Maybe it was because no one had stood up for her for so long, and now that someone had, she drew on that.”
“I’m proud of her. And you,” I say, my voice muffled with emotion.
“She did call the police, and they came and arrested him. Of course, he was released the next day, but we were gone. Went to a shelter a few towns away. They gave us a room and helped her get a job in a diner.”
The memory of Reno donating Leia’s clothes to a women’s shelter floods my system, and I bite back a sob. His childhood obviously still affects him, but he used that pain to do something good. I’d wager to bet he donates money to women’s shelters too.
“And he stayed away?” I asked, praying it was so.
Reno nods. “Ma didn’t have a cell phone back then so he couldn’t track her or anything. There was also a lawyer at the shelter who helped her get a divorce.” He kisses my head again. “After a month, we moved into a tiny apartment. It was run down, but we scrubbed it to within an inch of itslife, so at least it was clean.”
The surf eases up to wet our feet and then recedes. This goes on for a few cycles before Reno speaks again.
“Ma would bring me meals from the diner every night. Enough for dinner and then lunch the next day. When I tried to share with her, she said that food was for me and that she ate at work.”
“But she didn’t?”
I feel the long inhale and exhale of breath from Reno’s lungs. “It became obvious after a few months, even to a kid. She was so damn skinny and her clothes hung off her like she was wearing a tent.”
Swiveling my head until my face was pressed against his chest, I hold him tighter. “She was starving herself so her little boy wouldn’t be hungry,” I surmise, and he nods.
“Yeah. To backtrack a little, Ma was an only child, and both her parents were dead. I never knew my father’s family because they’d had some kind of falling out before I was born.” Reno’s hand toys with my ponytail. “So when she was asleep one night, I found her little address book.”
“What was in it?”
“I saw a phone number for a man named Arlo. She’d writtenLeon’s dadbeside it. Leon was my father, so this was obviously my grandfather I’d never met. So I memorized the number, and when Ma was at work the next day, I called him. Told him the whole story and that I was worried my mom wasn’t getting enough to eat.”
“Crap, did your mom freak out?”
Reno huffs out a laugh. “I didn’t tell her, but that evening, Gramps showed up in a big black truck and knocked on the door of our apartment. Told my mom we were going to live with him and Grandma, and he wasn’t hearing a single word against it.”
“Good for him,” I say, turning my head to press my cheek to Reno’s chest again.
“We lived in their farmhouse for about a year while my mom went to school to finish her degree in social work. She’d been almost done whenshe met my father, and he somehow talked her into quitting school. She’s a counselor for a shelter now.”
I nuzzle against his shirt and smile. “Would it be weird if I said I have a girl crush on your mom?”
His lips curl against the top of my head. “Not weird. She’s pretty fucking amazing.”
I look up at him. “You are too, for having the balls to call a man you’d never met and ask for help because you were worried about your mother.”
“I guess. I give all the credit to my grandparents. They took in their daughter-in-law who they hadn’t seen in over a decade and a grandson they didn’t know existed. I had a real family for the first time.” He stares wistfully out at the horizon where the sun seems to be dipping into the water. “I had some anger issues, so Gramps got me involved in sports to help me work out my shit in a more healthy way.”
“This is the grandfather that has dementia now?”
Reno nods. “Besides my mom, he’s the most important person in my life. I’d do anything for him.”
I’ll be honest. I’m finding it very difficult not to fall head over heels for Reno Swain right now. Especially when he dips his head to press soft pecks against my lips. “Thank you for listening to me, dream girl. I know it’s not a pretty story.”
“Many stories aren’t, but you were lucky to have a beautiful ending to it.”
“Very lucky,” he agrees. “So many women don’t get that.”
A fresh round of tears assaults my eyes as memories flood my mind. Ugly memories. So I bury my face in his chest and let them fall. It’s a response I hate, but one I can’t control, and my body begins to shake.
Reno’s body stiffens, and he’s silent while he strokes my back and hair with aching gentleness. My soft cries turn into full-blown sobs, and I don’t even know why. I haven’t cried over my asshole ex in over a year.
Maybe it’s the tenderness with which Reno is rubbing me or the strong feel of him surrounding me and making me feel safe. Treasured.
