Page 16 of Beautiful Rush
“I’m saving myself for you.”
“What makes you think I’m interested?”
Because you asked. “You didn’t slam the door in my face.”
She laughed and slouched down on the sofa, her bare feet propped on the coffee table like she was settling in for a long chat. “Tell me about Deacon Ramsey.”
I glanced at her. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you end up in foster care?”
“Asking the hard-hitting questions right out of the gate.”
“I’ve been saving them up for six months. There’s more where that came from.”
“Youhavebeen thinking about me.” I gave her a smug smile.
“You’re avoiding the question.”
It was a question I didn’t like to answer.
“My biological mother worked in a strip club. When I was five, she died of an overdose.” That was the story, in a nutshell, and I’d recited the facts quickly, without a lot of emotion. I’d left out the important details though. Only a handful of people knew them. If I wasn’t working undercover, I might tell her more, but maybe not. I’d be giving too much away.
“Do you remember her?” she asked, turning her head to look at me.
“I have hazy memories of her. I remember her blonde hair and that she was pretty.” I remembered her talking on the phone in Russian and crying afterward. I remembered the morning I found her dead on the sofa. Her ghostly skin. Her eyes were still open, but she wasn’t breathing. I shook her. Screamed at her. Poured a glass of water on her face. Her death hadn’t been an accident. She’d left a note for me, a love letter wrapped in an apology. I didn’t know what else to do so I’d eaten dry cereal from the box and watched TV with my dead mother—SpongeBob Square Pants. The theme song used to play in my head on a loop on nights when I couldn’t sleep as a kid. My earliest memories were of being hungry. I was always fucking hungry. But those memories were my own, so I kept them to myself and searched for something else I could share with her. “She told me that she’d always wanted to be a dancer.”
She didn’t tell me. She wrote it in the letter, pouring out all the hopes and dreams she had for her new life in America, home of the free and the brave. The reality hadn’t quite lived up to the dream. As a kid, I used to get angry that she hadn’t fought hard enough, hadn’t loved me enough to save herself. But as I got older, I realized that some people are too fragile for this world.
“That is…that’s so sad,” Keira said softly.
It was sad as fuck. But I didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the past or wishing things had been different. I’d long since put those ghosts to rest and made my peace with it.
“After she died, you went into foster care?”
“Yeah. I got moved around to different foster homes for a few years.”
“Were they horrible? Your foster families?”
I shrugged. My memories of those years were vague. I couldn’t remember if they were horrible. It had felt like they never really gave a shit about me, that they were just in it for the money. “I never really formed an attachment to those families, so that made it easier. When the Ramsey’s took me in, I figured it would end up like all the other families. I was always waiting for them to tell me to pack my bags.”
Shit. Where the hell had that come from?
“But they didn’t,” she said with a soft smile.
“It all worked out. I got lucky. I ended up with a great family.”
“What are your parents like?”
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked me so many personal questions, firing them off as if she really had been storing them up for tonight. Or the last time I’d answered so honestly. “My mom is an eternal optimist and always tries to see the best in people. My dad is more of a cynic and a realist. So, they balance each other out.”
“Their partnership is equal?” she asked, her voice skeptical as if she doubted that a relationship like that could ever exist.
“They’re very much equals. They play to each other’s strengths and they’re respectful of each other.”
She thought about that for a moment then came back with another question. “And what about you? Have you ever been in a committed relationship?”
“Six years and still going strong. Me and my partner Max Cooper are committed to fighting crime in Gotham City. Coops is at home in the Batcave right now.”
