Page 81 of The Beat of My Heart
“Ma’am, he is in the field, we don’t get updates until he returns to base,” he tells her but seems uncomfortable.
“You, my friend, are a liar,” she says, pointing at him, then turns back to me.
“What happened to your house?” She’s back to rapid-fire questioning. It makes me love her even more.Holy shit. But I do, I love her. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve known that since our very first kiss on the dance floor. I realize I’m smiling like a fool when Julia snaps at me.
“What. Happened. To. Your. House?” she says as if talking to a child, and I wonder what she’s like as a mom.
“It blew up.” Okay, maybe I should have been a little more tactful there, but this woman has my brain all scrambled.
“It blew up?” she screeches, and I watch as she folds in on herself again.
With her arms cradling her midsection, she rocks in her seat and I remember something she told me at the baseball game. This is her trying to calm her chaos when the world is too much. Without thinking twice, I reach over and unbuckle her. Before she can object, I’ve dragged her across the seat and into my lap, so I can hold her.
“Let me calm your chaos, Angel.”
“I’m not sure I can chase away your darkness anymore, Trevor,” she tells me sadly.
“But you already have, Angel. You’re my guiding light in a world that was dark. The moment you came back, I knew I’d walk through hell to be with you. I’ll fix this, Angel. I promise you, I’ll fix this.”
Angel finally leans in, allowing me to comfort her, and soon, the questions start again.
“Tell me about your father? How did he get involved in all of this?” she asks.
Blowing out a breath, I debate how to answer. Truthfully, he is the last person I want to think about, let alone waste air on. I want to end all this and just hear about Charlie, my son.My fucking son, but I know she needs these answers. I need to give her these answers if we have any chance of moving forward.
It’s funny, until this very moment, I had never questioned whether we would be together. However, as I explain the fucked-up situation I’ve dragged her into, I realize there is a very distinct possibility Julia will run from me as fast as she can the very first chance she gets. The thought has me holding on to her a little tighter.
Leaning my chin on top of her head, I tell her about my father.
“He wasn’t always a terrible person; at least I don’t think he was. When I was younger, he was a great dad. He showed up to every game, every practice. We went fishing on the weekend. When I was around ten, something in him changed. He started drinking all hours of the day. By the time I was thirteen, he’d started abusing my mother. I was too small to do anything about it at first, but one day, I found him over her ready to kick her while she lay bleeding on the ground. I charged him, and he never touched her again—at least not that I knew of. The verbal abuse never stopped, but as far as I know, he never hit her again. I honestly don’t know how or why he got in bed with the Black family, but I don’t think he was always the man he is today,” I tell her.
We are silent for so long, I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. I use the time to take her in. I would never have guessed this morning when Loki woke me up that I would end the day with Angel in my arms, but here I am. My heart is beating in time with hers. I decide then and there to do whatever it takes to have this for the rest of my life.
“How can you be sure Charlie will be safe?” she asks in a choked voice. I realize then that she is crying.
Placing a finger under her chin, I raise her face to mine. “I can be sure, Angel, because I will die before I let anything happen to either of you. I’m alive for the first time in years. You’ve brought me back to life, and I’ll move heaven and hell to make sure you are never taken from me again.”
I hope she can hear the sincerity in my voice because I’ve never meant anything more in my life.
A smile I’ve never seen comes over her beautiful face as she asks, “Do you want me to tell you about Charlie?”
“Holy fuck, Angel, more than anything in the world.”
For the rest of the drive, she tells me everything she can remember from Charlie’s first months of life. I soak it all in, committing it to memory and vowing to never miss another moment of his life.
Chapter 30
-Stand By You, Rachel Platten
Julia
We pull up to Dex and Lanie’s home, and even though it’s late, all the lights are on.
Shit.
“Trevor, what are we going to tell Lanie?” I ask on their doorstep. “She already has a high-risk pregnancy, if I tell her this, it’ll send her to the hospital for sure.”
Clasping my hand, he says, “We’ll say only what we have to, okay? At least until I hear from Loki. We just need to get to Vermont and pick up Charlie. All they need to know right now is that I can’t wait a second more to meet my son. I’ve got you, Jules. We’ll get through this.”
