“Holy hell.”
“Yeah.”
“When did they start doing that? The multiple-wives thing?”
His head ticked. “They didn’t do it when you were younger?”
I shook my head.
Oh man.
His expression had changed again.
“What?” I asked.
He bit his lower lip. I could see the edges of his white teeth. They were spectacular.
I didn’t have time for Auggie’s spectacular teeth or how fabulous they looked pressing into his perfect lower lip or how much more fabulous they’d look pressed into me.
I had to know why he was biting that lip.
I curled my fingers in his Henley, used them to pull back and push forward at his pecs to get him to spit it out, and in case that wasn’t enough, I added on a snap, “Augustus! What?”
“Your father has four wives.”
“Oh my fucking God!” I screeched the final blaspheme.
“Babe, quiet,” he ordered low, giving me a squeeze with both hands.
“Four wives more than my mom or four wives in total?” I asked in order to understand the full crazy of what I was learning.
“Total.”
“When did this happen?” I continued.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“This is insane,” I declared.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“So, my brother is a felon and a wife beater. My sister is marrying the creepiest creepmeister in history, which, by the way, Reverend Clyde was that way before I knew he had multiple wives. A man who happens to be forty-nine years older than her and has known her since she was a little girl, which, I think we can both agree, ratchets up his creep factor by a lot. And my father has three wives I didn’t know about, which is good for him, seeing as he has backups for when his first one dies of cancer.”
“Baby,” he said gently.
“It’s official. My very recent meditation has worn off now.”
And with that announcement, I fell forward and planted my face in his chest.
Immediately, Auggie wrapped his arms around me, one at my shoulders, one lower on my back.
He was warm and he smelled like the sun with hints of some fabric softener (or something), his chest was broad, his muscles solid and strong, his arms tight.
And instantly, I had a visualization of myself steady and sure-footed on an island standing under a sturdy structure that provided shelter as the winds blew, the rains came down and the seas churned around me.
Shit, shit, shit.
I tried to pull away but Auggie’s hold tightened.
“Don’t,” he said, and it was a borderline groan, like my pulling away was physically hurting him.
I did not want to hurt him.
And I realized in that second, I never wanted to do that ever.
But my mind wanted to protect me. It wanted me to move away.
My heart had its own mind, and I stopped moving.
My head, though, fortunately, still had control of my mouth.
“You didn’t act like an ass, Auggie, you shredded me. Corbin and I can get into it, and he can go low, but I’ve never been decimated by something he said like I was when you said those things to me. It isn’t okay. There’s no excuse for it. And there is no way I’m ever going to get into a relationship with a man who would speak to me that way.”
“I take it Corbin is your ex?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“You had his child, shit went bad, you two went your separate ways undoubtedly with broken promises and drama, and he’s never hurt you the way I did?”
I clamped my mouth shut because I’d just started, and still, it was high time to quit talking.
“I’ve spent my whole life,” Auggie began, “my whole life, Pepper, as far back as I can remember, watching my dad fuck shit up with my mom and then watching my mom make him pay for it. He’d cheat or he’d lose a job or he’d forget her birthday. They’d shout at each other. And eventually she’d leave him. He’d crawl to her, begging her to come back, promising he’d never do any of that again. She’d make him squirm. Hot. Cold. There, then a ghost. For him and for me.”
Well, hell.
That sounded familiar.
He kept going.
“She’d get boyfriends who she’d rub in his face. Dump them and take Dad back. Move in and we’d be a family again. She’d snap her fingers and he’d dance, completely at her whim, until he was done with it. Then he’d do something stupid, and it’d start all over again.”
Man, just when you thought your life threw you some curveballs, that your situation was really rotten, you hear someone else’s, and you realize you had blessings to count.
And obviously I’d had my issues with things the way they were at home before I left, but hearing how he’d grown up, I was realizing I had blessings to count.
“Auggie,” I said softly.
“And I need to make certain you understand that when I said ‘my whole life,’ I mean, in the time since I met you, she’s left him twice and taken him back twice. It’s still going on.”