“You knew then?”
He nods. “For sure. When you were in the bathtub. I knew I had to be strong for you. To do the right thing. Nothing could have happened then, anyway. You were too young. I never would have done that to you.”
“No matter how much I wanted it?”
He snorts. “Even if I didn’t have a decent sense of morality, I had a good sense of mortality. Bear and Otter would have killed me. But I did. And I still do. I knew then I’d never look at you the same. And that you had to get out while you still could.”
“I felt it longer,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I can see that now.”
“That’s why it killed me when… when the mail came….”
“That wasn’t meant to happen,” he says quietly. “None of that. It spiraled out of control.”
“I know.” And I do. That doesn’t mean it still didn’t hurt like a bitch.
“I love her,” he says. “Stacey. And don’t make that face. I don’t mean like that. She’s part of my family, Ty, and she always will be. I love her because of the person she is and what she gave me.”
“Ben.”
“Ben,” he agrees. “And he’ll always come first. He has to. If I had to do it all over again to have him the way that I do, I would. I know that probably hurts to hear, but he’s kept me sane. And honest. Having kids tends to do that to you.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I ask him. “Your parents. Stacey. Ben. Why?”
He looks over at me. Takes my hand in his. Brings it up and brushes his lips against my palm. “Because,” he says, “if we’re going to have any future, you need to know everything, Ty. I’m not a catch. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Future?” I’m dazed by his words, and the inside of the car starts spinning.
“What do you think this is?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “These past few days have been… weird.”
He laughs. It’s a good sound. A rough sound. “Yeah.”
“Dom, I don’t know my future, much less anyone else’s.”
“No one does.”
“I know. But mine’s a bit more uncertain than others.”
“Why?”
“I’m lost,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “And I don’t know how to get back. Bear says I’m not and I want to believe him, but here I am, sitting in a car in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere going to see the one person who almost destroyed me with the one person who was able to put me back together, and I don’t know what to do. I’m lost, Dom. I’m so fucking lost and scared that I’m doing the wrong thing, that I won’t be who I’m supposed to be. That I’m not what Bear wants. Or Otter. Or you. That scares me most of all, that I can’t be who you want me to be, and I don’t understand this right now. I don’t. You touch me. You kiss me. You say things about pasts and futures, and they’re all I’ve ever wanted to hear from you, they’re all I’ve thought about for years, and even when we’ve been apart, even when I didn’t see you every day, I thought about you. Because it has always come back to you. Without you, I didn’t have a home. Without you, I was barely breathing. And I’m lost, Dom. I’m so fucking lost, and it’s so hard to breathe and—”
He brings his big hand up and curls it around the back of my neck. He pulls me forward. Our foreheads touch and all I can see is him. All I see is Dom, and it’s like I’m nine years old again and there’s a big kid watching me and all I want is for him to be my friend so I can finally say I have a friend all my own, who belongs to just me and no one else. He breathes out and somehow, I’m able to breathe him in. My lungs expand and there’s only him. Just how it’s always been.
“You’re not lost,” he says. “Not anymore. I’ve found you now, Ty. I’ve got you and I will never let you get lost again.”
“You promise?” I cry at him. “Ah God, you promise?”
“I promise,” Dom says. “I promise.”
And, somehow, I believe him.
We sit there, his hand around my neck, me clutching his arms, and just breathing. In the dark. In the middle of the night. In the middle of nowhere. On our way to see the one person who almost destroyed me.
But I’m with the one pe