Waylon (Ruthless MC 2)

His face works, his chin moving up and down, and his chest caving like somebody trying to vomit something out. It takes him several moments to finish with, “We got some shit in common. Shit I don’t talk about. Ever. Except with you. Right now. If I have to….if you need me to in order to understand where I’m coming from here.”

I still. Everything inside of me quieting for the man who rules this town.

For once, he isn’t staring me down. He’s looking everywhere but at me.

I sit down on the top step. Think. Then think some more.

Then decide out loud, “Normally, I wouldn’t ask anyone to tell me anything if they weren’t comfortable with it. But if you’re willing, yes, I think hearing your back story might help me process all of this.”

I tell him that, and this time it’s me who chases down his eyes…and holds his gaze.

Several moments tick by. He’s standing the kind of still where anything could happen.

But in the end, he sits down next to me on the top step and says, “My mom…she wasn't the best. And it took her until I was in my 20s for her to kill herself with all the drugs she was taking. My dad left town after she got knocked up. And my abuela tried to take me when she could—gave me a little religion. But she died, so there wasn’t anybody to take care of me when my mom disappeared. And we lived in Nashville proper, not the compound like Colin and all of them. You gotta go to school with teachers and counselors, and they notice shit like that. My mom lost me a few times. I had to live in other places. Some of them good, some of them whatever. But one of them was bad. Let's just say you ain't the only one who got touched without wanting it.”

My heart cracks. Just splits apart inside my chest.

But when I reach out to touch him, to try to comfort him, he says, “Don’t. That’s not why I’m telling you all of this. I just want you to understand, not feel sorry for me.”

My first instinct is to tell him I’m not feeling sorry for him. My response is fully empathetic without any judgment like pity involved. But I sense that wouldn’t be helpful.

You can explain the healthful benefits of what’s inside a needle all you want to patients. But some of them just have to close their eyes to receive their shot.

“Anyway, if you’re wondering why I’m so fucked up, there you go,” he says, continuing on. “I don’t trust anybody or anything except for my own gut. I don’t ever try to get close with women. You’re the exception to that rule….”

He rubs a hand over his face as if he’s reciting a long exhaustive list, and he just has to get through it. “And I got the same reflex you got. Only I carry a gun. Somebody crosses me. Somebody pisses me off. I dead them. And that’s just me.”

I think about what happened at the roadhouse in a new light. How he apologized, not for killing a man but for letting one touch me. And my stomach sinks with a new level of understanding about his response.

He lets out a long breath like he’s run a marathon, and he fists his hands over his knees. “So you see, it was one thing when that lightning bolt struck. Then you saved my life even when you didn’t have to—cared for me even though you were scared. All I knew at first was I wanted to be near you for a while—stay in Delaware as long as it took for me to get strong enough to fuck you. Even if it meant laying up in your bed handcuffed for a lot of the day.”

His lips curl up as if the memory still bemuses him. “You made me want to flirt and smile and tease—do all sorts of shit I wasn’t accustomed to. But when I figured out what happened to you too when you were a kid….”

I’ve been staring at him this whole time, but finally, he turns his head to look back at me. “When I learned that you were the same as me, had the same thing happen to you—it became about keeping you because I knew we were connected. I knew right then that you belonged to me. As my abuela would have said, you were my angel. That’s why God put you on this earth—to belong to me. And I believe in my chest that God put me on this earth to do for you—to give you whatever you want and need.”

My mind wrinkles at his mention of God. Considering his self-proclaimed reputation as a devil, why would he even be bringing that deity up? But then I realize….nobody believes in God more than a devil. Especially someone who became one in response to something that happened in his past.