“Why didn’t you do that?”
His jaw sets, and he looks at something over my shoulder. I give him the space I think he needs while ignoring the churn of my stomach.
What did I say?
“My life took a turn,” he says, flexing his forearms. “I …” He sighs.
I kiss him on the nose. The gesture makes him release his jaw.
“I was nineteen,” he says. “Dominic was sixteen. It was summer. Super humid out. I remember that. I was in my room just getting ready to go to sleep, and I heard this boom upstairs. And then I heard my mother screaming.”
My chest tightens so hard it pinches. I take Nate’s hand in mine and lace our fingers together.
“Dom met me at the bottom of the stairs, and we went up to their room, right? I opened the door, and Dad had Mom on her back with a gun pointed at her head.”
“Nate,” I whisper, unable to formulate a sentence.
My heart breaks for the man who’s holding it together in front of me. He keeps his gaze steady on the point above my shoulder, and I wish so much that he’d look at me.
“Mom put her hand out like she was telling Dom and me to stay back while Dad held her in place by the neck, pinning her to the bed. Dad looked at us and yelled for us to stay back. And we did. We didn’t know what to fucking do.”
Tears pool in the corners of my eyes again as I watch him relive the horror.
“Dad started screaming all this bullshit—that doesn’t matter. Then he pointed the gun at Dom.”
I gasp, a chill running down my spine as I imagine the terror of the moment.
Nate swallows. “The gun went off. The sound was so loud. Mom screamed again.” He closes his eyes and swallows again. “Like I hate movies with gunshots because of this. It just echoed through the house.” He looks down at me. His eyes are glassy. “It was supposed to have hit Dominic. But it hit the wall instead.”
“Oh, Nate,” I say, tears flowing down my cheeks.
“I lunged for Dad because I knew if I didn’t, he was going to kill all of us. I held him down while Dom tried to work the gun out of his grip. Dad just stared at me with this cold cruelness as he overpowered my brother.” He closes his eyes. “The second shot would’ve hit me if Dom hadn’t moved the gun at the last fucking half of a second.”
The tears are impossible to stop as I watch the man I adore, the man I just might love, struggle through his pain. I bury myself as close to him as I can get without crawling inside his body and hold him as tightly as I can manage.
“I have absolutely no idea how this happened—by the grace of God, maybe—how Dom moved my dad’s arm the direction he did, but the shot hit my father … and not me.” His chest shakes. “Dad died. Right there. In a pool of blood in his own bed next to his wife and in front of his sons.” His voice wavers. “It was the worst night of my life.”
Oh. My. God.
He saw his father … his brutal father … nearly kill his mother. And then kill himself.
How? How does someone bounce back from that? How do they overcome that and become the great father he is now?
I have so many questions and wonder so many things. But all that really matters is that he shared his pain with me.
He pries me away from him and looks at me. He smiles.
“Don’t cry for me,” he says, drying my face again. “I’m tough.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Well, help it because seeing you cry makes me feel worse.”
I grin, sniffling. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? I have childhood trauma, and you have teenage trauma. Maybe we can do the next decade trauma together.”
“That would work, but I’m in my thirties.” He laces our fingers together. “And if you have any more trauma at any age, I’ve fucked up somewhere.”
I bow my head against him. I don’t want him to see this smile. This one is silly, maybe even happy.
And if you have any more traumas at any age, I’ve fucked up somewhere.
He really wants us to be together. To protect me. To make sure I’m happy.
For the first time, I believe in the idea of … maybe not forever but a long damn time. And that’s progress.
My mind creates ideas of what Nate would’ve looked like as a child. Was he gangly as a teenager or built as solid as he is now? Did he always keep his hair short, or did he do the middle part that some boys did? Was he energetic and funny like Ryder, or more methodical like he is now?