Crave (The Gibson Boys 3)

I wrap a hand around his wrist. “Because that day is one of my favorite days of my life.”

A faint grin touches his lips. “We played in that co-ed softball tournament that weekend.”

“And we ate all the elephant ears and corn dogs and drank all the lemon shake-ups we could stand.” My heart fills with the memories that I’ve clung to as my life has fallen apart at various times.

“We rode the Ferris wheel,” he remembers.

“And it started raining, and I fell in the mud.”

“And then I won this to make you feel better,” he says, dropping the charm back to my chest. “I didn’t think you’d be wearing it this many years later.”

As I let go of his hand, the sweetness of that weekend is replaced with the bitterness that came after. I step away as if it will distance me from what happened next.

“I’m glad you are, though,” he says. “As dumb as it might be, every time I see it around your neck, it … would it be wrong that it makes me proud?”

“It should. You gave me the last carefree, fun weekend of my life.”

He takes my hand this time and squeezes it. “You’ve had fun since then.”

“Not like that weekend. That weekend I had you. I had a little naivety that life might work out all right. I had a parent who gave a fuck.”

His eyes are a warm raft to cling to as I sort back through my dad leaving. And how Cross went crazy when he found out, and I thought for sure he was going to do something stupid and get arrested, leaving me too.

“I sat on the floor in the living room and cried and begged Cross to get his shit straight. But he was a kid too, really, and here he was forced to take care of me or let me fend for myself.”

“Cross wouldn’t do that to you. Even then.”

My stomach churns, kicking up the pain of those few weeks like it was yesterday. I can’t look at Machlan, so I look at the floor.

“I got pregnant at the absolute worst time in my life,” I say quietly.

He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. His body releases a frustration, an anger I know is directed at himself, as he stands in front of me.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to me,” I say. “Mom was dead. Dad was gone. I didn’t know if he’d come back. And I was having a baby.”

His arm flinches, but I still don’t look at him.

Talking about this wasn’t on the docket, but it feels right. There’s a relief, almost, in talking about this because I never do. Machlan is the only one who knows about this part of my life. It’s like it’s this secret that I have to keep but one that claws at me from the inside to get out.

He tugs gently on my hand, bringing me a step closer to him.

He doesn’t say how it’s his fault or go into a rant or start apologizing like a man with a burden he can’t shake like he usually does. He listens.

“I’ve never been more scared in my life,” I say, a nervous laugh lacing through the words. “I remember thinking I had a human growing inside me, but I felt the most alone I’d ever felt. It was the oddest sensation.”

“You had your life turned upside down in the matter of a few days.” He frowns. “And God knows I wasn’t much help.”

I shake my head. “You did all you could at that moment. It wasn’t easy for you either.”

He grits his teeth. The struggle warring inside him is written on his face. “It wasn’t about me. It shouldn’t have been about me.”

“But it was about you,” I insist. “You look back on it and think you should’ve looked at things differently then, but you didn’t have the tools to do that. Think about it, Mach. Your parents were dead. Your siblings were off living their lives, and you were kind of stuck here in a way.”

“It’s no excuse.”

“No,” I say, touching his arm. “But it’s a good reason. That’s a different thing.”

“I could’ve stepped up,” he says, his voice rough. “I could’ve held a job. I could’ve …” He hangs his head. “I could’ve stopped breaking up with you the years before you got pregnant and given you some hope that I could be rational. I don’t blame you for not trusting me to raise a kid.”

“Not trust you? You think that’s what it was?”

My heart breaks, the split inside my body so intense I feel like I’m ripping in two. “I didn’t trust me to raise a baby, Machlan.”

He looks at me as though he’s considering this for the first time.

“I remember my mom working two, three jobs when I was growing up,” I say. “She’d go from the bank to a grocery store and sometimes a pizza shop at night. And you know what? We still barely got by.” I close my eyes as thoughts of my mother wash over me.