“Sure,” he said, drying off the potato skillet from the night before.
I stood watching the little crinkled metal coils heat up, feeling the urge to fill the silence. Which, in the past, was weird for me. But since I met Breaker, I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut. “Where did you learn to cook?”
I felt rather than saw Breaker pause. “What?”
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“My mom.”
At this, I felt my head turn. “Really?”
Breaker picked up his coffee cup, leaning his hips against the counter, watching me. “Yeah. Really. She would let me pitch in when I was little. Before she died.”
Another dead mother. We were a sad pair.
“How old were you?” I asked, skipping over the condolences. No one wanted to hear that shit.
“Ten.”
Damn. Ten. That sucked. I got six extra years with mine.
“Was your dad in the picture?” I asked, knowing I was prying, expecting him to shut me out. That's what people did. That's what I did.
“If by 'in the picture' you mean around to beat the ever loving shit out of me everyday, then yeah.”
I felt myself wince at that.
I had been slapped by a foster parent or two. I knew how humiliating and powerless that felt. I couldn't imagine how it felt when it was an actual parent hitting you. When it was their blood in your veins. When there was no hope of ever getting transferred out.
Besides, I was now familiar with how it felt to have a grown man's fist hit you. And it wasn't fun. My jaw hurt when I opened it. Just a twinge from the pretty blue bruise I had marring my skin, but still, it hurt. And that was just one punch.
“Was he a drunk like Shoot's dad?” I asked, hoping that was it. Otherwise, what excuse could there be?
“No, doll. He was just a dick. Before it was me, it was my mom.”
“He beat your mom?” I asked, my voice sounding weird. Weak.
“Yeah.”
That's why. That was why he freaked out about not hitting me. Not because he was just a noble guy. A decent person. Because he had watched his father wail on his defenseless mother growing up. And when she was gone, he was the stand in.
Crap.
I had been kinda insensitive telling him to get over it.
But how was I supposed to know?
“How did she die?” I asked. I was curious and he was, apparently, really forthcoming about his past.
“Lung cancer,” he said easily. “She didn't smoke. But Pops did.”
Oh god.
Okay.
My story was starting to sound less horrific than his.
Not that it was a contest. But if it was... he would win. Easy.
I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes and felt a wave of horror wash over me. That wasn't me. I wasn't the crying kind of girl. I was the put your chin up, throw your shoulders back, and pretend nothing got to you kind of girl. I wasn't going to cry for little ten year old Breaker while big, manly, reasonably well-adjusted Breaker stood a few feet from me.
His eyes warmed for a second watching me. Like maybe he knew what I was struggling with. Then, his voice a little amused, “Your toast is burning.”
I whipped around, hitting the buttons and, sure enough, they were blackened. But salvageable. I rummaged around for a knife and scraped the char off over the garbage before buttering them.
“Thanks babe,” he said easily, taking a triangle and biting into it.
I hadn't thanked him for dinner.
Shit.
Okay.
I needed to like... muster up some basic social skills or something.
I munched on a piece of toast, looking out the window into his backyard. “So, um, like...” oh my god. I needed to stop mumbling. “What do you... do?”
His head tilted to the side. “What?”
“When you're not... working? What do you do?”
He shrugged. “Workout. Watch movies. Go out with Shoot or Paine.”
A part of me realized that going out with Shoot or Paine (whoever the hell that was) involved all three of them taking off in different directions with different women. I pushed down the weird twinge of jealousy.
We had sex.
That didn't give me the right to plant my flag in him.
He probably fucked around all the time.
Why was I even thinking about his former sexual conquests? That was totally none of my business. He wasn't wondering about mine. And he damn well wasn't feeling jealous about them. Not that he should seeing as they were just... pathetic compared to him.
“Alex,” his voice called and my head snapped to him. “Called you twice,” he said, making me blush slightly.
“Sorry. I was... somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Not here.”
At this, I got a brow raise. “What's with the fuckin' walls, doll?”
“What walls?”
“The ten foot tall barbed wire ones you wear around you like a security blanket.”
Well hell.
He got me.
But that didn't mean he needed to know that.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You're not trying to keep me at a distance?”
“Don't be ridiculous.”
Breaker put his mug down on the counter, shaking his head. “Babe, I'm pretty sure it was you I was inside last night,” he started and I felt my cheeks heat. He did not just say that. “I know what you feel like and sound like when you come. I know what you taste like. And you don't think you can tell me what you were just thinking about a minute ago? You don't think you can let me in just a little bit?”
“For what purpose?”
“Because that's what people do, Alex,” he said, his voice getting harsh. “You can't live a life hiding behind a computer, telling yourself vengeance is more important than living. Making connections. Going out. Sharing your story. What the fuck are you so scared of?”
“I'm not scared of anything!” I screeched, throwing away the rest of my toast, no longer hungry. I had never had an argument with a guy. Not ever. It was weird and it was making my belly twist and turn. And my old trusty friend anger was rearing his ugly head.
“Bull fucking shit, Alex. You're scared of everything.”