Secret Lucidity(55)

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s fine.”

He takes a seat on the bed next to me. When his head falls into his open palms and he hunches over, resting his elbows on his knees, I scoot up behind him and slide my hand over his shoulder.

“Was that your mother?”

He nods before muttering, “Yeah.”

I run my hand down his back, feeling the tension within the muscles.

“I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you about my family,” he tells me, and when he lifts his head and turns to look at me, he continues, “I haven’t spoken to them for years. There’s pretty much no relationship there anymore.”

“Why? What happened?”

He shifts around on the bed to face me, taking one of my hands in his. “You know that I was engaged once,” he starts, and I nod. “We dated all through college. I asked her to marry me at the start of our final year. She was practically family at that point, and both of our families had grown close. Everything was set and booked. Invitations were out, and I had bought this house. A month before the wedding, I went by my parents’ loft in Norman, where my brother was living at the time while finishing his MBA. I had a key to the place too, and when I stopped by to pick up some boxes of mine that were stored in the attic, her car was there.” His hand tightens around mine. “I could hear them as soon as I walked in, but for some fucked-up reason, I needed to see it. So, I walked to his room, and there they were. My brother and the girl who wore my ring on her finger, fucking each other.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “What did you do?”

“I lost my shit on them. I threw my fist into my brother more times than I can count, ripped the ring off her fucking finger while she cried and cowered in the corner, and then I left.”

“Did she say why?”

“Some shit about how they didn’t plan it and that they loved each other. Honestly, at that point, I was so pissed, I didn’t care what their excuses were. Apparently, it had been going on for months,” he tells me. “Shit fell apart so fast, and I was a fucking wreck. I had no clue until then how much one person could destroy another.”

His eyes reveal a brokenness in him I’ve never seen before. A scar embedded so deep it frays all his edges—edges I assumed were smooth.

“What did you do?”

“She broke my heart and gave hers to Josh. It was a seamless transition on her part. I don’t think that woman has a conscience bone in her body. But like I said, she really fucked me up. It put a huge strain on my parents too, so I did the only thing I could do, I bowed out and made their lives easier when I joined the Army.”

“That’s why you enlisted?”

“I was lost,” he admits. “It was a dark time.”

“But your family . . .”

“The military was my family at that point. Still is. Even though most of us are out now and we all live far apart from each other, my combat brothers are just that—my brothers.”

And this I have come to know. I’ve never met any of his friends, but he talks about them often and keeps in close contact.

“I lost touch with everyone back home. It was easier to just leave them all behind. My mother would send me letters, but they only served as salt for my wounds, so I stopped reading them after I found out Josh married her during my first deployment. I could tell life had moved on for all of them, but I was still dealing with it.”

“And they have kids now?”

“Two. A boy and a girl. I’ve never met them. I haven’t seen or spoken to anyone aside from my mom since I’ve been back.”

“That’s a long time to go without your family.”

“Like I said, I have a family, it just isn’t them. I’ve been gone for too long, it’s just better this way, especially now that little kids are in the picture.”

I lean in and hug him, feeling every bit of the pain he’s been carrying around for so many years. It’s hard to know how to react, because I don’t have the experiences behind me to understand the true magnitude of his devastation. It’s another reminder of how much life there is between us, but he closes the gap in more ways than one when he leans back against the headboard and pulls me on top of his lap.

With my legs straddling him, he holds me close when he says, “I’ve always been too weak to admit that to anyone.”

“There’s nothing weak about you.”

He pulls me down to him and our lips ghost against each other’s, a touch so soft it could make you cry. His breath becomes mine, and I sigh in the wake of his gentle touch, “I love you so much.”

He then presses his mouth to mine, and I taste his need as his tongue caresses mine. His hands slide under my top and over my breasts, palming me with just the right amount of pressure. I lose myself in an instant, wanting more of everything he has to offer when he touches me like this.

My lips drag along the roughness of his jaw and down the curve of his neck as he unhooks my bra.

“Lift your arms,” he murmurs in a low gruff, and when I do, he slips off my sweater and bra.

Over the past month, David and I have been intimate countless times, enough that my insecurities have mostly dissipated. So, when he rolls my nipples between his fingers, I slump my body down to his, moaning in delicious pleasure.