Down and Out(48)

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. What can I say to that? Please, don’t? Because I’m not entirely sure I don’t want him to.
He leans down and kisses my forehead. “It’s only fair, you know, since you’ve ruined me.”
He’s so close to me I can feel the heat off his body. I swallow and risk a glance up at him, knowing fully well I might melt under his stare. “I have?”
“Yep. Only mean, loud, disagreeable girls will do it for me now.”
Declan laughs as I smack his chest. Somehow I’m laughing too, despite my best efforts at a glare.
“I’m kidding,” he says. “Only you do it for me now, so you better come around to this whole ‘us’ thing or I’m screwed.”
Turning onto my side to face him, I say, “I’ll try, okay? But I can’t promise anything.”
He nods, and for several seconds, the only sound in the room is the movie. I’m not watching it, though. My eyes are glued to him, roaming over anything and everything I see.
I’ve never allowed myself to look at him this long or openly. It’s like my eyes are greedy for him, like they’re making up for lost time.
My fingers skim his arm, pausing on a rose. I still can’t get over the detail and shading of his tattoos. These must have taken hours to do.
“My mom’s name was Rose.” Declan’s voice breaks my concentration. “They’re for her.”
I can’t even imagine what it’s like to have a real parent, let alone one you loved. . . How different would my life have turned out if I had decent parents? Where would I be? Who would I be?
There’s no way to know. But I can unequivocally say I wouldn’t be lying here with Declan right now, and for once, I think I’m glad life has led me here, to this exact moment.
I trace the rose and glance up at him. “What was she like?”
His breath leaves him on a long exhale. He rolls onto his back, but not before I see his brows bunch. “Loyal to a fault. She was the warmest, kindest person I’ve ever met. Loved my dad more than he deserved.
“She stuck by him through everything—every DUI, every ruined holiday, every time he gambled away their mortgage payment. I’d get so mad at her for staying with him every time he f*cked up. I mean, I was just a little kid, but I knew she deserved better than him. I knew she could leave him if she wanted. But she wouldn’t.
“She’d just tell me when you marry somebody, you take the bad with the good. Said he wasn’t always like that, that he was sick and he needed our help to get back to good.” His jaw tenses. “And then one day he just left. After everything she did for him, everything he put her through, he just walked away from her like it was nothing.”
I study his face as he looks at the ceiling, but he’s not really seeing it. He’s too busy reliving something awful from his past.
“Have you seen him since then?” The words are quiet as they leave me. I don’t want to encroach on whatever’s going on inside his head, but I’m curious. Plus, I think we’ve established by now that questions are fair game.
If he can ask me if I got off the last time I had sex, I think I can ask him if he’s seen his father.
Declan shakes his head. “Blake has, but I refuse to. As far as I’m concerned, he died the second he walked out that door.”
His jaw’s grown tighter the longer he’s talked and I’m regretting ever bringing up his mom to begin with. I hadn’t meant to put a damper on the conversation.
Since we’re in a sharing kind of mood, I do something I’ve never done before: talk about my father. There’s really nothing to tell, but maybe it’ll get his mind off his parents to talk about someone else’s.
I roll onto my stomach and say, “I’ve never met my dad. Don’t even know his name.”
He looks over at me and pets my hair. “Do you remember your mom at all?”
“I have little snippets of memories, but not many. I can’t even remember what she looked like, really, just that her eyes were supposed to be blue.”
“Supposed to be?”
Shit.
My mouth snaps shut at my slip-up. ‘Her eyes were blue.’ Were blue. How friggin’ hard is it to say that?
I push away the last memory I have of her, fuzzy from my four-year-old mind, but haunting nonetheless. I didn’t tell Declan this, but I’m the one who found her after she overdosed on our couch. Her open eyes had turned gray and filmy, and she wouldn’t wake up, no matter how much I tugged on her and yelled.
I finally went upstairs, to Mrs. Donaghy’s apartment, and asked her make me some cereal. It wasn’t the first time I’d turned to her when my mother was . . . indisposed, but it was the last.
I look away from Declan’s inquiring eyes, to his arm wrapped around my head. “Yeah, I think. I don’t really remember.” My fingers run up his forearm, then over the hard bulge of his bicep. “I love your tattoos,” I say, peeking underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt to get a better look.
He sits up and begins tugging his shirt over his head. I’m momentarily relieved that my distraction tactic worked, until his shirt lifts enough to reveal dark, discolored patches dotting his side. A few litter his chest. One big, oblong bruise covers his stomach.
My breath tangles in my throat as my heart literally stops.
They look so much worse than the other night. What was once red, angry splotches have now turned into inky, black pools.
There are so many of them.
Declan sinks back onto the pillows leaning against the headboard. I can tell he’s trying not to wince.