Fueled(book two)(63)

I look up at him and the haunted look in his eyes tells me what he’s just admitted is the least of his childhood nightmares. Do I tell him what he confessed last night in the limo? I struggle with the decision and choose not to. Sharing his past has to be on his terms. I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off before I can begin. “Rylee, please don’t feel sorry for me.”

“I’m...I’m not,” I stutter, knowing that’s the last thing he wants, but he can see right through my lie. How can I not feel sorry for the little boy he once was?

“That life was a long time ago for me. That little boy—he is a different person than I am now.”

Bullshit. He is who he is because of what happened to him. Does he not see that?

I press a soft kiss on the center of his chest. “Do you know what happened to your mom?” I say in a hesitant voice, almost afraid to ask but also wanting to know as much I can since he is talking.

He’s quiet for a moment. He lifts his hand from my back and runs it over his stubbled jaw before exhaling loudly. “After my dad found me on the steps of his trailer…he brought me to the hospital. Stayed with me,” he retells, utter reverence in his voice. “Little did I know he was this big time director. Not that I would have even known what that meant though. Later…much later, I learned that he’d wasted a whole day of studio time sitting with me in the hospital. At the time, all I remember thinking was he had the gentlest voice and his eyes. They didn’t look mean even though I flinched when he touched me...” He trails off, lost in memories, and I let him for a moment.

“…and he ordered me every kind of food imaginable and had it delivered to the hospital room. I’ll never forget the look on his face as he watched me eat things I’d never had. Things every boy at that age should have had many times over by then. I remember pretending to be asleep when the police told him they found my mom and were bringing her in for questioning…that the x-rays and exams had shown years of…” He pauses, trying to find the right word as I hold my breath wondering which one of the horrific options he’ll use. “Neglect. And it is the only time in my life I’ve ever heard my dad use his stature to get what he wanted. I heard him ask the police officers if they knew who he was. To clear it with whomever they needed to, but that I was going to be under his custody from then on. That he’d get a team of lawyers if need be, but that’s how it was going to be.” He shakes his head with a soft laugh.

“That’s…” I’m at a loss for words. I don’t want to cheapen the memory by saying the wrong words, so I just leave it at that.

“Yeah.” He breathes. “I saw my mom once more, but it was across the courtroom. I know she went to jail, but I don’t know anything more than that. Never wanted to know. Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered how you left it. I thought maybe if you found out what happened to her…fill in any blanks you want to, that it might help. The nightmares might go away and—”

“I think that’s enough sharing for today,” he says, cutting me off and shifting our bodies abruptly so that I’m on my back and he’s lying half on me, his legs scissored with mine.

“Oh really?” I smile when I see the tension ease from his face and pain fade from his eyes. “Is the only way to get you to talk, a trade? Tit for tat so to speak?”

“Well...” he smirks pressing me into the mattress with his hips “...you have seen my tats.” He arches his eyebrows suggestively. “It’s only fair...”

Colton’s sudden change of subject is not lost on me. His inherent turn toward making things physical between us when I delve a little too deep. Normally I’d hesitate at using intimacy to ease the ache of sadness within, but this morning I just want him to help me forget for just a little bit the tears left in my soul from that day two years ago.