Redemptive (Combative, #2)(51)

Truthfully, I was a little ashamed that I was a full-grown man who needed the help of another man (though probably ten times my size) to stop me from falling ass over tits down the basement stairs, but it wasn’t his fault.

“It’s not your fault,” Bailey answered, reading my thoughts. “You’re not going to tell me why he’s this drunk, though, are you?”

He didn’t respond verbally, but I knew what his answer was. He wouldn’t tell her. He never would. And neither would I.

*

I hadn’t gone in with a game plan when we’d visited Uncle Benny. Tiny, however, did. He’d confessed to killing Louis Franco to protect me. Which, I guess, is the same reason he’d lied about what had happened. To protect me. He’d told Benny that Franco had reached for his gun when my back was turned, and he didn’t think twice about doing what he did. Benny hadn’t had the reaction I’d expected; he’d simply told us to get the f*ck out of his office and deal with the shitstorm we’d created.

He would deal with the Francos.

So, in that moment, I was surrounded by two people whose sole purpose in life was to protect me.

I couldn’t keep my emotions out of it and I f*cked up. I guess that was the reason I found myself at O’Malley’s bar, downing an entire bottle of whiskey with the hopes it would drown out the taste of Franco’s blood in my mouth.

It hadn’t.

“He probably just needs to sleep it off,” I heard Tiny say, pulling me from my thoughts. His voice seemed distant, or maybe it was the soft rabbit-type-hole in the bed I was slowly falling into.

“Yeah, probably.” Bailey’s hand left my cheek and a moment later, I felt her lips there, replacing the touch. “Sleep, baby,” she said. And then she whispered the three words that seemed so natural to her, only this time I didn’t just hear them, I felt them. She kissed me once more, and I found myself giving in to the exhaustion (and maybe a little of the alcohol), but before I was there, in the place too dark to find light, I murmured, “Ti amo, mia bella ragazza.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, but I was too out of it to answer her, so Tiny did it for me. “It’s Italian. It means I love you, my beautiful girl.”

*

I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when I awoke to the sound of Bailey’s voice, soft and warm as it flooded all my other senses. “She was a nurse,” I heard her say. “…at the children’s hospital. Sometimes she’d take me there on her days off so we could visit with the kids.”

“She sounds nice,” Tiny said, and I slowly opened my eyes. They were sitting at the small table and chairs set up in the corner of the basement, empty takeout boxes sprawled out in front of them.

“She was nice,” Bailey responded. “I mean she is nice. I probably shouldn’t talk about her in past tense. It’s not like she’s dead… that I know of.” She peered down at her hands resting on her lap, a frown pulling at her lips. She was obviously talking about her mother.

“Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the two,” Tiny said. “Sometimes it’s almost easier to pretend like someone is dead when they choose to be absent. Makes it hurt less.”

Bailey looked up, same frown, same soft eyes. “You sound like you’re talking from experience…”

Tiny nodded. “My dad. He bailed when I was fourteen, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“I’m sorry,” Bailey said, the genuine sincerity in her voice clear.

With a shrug, Tiny laughed once. “He used to take me to ball games whenever he could, and my favorite part was always the hotdogs. Now every time I smell hotdogs, I think of him. How f*cked up is that?”

Bailey laughed. “It’s not f*cked up at all.”

“What about you, Bailey? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of her?”

She thought for a moment, and then a small smile crept to her lips, and it was such a f*cking shame that the only two people who got to witness it were a drug dealer and his muscle. “Fall leaves.”

“Leaves?”

She nodded. “Not all leaves,” she said, her eye roll making her seem younger.

“So why fall leaves?” Tiny asked, a slight tease in his tone.

“Because fall was her favorite season… we used to have this massive tree in the backyard, and we’d always wait for a huge pile to build up before going out there and running through it all. Some people have snowball fights. We had leaf fights.” She paused for a moment, the memory causing her to frown. “It was the last thing we did together.”

Silence so deafening blanketed the room, and when Tiny’s hand reached out and covered hers, I croaked out, “Bailey, did you take your insulin?”

“I made sure of it,” Tiny answered, squeezing her hands once before pulling away.

I cleared my throat. “What time is it?”

“Late,” Tiny said.

“Are you hungry?” Bailey asked, getting up and coming over to me. She placed a hand on my cheek, her smile matching her voice, warm and all consuming.

I shook my head and grasped her wrist. “Will you come to bed, baby? I just want to hold you.”

She nodded slowly, her smile widening as Tiny started to clear the table. “Thanks for taking care of her,” I told him, but I was watching Bailey walk to the bathroom.