Текст книги "Nash"

Автор книги: Jay Crownover

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“I want to know why you never told me who Phil was. I want to know why you let me think my dad was just some deadbeat that took off on us. I spent my entire childhood thinking you couldn’t deal with me, didn’t love me because I reminded you of a stranger that disappointed you.” I glared at her for all the years of blame and guilt she had needlessly let me carry on my too-young shoulders.

“Phil was here, he took care of me, and he obviously cared for you and would have been in both our lives. I think I deserve to know what happened and why it took him facing death for the truth to come out.”

Her hands curled around the mug and I saw her pale a little under her makeup.

“What difference does any of that make now, Nashville? What purpose does rehashing any of it serve?”

“Stop calling me that. Nash, just Nash, and you know it. The purpose it serves is I want to know why I wasn’t ever good enough, why you still look at me like I’m a disappointment. Phil doesn’t get to pass on, get to die without me understanding why it mattered so much for him to keep your secrets.”

She heaved a sigh like I was annoying her more than anything else and looked at me over the rim of her mug.

“I met Phil when he was on leave from the navy. I was in New York on vacation the same time he was there for Fleet Week. He was good-looking, a handsome and dangerous young man in a uniform. I figured no one would get hurt if we indulged in a harmless fling. I thought it was just temporary, just a young girl sowing her oats, but it turned into something more. I came back home, back here, and when Phil’s service was up he moved out here to be with me. He was always very dedicated and chivalrous, he just wasn’t what I was looking for in a long-term partner.”

She cleared her throat and set the mug down on the counter. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“I liked Phil, he was a lot of fun, and for a while the relationship was a great time, but when it came time to settle down, I wanted a life that didn’t fit with a guy who rides a motorcycle and thinks tattooing is a viable career—that was not in my long-term plans. I broke it off with Phil when I met Grant. Grant is the kind of man who could provide a future, could provide the kind of home I always wanted. I knew what the right choice for me was between the two men without a question.”

I scowled at her because hearing her talk about Phil’s life and choices was hearing her belittle my life all over again. Her hands went back to the necklace at her throat and she twisted the ruby around and around.

“I didn’t know I was pregnant when Grant and I started seeing each other. When I figured it out I just assumed the baby was his.”

I choked a little. “Jesus, Mom, you were sleeping with both of them?” That was more than I needed to know for sure.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I was young and figuring life out, Nashville. Anyway Grant and I got engaged and married before you were born. We were both excited with the prospect of having a little boy, and Phil had opened the shop and started his own kind of life. Everything was going to be perfect.”

She walked to the other side of the kitchen and I realized she had moved as far away from me as she could without leaving the room.

“It was pretty clear the second you were born that you were Phil’s and not Grant’s. You were all brown like me, but the hair was Phil’s and those eyes … even as a baby they were too bright and too unmistakable. They were Donovan eyes. Grant was furious, accused me of having an affair, and told me it was him or my bastard baby. He couldn’t face everyone in Brookside knowing the baby wasn’t his. I thought he was going to leave me for sure.”

I already hated the guy, but now I wanted to pull all his teeth out with rusty pliers.

“I didn’t want to lose him, so I explained about Phil, about the relationship. Grant eventually realized that no one would judge him for taking care of a child that was left by his father. He refused to be on the birth certificate or give you his last name, though.” I could literally feel the temperature of my blood drop.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “But Phil didn’t go anywhere. He just didn’t know I existed.”

“No, he didn’t, and, in a perfect world, it would have stayed that way. Grant took care of us, provided for us, and we told you that your dad had abandoned us. But as time went on you just looked more and more like Phil. One of his friends saw you with me at Cherry Creek Mall when you were about four and told Phil. He was furious, threatened to take me to court, to fight for custody. Grant didn’t want that kind of mess, didn’t want the whole sordid tale out in public and we didn’t need child support, so we made a deal. I begged Phil, pleaded with him to keep his real identity and relation to you a secret, to keep it quiet until you were older. He very reluctantly agreed, but only as long as he got to be in your life and only as long as I agreed to let you have his last name. I never put a father on the birth certificate, so making you a Donovan officially was the easiest thing in the world.”

She twisted her hands together and had the nerve to look at me like this was somehow my fault.

“When you got older, you were too much. Too wild, too loud, too hard to handle. You didn’t want to dress nice or play with the right kind of kids, Grant was already resentful that he was raising Phil’s kid, but the way you were, how much you looked like Phil, it was his breaking point. It was just easier to let Phil handle you, try and put you on some kind of path, because where you were going wasn’t any kind of place Grant or I wanted any part of. You were always so much more Phil’s son than mine.”

My back teeth snapped together, and I felt my temper start to surge in an angry torrent under my skin.

“I was a kid. Maybe if you hadn’t constantly been on me about shit I couldn’t change, like my eye color, I would have picked a more acceptable path to you. You never gave me the chance. You were always too busy trying to make Grant happy to worry about what all that vitriol was doing to your kid.”

“You were always too much like your father, even though you didn’t know who he was.”

“He loved you, still does.”

Her mouth tightened and turned white at the corners.

“He loved the idea of me. He never really knew the real me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when I was older, when I went to live with him permanently?”

“He didn’t want to.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fine, he wanted me to be the one to tell you and I refused. I didn’t think Grant or I needed to deal with the fallout. You had moved on, Phil was a better parent to you than I ever could have been. It was all said and done.”

I wanted to throw something heavy at her. I wanted to break every stupid piece of Williams-Sonoma cookware in her fancy kitchen. My fingers curled into fists at my sides.

“But I’m still here, Mom. Still trying to live my life, and now the only father I’m ever going to have is dying and there is nothing I can do about it. You robbed me of that relationship because you didn’t want to deal with the fallout, because you didn’t want to inconvenience that dipshit husband of yours? How does any of that sound right to you?”

“What’s right for me has never been what’s right for you, Nashville. You don’t even use the name I gave you.”

“Because it’s ridiculous … all of it. What’s right for me isn’t what’s right for you because I’m an actual human being with feelings and emotions, and you, Mom … you’re a goddamn monster.”

I had always longed for her attention, thirsted for her love and approval, but now looking at her, seeing the absolute lack of remorse or regret in her eyes, I was thankful she had simply let me go. If I had tried any harder, worked any more to make her love me, who knew what kind of miserable, unfeeling robot I would have become at her hands. As an adult, I was still pissed at her, still resentful she had such an easy time letting me go, but I was also overwhelmingly grateful that I wasn’t anything like her and her people.

“I’m not a monster, Nash.” Finally, my name. “I’m just not the mother you wanted or needed, and frankly you were never the son I wanted or needed. Having you made it pretty clear I was never cut out to be someone’s mother. Why do you think Grant and I never had any more kids? We wanted it to just be us.”

“Thank God for that.”

I pushed off the counter and headed toward the door. I knew once I walked out I had no reason to ever come back. This solidified it for me, it was why Phil had pushed and pushed me to make her be the one and tell me the entire sordid tale. I was finally free of any chains to the past that she might have held. I didn’t need her approval. I was a good man, had a good life, had the best friends in the entire world, and I was working really hard on figuring out how to have a good woman on a permanent basis. There was no need for my mother to be proud of me or find worth in what I was doing, because I was proud of myself, and Phil had given me that.

It didn’t matter that I had no idea what to do with the new shop, or that Saint had me spinning in circles. I would figure it all out, and there was no way I was going to let him or anyone else down while doing it, not because I needed validation or appreciation, but because that was just the kind of guy I was. The kind of guy my father had raised me to be.

CHAPTER 12
Saint

I knew his visit with his mom was going to have him in a bad mood. He didn’t talk much about her, or why he had been raised mostly by Phil, and the fact he was quiet about it spoke to me more than I think words could. He’d mentioned more than once that the reason he was so quick to anger, so quick to run his mouth when he was younger, was because of how unhappy he was with his mom, that he acted out for attention and to rile her up, so I knew his visit was going to have him feeling raw and out of sorts. I wanted to do something to make him feel better.

He had gone out of his way to show me a good time, to take me out and keep things between us fun and playful, but always keeping a sexy edge to it all so that I knew he wanted me. I felt like it was time I returned the favor.

He showed up at my apartment sulking, thunderous, and in a full-on bad mood. His eyes were all dark and swirly, and no matter how much I tried to get him to talk about it, he just grunted one-syllable answers at me and scowled at nothing and no one in particular. I couldn’t really shake him out of it, and when I suggested we get out of the apartment, he just looked at me like I had lost my mind. Really he wasn’t fit to be around other people, but I couldn’t stand to see him so unhappy, so I was going to drag him into a better mood kicking and screaming if I had to.

It was a testament as to how much he wanted to please me, wanted me to have a good time, that he agreed to leave the apartment with me in the first place when clearly he would have been content to sit and wallow in his awful mood for the rest of the night. I could have kissed him all over his shaved head for that alone. When we got into the Jetta and he didn’t ask any questions as I drove downtown, I could only hope my plan didn’t backfire and end up with him in an even more sour state of mind.

I had to find a place to park and he gave me a questioning look as I took his hand and guided him toward the ice-skating rink that was located right in the heart of Denver’s downtown at Skyline Park. It was only open a few months out of the year, in the winter, and you could skate for free if you brought your own skates. It had always been one of my favorite parts of growing up in a cold-weather state. There was nothing like gliding around the ice in the dark while white lights twinkled over your head. There was something so fun about doing something so quaint right in the middle of such a metropolitan area … I hoped Nash felt the same way.

He looked at me and lifted one of his midnight-dark eyebrows.

“Seriously?”

I shrugged and bit my lip.

“What? It’ll be fun.”

“If by ‘fun’ you mean me spending the entire time on my ass, then yeah, fun.”

I bumped him with my shoulder and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“You used to skateboard. I’m sure you can keep your balance long enough to make it around a couple times without falling.”

I remembered him rolling around back in high school, so I was sure he would be fine despite the pensive look on his face.

“That was a long time ago, Saint.”

I made him let me pay the guy to rent us skates and secretly thrilled inside when we sat down to put them on and he got on his knees in front of me and helped me lace mine up. I couldn’t resist the urge to bend forward and kiss him on the top of his head. I liked the way the scruff of his supershort hair tickled my lips. I looked up when I heard giggles coming from a group of young girls watching us.

“You can concentrate on not falling, and it’ll take your mind off of today.”

He grunted at me again and rose to his feet in a graceful move that had my belly tightening and the girls next to us sighing. He begrudgingly put on his own skates and towered over me as we trudged out to the ice.

It was rough going for the first ten minutes. Nash was a big guy, and while he typically moved with a lot of grace and ease, perch him on a razor-fine blade on top of frozen water and he just sort of turned into an out-of-control freight train. I wanted to be sympathetic, wanted to help him out, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep him upright and his dirty mouth and hostile expression had me folded over in fits of laughter that were making it hard for me to stay upright myself.

Little kids buzzed around us. Teenage girls twirled and flittered by, obviously trying to catch his attention. Dudes on hockey skates blazed past in a bid to impress, but Nash was focused on trying to stay up and on me. He finally found his balance enough to make it around the rink once and I reached out to grab his hand. He snickered at me and squeezed my cold fingers.

“I’ve never been ice skating with a girl before.”

That made goose bumps run up and down my arms. He had been the first for me in so many ways, I never really thought I could return that for him.

“Good.”

I glided next to him and watched him out of the corner of my eye. Some of the tension that had been around his mouth and some of the darkness in his gaze had lightened.

“You know you can talk to me about it, right? About what went down with your mom today?”

I was doing a pretty good job at keeping him and this thing between us within boundaries I was comfortable with, but I didn’t want him to think that if he needed me to listen I wasn’t willing to do that. Sure, we had some killer sexual chemistry and a really intimate draw that pulled us together, but we also needed to like each other enough to share things with one another if we were going to keep hanging out.

His thumb traced over the back of my hand and I stumbled a little, almost taking us both down to the hard surface of the ice. He was just so good at being distracting.

“Nothing to talk about. She’s just as unpleasant as she always was, which makes me feel awful every time I talk to her. I left today knowing pretty much that I’m done with her. She’s not my family, she never was.”

I sucked in a breath and due to the cold air, it made my teeth hurt.

“That’s really sad.”

“I guess. It’s just the way it is.”

I had a fair amount of resentment built up at my dad, considering the way he had acted and the way he had chosen to leave my mom. But even though I didn’t approve, didn’t appreciate the drama and heartache he had caused, I couldn’t imagine just walking away from him forever. Couldn’t see myself ever just declaring that he was no longer a part of my life or my family. My insides twisted at the fact Nash had to make that kind of call on top of dealing with his father being so ill.

I squealed in surprise as the big body next to mine suddenly pitched forward and went down in a spectacular splay of strong arms and legs. Nash managed to turn before he hit the ice and I ended up hitting his chest with a thump that knocked the wind out of the both of us. He wrapped his arms around my waist and shook with silent laughter.

“Okay, Saint, you win. This is ridiculous. I can’t stay pissed off when my ass is broken.”

I rubbed my cold nose along the edge of his jaw.

“Well, I am a nurse. When we get home I can take care of all your boo-boos in the best way possible.”

I heard him sigh.

“Can you do it naked?”

I laughed because he was such a guy, and when I told him of course I could do it naked, that meant our time on the ice was over. It was nice, made me feel good about myself and about the way I was with him, that not only had I shaken off his dour mood, but I managed to make him laugh and take his mind somewhere else. I wanted to think that not anyone would’ve been able to achieve that, and when we got to the apartment and he proceeded to get us both very naked and very much into the best mood possible, I had to wonder if being with me like that was as special and different for him as being with him was for me. It sure felt that way.

The next morning I was standing in the little kitchen in my apartment making coffee and finger-combing my still-shower-wet hair. I was feeling pretty mellow, pretty languid and satisfied, because I hadn’t been in the shower alone and was still basking in the after-orgasm glow when the front door swung open and my sister came flying in unannounced. She looked harassed and stressed out, tired and so very pregnant. She didn’t have any of the kids with her and there was a high flush in her cheeks.

“Mom just called me.” She stomped across the living room and I shot a nervous gaze to the back room, where I had left Nash getting dressed with the promise of having coffee waiting for him when he was done. I didn’t want Faith to see him here, didn’t want to try and figure out how to explain what I was doing with him, because I didn’t really know and words had never been my strong suit.

“Okay. Is something wrong?”

She huffed out an aggravated breath and plopped her round form in one of the chairs at my little dining table.

“She’s moving.”

I adjusted my robe and kept an eye on the hallway.

“Okay.” I should’ve been asking where Mom was going, but I was too concerned about Nash popping around the corner in all his naked and tattooed glory to focus properly on what my sister was saying.

Faith shot me a dirty look and shoved her hands through the front of her hair. “What do you mean, ‘okay’? She’s leaving Colorado. Is that still okay?”

“I mean she’s an adult and has been acting like a lunatic for two years. Maybe getting away from Brookside, away from where she can run into Dad and any reminders that he moved on, is what’s best for her.”

“But we’re here. The kids are here. She shouldn’t have to pick up and move her entire life to another state … Dad should. He’s the one who messed up.”

She was right. Dad had messed up, the blame for the way our family was divided did fall squarely on his shoulders. Mom would’ve never gone so bonkers, acted so drastically, if he hadn’t sent her into a tailspin. But in all honesty, I was proud of Mom for taking a stand, for taking the reins back in her life and doing something for herself. Blaming Dad for being a jerk, not getting over the fact he had a wandering eye, wasn’t going to put Mom back to sorts, but I really thought a change of scenery and some room to breathe might. It had done wonders for me when I needed it most after high school. Faith was right that Mom shouldn’t have to move, but the fact that she was willing to finally be accountable for some of her actions made me happy inside. This was just the way our family looked now and both of us were going to have to live with it. And trying to tell Faith that she would feel the same way about Dad moving, that he also would miss out on spending time with us, with her kids, was just going to have to wait because I heard movement from the bedroom.

I sighed … more because Nash had finally emerged from the bedroom than because of what Faith was saying. He was on his way to meet Rome at the gym, so all he had on was a black tank top and a pair of black-and-white nylon track pants. His head was covered in that ever-present black hat he liked to rock, and I had to really try not to let out a dreamy sigh. He was hot, like stupid hot, there was no missing that fact. He was pulling on his black hoodie and texting on his phone, so I don’t think he even saw Faith when he walked right up to me and put an arm around my waist. He pulled me to that massive chest and dropped a hard kiss on my mouth. He smelled clean and slightly flowery from my body wash, which would have made me grin had I not seen Faith glaring at me over his shoulder.

“Don’t forget to show around nine tonight. The Bar, it’s kind of a dive and there isn’t really a sign, but it’s off Broadway and the Charger will be in the lot, so it’s hard to miss.” One of his midnight-colored brows shot up. “If you bail, I won’t be held responsible for what the girls do in order to get to know you better.”

His friends wanted to meet me, like for real meet me, not just passing by in the hospital halls, and I was panicked at the very thought. It made what we were doing seem more important than I wanted it to be, but I couldn’t figure out a way to slip out of it gracefully, and honestly, I could tell it mattered to him and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

I cleared my throat and put a hand lightly on his stomach. It was rock-hard and I wanted to pet it.

“Nash …” His other eyebrow shot up. “This is my sister, Faith. I don’t know if you remember her or not. She was a year ahead of us in school.” The implication was there: she knew all about the scars he had left on me when we were younger.

My sister was looking at him like she wanted to stab him in the heart, but Nash just gave her a lopsided grin and made his way toward the front door.

“Hey, Faith. Nice to officially meet you. Seriously, Saint.” His voice dropped a little. “If you don’t show, it’s gonna bum me out.”

I sighed again and put my hands flat on the counter in front of me. “I’ll be there. Promise.”

He smiled at me for real and vanished out the door, leaving me and my seething sister alone.

I held up a hand when she opened her mouth. “Don’t even start.”

She hefted herself up from the table and marched so that she was poised across the counter from me.

“Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” It would have been better if she screamed it at me, but the fact that it was almost a whisper twisted my heart.

“Probably.” I picked up my coffee, more to have something to do with my hands than anything else. “He’s different, and I don’t just mean from how he was in high school. He’s nice, funny, and gorgeous, plus he makes me feel good … like really good. I like being around him and he’s having a really hard time right now with his dad, so I want to make it easier for him. I think he kind of needs me right now.”

“This is the same guy that made you run to the West Coast, Saint. He hurt you bad enough that you hid from everyone, ran away from every relationship your whole life. This is a terrible idea.”

I raised a shoulder and let it fall. “I know. I’m trying hard to let it go—the past, I mean. He says it was a misunderstanding. That he wasn’t talking about me, and I really want to believe him, and the thing with the party …” I shrugged. “Maybe I read more into that than I should have. Teenage boys are just horn balls. I don’t think he would’ve ignored me had he known I was going there just for him. He doesn’t even remember seeing me there.”

She screwed her face up in an ugly scowl. “Of course he said that! How else was he going to get in your pants if he didn’t tell you that! Use your damn head, Saint. He is not the guy for you. It’s time to get over that idiotic crush on the ‘bad boy,’ or whatever. Grow up.”

“He’s not like that, Faith. He’s a really nice guy. He cares about his friends, he works almost as hard as I do, and he’s been really, really great the last few months or so about all the weird hang-ups I have. He doesn’t care that I get awkward and can’t make words work, he doesn’t cling when I freak out and bail on him, and he …” I made her look me in the eye so she could see how important this part was. “He makes me feel normal in bed and out of it.”

“You can do so much better, Saint.”

That made me angry, so I set the mug down and crossed my arms over my chest. “Better by whose standards? He’s the first guy I ever liked, ever. He’s also the first guy that I want to believe when he tells me I’m pretty. He’s the first guy I have ever been around that I want to strip naked and tie to a bed. I’ve never had any of that with anyone else, Faith.”

She snorted and glared at me. “Of course he thinks you’re pretty, you’re goddamn beautiful and anyone with eyes can see it. But what about before? What about when he didn’t think you were so stunning? Do you really want to be with a person that shallow? And this sudden about-face … the niceness … what if it’s all a calculated act to get you to fall for him because he does need you right now? What about when he doesn’t need to lean on you anymore, Saint? What then?”

I bit my lip because that was the heart of my fear where Nash was concerned. I knew she was just trying to protect me from more heartache, but her harsh words hit home some serious reservations I had about this thing Nash and I had growing between us. “He told me he always thought I was pretty. That I was too smart and too shy for him to think twice about, but that he always thought I was pretty.”

“Whatever, Saint. Even if he didn’t say that nasty stuff about you, he said it about someone, and that still makes him a royal asshole.”

That was what I struggled with. On the rare night I found myself at his place, that was what prevented me from staying the night, kept me from openly asking him to stay with me, and really it was what kept me from fully being able to trust him. I still didn’t feel like I knew who he really was. The Nash I was sleeping with, the one with the sad purple eyes every time he came from his dad’s house, the one who made me stretch what I thought I wanted and was comfortable with in bed, I was well on my way to falling back in love with. But there was this nagging doubt, these poking questions that jabbed under my skin, that there was still the part of him that could be hateful and cruel, and I just didn’t trust it. I had the unwavering knowledge that men, even men that I thought could do no wrong like my father, could forsake a relationship, no matter how great it was, for something they perceived as better. With that floating around in the back of my mind, I couldn’t allow myself to completely trust him, mostly because I was positive that if he disappointed me again, let me down, I would never get over it. The first time, when he was just a fantasy, had been hard enough; now that he was reality, it would kill me if he turned out to be someone I couldn’t appreciate or respect.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Faith. I’m trying to be careful, I’m not going to take any risk that puts my heart on the line, but I enjoy being with him. Can we change the subject back to Mom, so I don’t have to fight with you?”

She didn’t look like she wanted to let it go, but ultimately I was twenty-five, not seventeen, and I had to live and die by my choices, not anyone else’s.

“She’s putting the house on the market and has already rented a condo in Phoenix. She has a friend down there who is also recently divorced. I asked her to consider waiting until the baby got here, but she already has a realtor and movers hired. The house will sell fast.”

“I really think it’ll be for the best.” I honestly did. Being in that house, that town, she couldn’t escape the memories of Dad and her failed marriage and shattered heart. Maybe in Phoenix she could get a little bit of herself back.

“You moved all the way back here to help her out, to be closer to her and us. She’s not even thinking about that, and now, looking at what is happening, I almost wish you had stayed in California.”

She pouted a little and I rolled my eyes at how dramatic she was being.

“You’re still here. The kids are here. I love my job and I love my boss. If I want to go back for my master’s, I have a bunch of different schools to choose from. I don’t regret coming back to Denver. I’m happy with my life, Faith.”

I was. I really was, and now with the addition of Nash and the new and exciting way he tended to force me outside of my comfort zone, I was even starting to appreciate all the new things in it.

“Would you have said that a few months ago? Before him?”

That was a tricky question. I never had any complaints about my life. I was doing what I was meant to do, what I had always wanted to do, so I was fulfilled, but I don’t know that I was exactly happy.

“I’m not sure.” It was as honest as I could be.

“Well, I have to go save Justin from the kids. He has to work tonight.” She sounded put out and disgruntled.

I walked around the counter and put my arms around her in a hug she stiffly returned.

“Don’t worry about me or Mom. We’ll all be fine.”

She gave me a sad smile and headed toward the door. “I wish I could believe that. I’ve seen what broken hearts do to the women in this family, and it never ends well.”

She had a point, so I just stared at the door after it shut behind her.

I had the day off and didn’t really know what to do with myself. Lately, when I wasn’t working I was with Nash. Before, when I had a day off I would spend it reading, or just puttering around the house, or with Faith and the kids. How boring was that? I had no social circle, no place to be, or anyone missing me. Maybe Sunny was right and I was just starting to see what living life fully meant.

I got dressed and decided instead of staying at my apartment and brooding, I was going to go shopping and find something cute and sassy to wear to the bar tonight so that when I met all of Nash’s crew I would feel confident and as comfortable as I could be. I wasn’t going to let my insecurity and nervousness ruin what could be an enjoyable night out even though I knew I was going to be on the spot. His friends wanted to meet me because we were spending so much time together lately, and I knew that it was unusual for him to be interested in the same girl for so long. I just hoped their reaction was different from Faith’s. I didn’t want them to tell him he could do better, because a secret part of me wanted to be the best thing that ever happened to him.