Page 79 of Embers

Finally he makes a mouth noise and stretches his back rather restlessly. “The guys and I hit a bar that ran gambling out of the back. You know the guys I mean.”

“Yeah.” Of course I know them. The pack of assholes he used to run with. Some of them invaded our home a few years ago and blew apart my whole life for a while.

“The bar always had a lot of cash, and they kept it in a safe in the back. Anyway, we knew about it, and we decided we could hit it. You know I did that kind of thing, right?”

“I know.”

“Anyway, we were a bunch of idiots. We were drunk, and I have no idea how we thought we’d get into the safe. We tried to bully the owner to open it for us, but he refused.”

“Did you hurt him?” I’m still massaging his arm, rubbing my fingers over the taut skin and firm muscle and coarse hair and ugly white scars.

“Yeah. I beat him up. I hurt a lot of people back then.” His voice is slightly hoarse, the way it always is when he’s feeling something real, but he’s not hesitating to tell me. He’s not keeping it all to himself like he did for so long.

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

“I came close a couple of times. But no. I never did that.”

I let out an exhale of relief—more for him than for myself. I didn’t want him to have had to live with that.

“But I hurt people plenty. Don’t have to kill ’em to hurt him.”

“I know.” I twine my fingers with his and squeeze his hand. “So what happened with the safe?”

“Things spun out of control. The guys were all mad and started bustin’ stuff up just to do it. Anyway, one of the other guys started laying into the owner. Said he’d give up and tell us eventually. It was bad. He was about to kill the man. And… I don’t know. I didn’t think I had a conscience back then, but somethin’ about it got to me. It…” He shakes his head and takes a ragged breath. “I can still remember that man’s eyes. I don’t know why. But I still see them. All the time. It was like I could see how bad I was—all the sins I ever committed—in the way he looked at me. It felt like I’d become my own dad. Beating up on helpless people for no other reason than my own unhappiness.”

“What did you do?” I whisper. What he’s sharing with me feels important. Heavy. Serious. I want to treat it that way.

“I tried to stop my buddy. The one about to kill him. He got mad, of course, so we got into a scuffle, and he ended up pushin’ me against this glass case thing where the owner kept these collectible baseballs.”

“Oh no.”

“My arm busted right through it, and the glass shredded it.”

“Cal.”

“It ain’t as bad as it sounds. I deserved a lot worse.”

“It could have killed you if the glass broke an artery or something.”

“Yeah. I bled pretty bad, but the cops were comin’ by then. Someone must’ve called ’em. And the guys—they were supposed to be my buddies—they all up and left. Ran out on me.”

“Oh no. So that’s how you ended up in prison?”

“Yeah. I got eight years, but they let me out in five. Then I came back home. My mom was still alive back then, and I had nowhere else to go. And not long after that, Derek’s mom finally told me about him.” He sighs and tilts his head down to rub his cheek against my hair. “I already wanted to do better. I just couldn’t shake that night for some reason. Then findin’ out about Derek, it kind of grounded me. When my mom died and left me a little money, I was able to buy our place up on the mountain. I was still mostly a loner. I’ve never been a nice man. But I did try to do better. I did some work on construction crews and then later got a job in a garage. I wasn’t happy, but at least I was close to Derek, and eventually his mom let me see him sometimes.”

“I wish you’d been happier.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever really been happy. Not until there was you.”

I make a little whimpering sound and raise his hand to my lips. I press a soft kiss into the palm, the only thing I can think of to express how I’m feeling right now.

He doesn’t pull his hand away like he did the first time I kissed his hand so long ago. I dare to glance up at his face and am stunned by naked tenderness of his expression.

This is probably as vulnerable as he’s ever been with me, but he’s not trying to draw away.

We fall into silence for a while and then lighten the mood by talking of other things. The sun is getting lower in the sky, casting orange light over the meadows and the water in the creek. We’ll have to leave before it gets dark. It’s one thing to drive a short distance in the dark, but we walked here today. We definitely can’t be walking two miles in the dark.

But we still have a little time. I’m not ready to go quite yet.

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