Page 114 of Wild Blades

“You’re something else, Wade Collins. I think you’d be a better dad than you give yourself credit for. I’ve seen you with Rory and his friends.” He was funny, charismatic, and the boys loved him. “You’re also a fierce protector. The way you looked after me last night proves it.”

“You got hurt last night because of me,” he counters. Head dipped, shoulder hunched, he looks deflated when today wassupposed to be about coming here to make him feel better and help him heal.

“My smart mouth got me into trouble last night. It has nothing to do with the issues he has with you. I pissed him off.”

“That’s no excuse. Zane is?—”

“A boy,” I interrupt. “You are a man. You might only be twenty-six. But you are an incredible man with a beautiful soul. Misguided perhaps, in the past, but you’ve taken ownership of your actions, and accepted the support to get better. A boy would run, make excuses, and blame everyone but himself.” I squint when the sun hits the water, dazzling me for a moment. “But you are a man. In the short time I’ve known you, you’ve made big changes.”

“It’s because of you.”

“It’s not.” I shake my head. “It’s because you were ready to be the man you once were. Look at what you did for Gretchen.” I gaze back at the beautiful home he remodeled for her. “You’re a good man.”

“And yet everyone leaves me. She left me. Amelia before her, and I don’t know what I ever did to my mother to make her treat me the way she did.”

I’m still in shock about his mother’s treatment of him. He was just a boy. If it hadn’t been for Gretchen, he would have had no one.

Life is hard. I’m so fucking lonely at times.His heartbreaking words spin through my mind like a high-speed ball bearing in a turbine.

Staring into the depths of the water, I guess his mind travels off to unhappy times. “Everything I did made my mother mad. I never understood her hatred of me… I got good grades in school, and I never got into trouble. Not ever. I was popular at school, everyone liked me, but if I bumped into her in the house, she would scrunch her face up like she just smelled a rottingdumpster. I never understood what I did. When I was ten, I wished for a wand like Harry Potter so I could turn myself into stone. I think she would have preferred a statue of me rather than having a real living boy.” His voice strained, cracking under the pain.

My poor damaged man.No one should ever be made to feel like that. My eyes fill with tears.

He keeps opening up. “When I aced my tests at school, or won a hockey game for the team with a winning goal, I was always desperate to share my news with her. I kept hoping, praying, it would make her like me. Possibly be proud of me. Maybe even love me. Or make her tell me she did, at the very least, but that never happened.”

I wipe away a tear quickly so he doesn’t see how upset I am for him. No wonder he’s been lashing out. Gretchen was his lifebuoy, the one last thing keeping him afloat.

Her death caused him to drift off into the ocean without a paddle.

He’s been sailing choppy, wild waters for over a year with no one to guide him back to shore.

Until Marcus assembled a team to rescue him. He could see what no one else could. Which makes me admire the man even more.

Wade sharing his backstory explains a lot. His comment from earlier, he clearly thinks as soon as Marcus stops paying me, I’ll leave him too.

Which I’m not doing.

I’m staying.

I’ll keep him safe and be his lighthouse. I want to be his everything.

Moving closer to his side, I squeeze his hand. As if he doesn’t notice me, he keeps sharing his past. “This man visited the house all the time. My mom liked him. A lot. He was the only personwho made her happy, which was short-lived, because they fought not long after every visit.” His brows thicken between his eyes. “Except this one time I remember so well. I bumped into him on the stairs by mistake. I can remember thinking I want to be that tall when I grow up, and he wore this gold hockey badge on the lapel of his dress jacket.” Wade lays his hand on his collarbone. “The bluest of eyes. Same color as mine.” He stares off into the distance. “I think he was my dad.”

“Did you ever ask your mom?” I wipe another tear away.

“No.”

“Is your dad’s name on your birth certificate?”

“No. Just Miranda’s. Miranda Collins.” He states.

“Would you like to find out who your father is?”

“Never given it much thought. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Your mom,” I suggest.

“I might seek salvation at the bottom of a bottle if I have to do that. Maybe one day. I have other shit going on at the moment.”

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