Page 32 of Take Me to Church
Lydia’s obvious scrimping and saving makes me think she’s been planning to save her sister from the beginning, living on as little as possible knowing she’d have to help Myra get on her feet. It’s not surprising—as the two youngest of their family, with only older brothers, they were always close—but I hate she’s done without the way she has.
“Your house is really nice.” Lydia quietly follows me up the stairs, carrying her purse and the bag containing her toiletries. “Have you lived here long?”
“Probably longer than I should have.” I reach the top of the stairs and pause, hoping she sees my home the same way I do. I need something to work in my favor right now.
Lydia has had a fucking nightmare of a day. She’s also probably looking at me through different eyes now that she knows what I’m capable of, and I’m still not quite sure exactly how much her opinion of me has changed. The possibility that she figured out I’m no longer what she thought bothers me.
But the fact that she’s under my roof soothes a little of that worry. It gives me time to fix whatever damage was done tonight.
While she sleeps in my bed.
“My brothers and I own all the buildings on the street.” I lead her to the right and reach out to open the door, pushing it wide before flipping on the lights. “I bought this place a few years ago and moved right in even though it wasn’t technically habitable.”
Lydia walks in behind me, but her feet come to a screeching halt as her eyes widen on the room in front of her.
It’s the reaction I was hoping for. I’ve put a lot of effort into my home, channeling shit I didn’t want to deal with into blood and sweat as I reused, repurposed, and rebuilt everything I could get my hands on, turning the basic block building into the kind of home I never expected to have.
“Wow.” Lydia’s jaw is slack as she takes another step across the reclaimed wood floor, eyes searching the soaring ceilings. “This is amazing.”
I keep walking, going straight to the large walk-in closet instead of soaking up her praise the way I want to. “I end up with a lot of high-quality stuff through my business, and instead of just throwing it all away, I figured I might as well put it to good use.”
The finishings of my house would have cost a fortune if I had to buy them outright, but the majority of the stuff was destined for a landfill. The only cost I have in it is the effort it took to make sure it was reusable as my team removed it from the upscale homes I specialize in servicing.
Lydia takes another step, gaze bouncing from the floor to the lights to the brick stacked along the main wall. “You definitely put it to good use.” She bends, reaching out to barely drag the tips of her fingers along the large bed dominating the space. “Did you make this?”
I jerk my chin down in a nod, feeling a little uncomfortable at sharing something I didn’t expect to feel so personal. My brothers have all seen my home, but they’re the only ones, and I feel oddly exposed as Lydia moves around the space.
“This definitely makes me a little more embarrassed of my bedroom.” She chews her lower lip, eyes avoiding mine.
I suddenly feel like a jackass. I didn’t bring her here to make her feel like her life was something to feel bad about. “Your room isn’t anything to be ashamed of, Lydia. You should have seen where I lived when I first left Arkansas.”
It’s something I haven’t thought of in years, and don’t necessarily want to think about now, but I also want her to see how well she’s doing.
Lydia faces me, expression open and expectant as she waits for me to offer even more of myself. Not of who I am now, but who I once was.
“When they first kicked me out, I was barely old enough to get a job.” I set her suitcase in the closet, abandoning it there before stuffing both hands into the pockets of my jeans. “And all the jobs I could get paid barely enough to survive. So I did what I had to do.”
Lydia’s hands clench at the purse strap across her chest. “What did you have to do?”
My jaw clenches, trying to keep in the truth of how differently our paths played out. But she’s already seen the worst of what I can do, so hiding this seems pointless. “Sold drugs. Stole.” I shift on my feet, wondering if this was how my brothers felt when they confessed their sins. “Whatever made enough money to put me up in a cheap motel for the night.”
Lydia stares at me a second, brows pinched together, lips pressed into a tight frown. The bag of toiletries clenched in her hand slowly drops to the floor as she unwinds her purse and lets it fall beside it. “Were you completely on your own?”
“Not for long.” It was a blessing and a curse how quickly I crossed paths with Tate and Simon. We were able to lean on each other, but we also fed each other’s anger. “I met Tate and Simon a few months after my dad kicked me out and we ended up sticking together since we were all in the same boat. A boat that would have sunk quickly if we didn’t figure out how to take care of ourselves.”
Lydia slowly moves toward me, her presence in my bedroom somehow less bizarre than it should be after all these years. “What about all the guys who showed up at the warehouse to help you? When did you meet them?”
“A year or two after I came to Memphis, Simon met this old man who said he could help us. Called himself King. Said he was building an empire.” King’s opinion of himself was inflated—something I clearly see now that I’m older—but at the time he knew all the right things to say to three boys looking for what they’d lost.
Family. Security. Safety.
Technically, King provided all that, it just came at a cost. A cost my brothers and I eventually decided was too high.
“King?” Lydia’s brows slowly creep up her forehead as she continues coming closer. “What’s he like?”
“Dead.” Of all the parts of my past I don’t like to discuss, King might top the list. Admitting how easily he took advantage of me, used me, is humiliating. I should have seen him for what he was right away. Recognized he was no better than the power-hungry men in my past.
Lydia nods, her eyes wide and guileless as she stops directly in front of me. “Is that a good thing?”
