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She leaned against the desk, giving him time to gather his thoughts. After a tense, drawn-out moment, he started speaking.
“Ruby drank a lot back then. Drugs, too. Mostly weed, but sometimes harder stuff. She had a tough life, barely making ends meet, and I didn’t make it easy on her. Always hungry, too much energy. She’d managed to hold onto this one job for a while, mostly because she was sleeping with her boss. Kane was his name. Just that—I don’t think I ever learned his full name. He’d come over and well, he didn’t like me. Didn’t like how I looked or maybe how I looked at him. A couple of times he cracked a palm across my face and I kept it to myself. Because I wanted to stay in the same apartment for once and keeping the peace seemed the easiest way to do that. I kept my mouth shut.
“But one day he cuffed my ear so hard I howled, and Ruby heard and she went nuts on him. She was already halfway to hammered, screaming and pushing, and he hit her. That’s when she grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the arm.”
She covered her mouth, the twist to the tale unexpected even when he’d told her it wouldn’t be good.
He faced her, his eyes blazing like midnight-blue coals.
“He backhanded her again and then I was—shit.” He swiped at his eyes. Ashley made a move toward him and he held up a hand.
“I got involved, in between them, and he hit me, and then she did it again. Stabbed his shoulder.”
Her heart broke for him. What a terrible situation to be in. “She was defending you.”
Fury came over him. “She was a drug addict and an alcoholic who attracted the worst people. She brought it all down on herself, and yeah, she was defending me. But it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been such a screw-up.”
Like me. The unspoken part was louder than a bomb. He thinks he’s like her.
“The police were called and there were drugs on the kitchen table and before I knew it, I was in care and Ruby was doing a thirteen-year stretch for assault and possession. She’d already been in trouble for drug stuff and it was her third strike so they threw the book at her.”
He met her gaze, his own still on fire.
“You want someone like that in your life? In your daughter’s life? Because that’s what’s happening when you play do-gooder, Ashley. When you try to make everything better.”
In his words she heard his guilt.
I didn’t make it easy on her.
Too much energy.
She was defending me.
He blamed his mother, but he also blamed himself.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do. And we both know that having someone like that in Willa’s life is a terrible idea. Shit, I’m not much better.”
And there it is. “You’re putting yourself in the same category as your mom?”
He snorted. “Are you kidding? Did you not see what I did to Kyle Hughes’s face? I’m a menace, Ashley. I might be good with puppies, but I’m not good with people. With real life.”
She approached him, not tentatively, not gently, but in the knowledge that he needed the woman who loved him unconditionally. That was her truth, blazing in her chest.
On tiptoes, she reached up and cupped his face.
“You are a good person, Dex. Something awful happened to you as a child. None of it was your fault. Your mom made some decisions that had a lasting effect on you but look at your life now.”
He shook his head, determined to resist any justification. Any recognition of the good-hearted, kind man he’d become.
“Yes, look at it,” she urged. “It’s a good life, an amazing life, especially considering how far you’ve come. You’re responsible for that. You built it. Sure you’ve screwed up because that’s what people do sometimes. But you’re trying to change. To be a better man.”
Placing his hands over hers he dragged them away from his face. His eyes burned with pain.
“I’m bad news.” He squeezed her hands and held them against his chest. “Always have been.”
“No, you’re not. I couldn’t fall in love with someone who was bad news.”
