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I guess we’d add that to the list.
I smirked and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Have a nice afternoon.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, stepping back with a smile.
At least that was a good thing.
Because she would quickly learn about the things I was willing to do for someone I loved.
Chapter Thirty
SHAY
“Looks like they did a good job, but you still need to be careful, especially now the stitches are out,” I told Rafe, trying to speak over the background noise in Brawlers as I tugged off my gloves and stepped back, tossing them into the trash. “You bang it or anything, and it could still split or get infected if you don’t clean it properly.”
I’d come by with Bishop so he could check up on a problem with some construction downstairs, and he’d asked if I would take a look at Rafe’s wound to make sure he was taking care of it.
I’d been confused by the request until Bishop reminded me that because of how Rafe had grown up, we all tended to forget that he was only eighteen. He’d had to grow up fast, making it seem like he had his shit together for the most part, but in the end, he was still only a teenager.
I knew what that was like.
When Ali was locked up, I went to rehab alone, then back into foster care. I knew how to look after myself at that stage, but it didn’t mean I didn’t still miss having a parent around. Someone to ask questions like, how high does my fever need to be before I go to the hospital? What cycle do I wash my jeans on? How do you tell when pasta is cooked?
“I’ll try to be careful,” Rafe said, getting to his feet and instantly reaching for his boxing gloves.
I quickly snatched them up, holding them behind me and looking at him with a wide grin. “You shouldn’t have been in that ring with the stitches,” I told him, narrowing my eyes because I knew for a fact he’d been in there every day since it happened. “And now, without them holding it together, you could end up back in the hospital with more problems. I need you to promise me you’ll take it slow, and you will not get in that ring with another person swinging at you.”
At first, he was silent, his dark glare saying everything he needed to say.
But I wasn’t intimidated.
He may have been six-feet tall and built like a brick wall eighteen-year-old, but if there was one thing I’d learned about Rafe, it was that if you showed him respect, he would show you the same.
It wasn’t long before his shoulders slumped, and he rolled his eyes. “I promise that I will practice on my own and not let anyone take swings at me—”
“For at least a week,” I interrupted, pointing my finger.
“For at least a week,” he repeated in a slow, drone-like voice, letting me know just how happy he was about my demands. “Can I have my gloves now?”
I smiled, holding them out for him. “You know, at least you’ll have a cool scar. Girls love that, right?”
He scoffed but still smiled. “If scars really got girls, I should be fighting them off.”
I tried to keep my smile strong, but there was this overwhelming sadness building in my stomach, remembering all the damage we’d seen on his X-rays in the hospital, knowing how much pain he’d been through in his life.
“I was in foster care, too, you know.” The second the words left my mouth, I dropped my eyes to the floor, desperately wanting to pull them back in. This was most likely not the place Rafe wanted to acknowledge or discuss his childhood trauma. I cleared my throat and shook my head. “Sorry, just ignore—”
“You were?”
I looked up again, meeting his curious gaze. “Yeah…” I said, dragging the word out as I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going with the original comment. “I can’t say that I know exactly what you went through, but if you ever want to talk about it, I have some pretty shitty stories of my own that I’d trade you.”
My heart raced as I waited for him to say something, my body beginning to tingle as my blood rushed.
Rafe wasn’t exactly the quiet and reserved kind of kid you’d often find in the system. He was more the damaged and struggling to understand his emotions type, which, in a lot of ways, I related to.
It took me a long time and a lot of therapy to get through the trauma I’d experienced, but finding a support system like I had in a friend like Calli had pushed me to a place where I was finally happy.
I just wanted to make sure Rafe knew he had that here, within this big new family he was now a part of.
