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“You said you were an orphan. Start there. How did your parents die?”
He didn’t even know if his parents were dead. Once he was freed, he’d done his best to find his mother, but without being able to read, he couldn’t search as thoroughly as he wanted to. He hoped once he got through the list in his wallet, he might get closer to finding her. Then maybe one day, he’d succeed.
He finished the bowl and before he could pack another one, she plucked the pipe and lighter from his fingers. But by then, the pot had done its job, anyway.
“Talk to me,” she pleaded in a broken whisper.
Being stoned made it easier to tell his story. He had no idea if his words were right or wrong, she didn’t stop him to correct him if they weren’t.
She only listened.
He didn’t tell her everything, but started with what happened that day at the mall when he was four. He told her about the auction and then glossed over the worst memories. He revealed enough so she got a good idea of what happened to him during those ten years, but not every fucking detail.
Not about the first time with a man at four, not about the last time at fourteen, either.
He explained about the Oreos.
He explained how he got the scars, but not why.
He told her bits and pieces about Deb. She didn’t need to know what kind of training he’d gone through to learn how to please a woman.
He shared only the stuff she would absolutely need to know. The rest he left hazy or skipped. She was smart enough to fill in some of the blanks if she wanted to. If she could stomach it.
Hell, pockets of time existed that were complete black holes. Incidents that his brain blocked so he wouldn’t remember. Not if he wanted to be able to continue to function. As a human. As a man.
When he was done, when he couldn’t talk anymore, she stood up, dropped to her knees before him and laid her head in his lap. He burrowed his hands into her hair, her silky strands snaking around his fingers.
She cried, but was quiet about it. Just as she had said nothing while he got stoned and then while he talked, he stayed quiet while she shed tears for him.
No, not for him.
For Julian.
For a stolen kid. For a little boy lost.
He had never shared any of what happened with anyone. No one. Not even Deb when she asked. But Deb knew his life had been rough and damaging before she bought him and that past was the main reason she let him walk away once he turned seventeen.
Even though he had nowhere to walk to. Nowhere to go. Since he belonged nowhere and to no one.
It took him eleven years from the day Deb released him to find somewhere he belonged. To find his family.
It took him almost two years after that to find Chelle.
He wasn’t sure he could hold onto her, but he wanted to fucking try.
The fist gripping his tank top at his gut tightened. “You call me beautiful. But it’s you who is beautiful, Shade. Anyone who survived what you did... Even though you won’t tell me everything you went through, everything that happened to you... Those bastards who tried to break you, failed. You were too strong for them to do so. They failed and you didn’t. Despite what they did, you grew up and grew into a beautiful soul, Shade, instead of something ugly like them.”
“No.” She was so wrong. His soul was tainted and damaged, it wasn’t beautiful or whole.
She lifted her head and held his eyes. “Yes, I see it, even if you don’t.”
“You don’t know me.” It wasn’t only his past that could come between them but what he’d done recently and what he still needed to do.
Because he wasn’t done.
He would need to keep those secrets from her, too.
An invisible hand squeezed his throat.
Secrets would always exist between them. Always. He fucking hated that.
“I know you skipped over a lot, but I now know enough. Thank you for trusting me enough to share it.” She rose higher onto her knees and pressed her lips gently to his. When she pulled back, she said, “You didn’t mention your father. I would’ve thought he would have turned over every stone trying to find you and your mother.”
A real father would have. But he might not have even known they had gone missing since he abandoned him and his mother for his “real” family. “Don’t know where he is. Don’t give a shit, either.”
He hoped that was the end of that discussion, but he shouldn’t be surprised that with Chelle, it wasn’t.
“Do you have the same last name as your father?”
“Don’t know. He left when I was four.”
