“From the minute I saw you sleeping in your car, I wanted you, Becca.” Kade raises his eyes and locks on me. I feel trapped in the raw hunger I see stamped on his face. “You were so fucking beautiful. Then when you sassed me, challenged me? Well fuck, I wanted you even more. Being around you is like, hell…pop rocks.”
He sees the confusion on my face. “You remember holding pop rocks in your mouth when you were a kid? The way they would jump around, whizzing and popping off your tongue? My whole body feels like that when I’m around you.”
Now I can’t meet his eyes. I don’t want him to see how hurt I am by his words.
“Bullshit Kade. You ignored me. After that first day, you didn’t touch me or talk to me. You left the fucking room when I walked in.” I try, but I can’t hide the hurt in my voice. “You hugged me, you were treating me like someone that mattered, and then you just…turned your back on me like I was nothing.” I rub my hands up and down my arms, feeling the same chill I felt the night he walked away from my apartment.
“You scare the hell out of me, Becca.”
My eyes flip to his in disbelief. I search his gaze, looking for lies, but don’t find them. Kade’s gaze is holding mine, shadows dancing in his eyes.
“I have a type, Becca.”
This is not something I want to hear. I don’t want to know about other women and how I’m exactly like them. But my curiosity gets the better of me, keeping me from walking away from this conversation. Kade pauses, before pushing the words out, those painful, humiliating words.
Those words break me a little.
“The more broken a woman is, the more I want to be with her.”
Snap. Another thread pulling me toward him breaks.
If I let him keep talking, there won’t be any threads left drawing me to this man. Nothing that will pull me back to him. A mixture of anger and embarrassment colors my face. I clench my teeth, holding back the string of curses I want to throw at him. Who the hell does he think he is? I’m not some broken toy that needs fixing.
“My last girlfriend was an addict who stole from this shop. The one before that had a drinking problem. The one before that would pop pills, cheat on me, and then be so sorry I’d take her back. I wanted to help them all, fix them all. I always want to fix them.”
Right. That’s completely humiliating. Time for me to get the hell out of here.
“Got it. Well, you did a good job, Kade.” The bitterness in my voice cut through the room. “You fixed me right up. Gave me a job, a place to stay. Give yourself a pat on the back.” I take a deep breath, sucking back the flurry of angry words I want to shoot at him. “Now, I’m done with this conversation.”
I give zero fucks about his feelings anymore. I’m out of here. Turning on my heel, I head toward the door into the shop, but Kade’s voice freezes my feet before I can push through it.
“I did CPR on my mom three times before I was nine.”
Jesus.
I shift my head, wanting, no, needing, to see him. His mouth is a tight slash, his eyebrows lowered over his eyes.
“She was an equal opportunity addict. If it would get her high, she’d fucking do it. Crack, Heroin, Meth. She did them all at one point or another. I don’t remember her ever being sober, but until I was six or seven, she mostly held it together.” His breath is sawing in and out of his chest, his face white. “We had a little apartment, and most of the time, we had food in the house. I could make mac and cheese on the stove by myself when I was five. Sandwiches even earlier. I’d feed my mom and then finish up whatever food was left.”
I don’t think there’s anything he can say to change things, but I can’t walk away in the face of his pain. I won’t be that kind of person. “You were just a baby,” I whisper, hurting for the little boy forced to grow up too soon.
Kade shakes his head, “I was the man of the house, Becca. I would clean up her puke and tuck her in bed. I’d sit with her to make sure she didn’t stop breathing. It was my job to take care of her and keep her safe.”
“No one helped you? A teacher, a social worker? Somebody?”
Kade’s smile makes me feel young, naïve. “Sure, someone would call social services, and I’d get sent off to a foster home. But I always made my way back to my mom. She was all I had. She was the devil I knew.”
His eyes drift away. “God, she was so beautiful. She lit up the room when she was happy. Fuck, most of the time, she was high as a kite, but it was easy to get caught up in her pull. She’d suck me in with her light, and then I’d be left in the dark when she crashed. It became this predictable, horrible pattern. I’d fix her up, then she’d fall apart, and I’d do it all over again.”
“That’s not okay, Kade.”
“No Becca, it’s not. But it was my life. Most of the kids in my apartment complex had it just as bad, if not worse.”
“Worse? Worse than a Mom overdosing in front of you?”
Kade shifts his gaze into the garage, tracking Micah, who’d moved closer to help one of the other mechanics. “Micah had it so much worse.” He says, sadness coating his words.
“Micah? Someone hurt him, didn’t they?” The idea of parents hurting their own children enrages me, but that these two powerful men, men I respected, were hurt? My feelings were past rage and heading well into nuclear.
