I press closer, tightening my arms around his neck. “I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”
“How do you feel?”
“Understood.”
“I never felt about anyone else the way I feel about you either.” He takes my hand and twines our fingers. “I want you so much it terrifies me.”
I whisper in his ear. “I left that night because when I woke up, I imagined standing at our cars and saying goodbye, and I knew I couldn’t fake indifference. It wasn’t because I’d just had the best sex in the world. It was all the space in between it.”
He clears his throat. “I hated that you were gone when I woke up. All I wanted to do was find you again.”
“And look, you did.”
His teeth scrape over my knuckles as he tightens his grasp. “You found me, not the other way around.”
I trace my tongue along the tendons of his throat before whispering, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“No?” He shoots me a sidelong glance.
“No. I tried, but it was miserable.”
He swallows and takes a deep breath. “I grew up in North Carolina, in a small backward mountain town nobody’s ever heard of. When I was fifteen, my parents died in a car accident.”
“That’s horrible.” I squeeze him tightly. How awful to lose your parents at such a critical age. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He cranes his neck and looks at me, meeting my eyes. “It was the happiest day of my life.”
Shock rolls through me. “Oh.”
He shifts his attention to the floor between his feet. When he speaks, his voice is detached, like he’s talking about someone else. “My parents were the antithesis of yours. My dad was a twenty-seven-year-old drug mule who got my sixteen-year-old mother pregnant and addicted. He was one of those paranoid prepper-type of guys who was always going on about the government and conspiracy theories. They didn’t believe in any systems. The only reason I even went to school was because I used to ride my bike to the library in town to teach myself to read, and someone reported them. They were both fucked up, abusive, and there’s nothing good I can say, other than I knew how to take a beating and I was counting the seconds until I could leave.”
My heart breaks at the words because I know he’s downplaying it. I can tell by the way he stares off and talks about it like it didn’t happen to him at all.
I comfort the only way I can, by remaining silent and pressing my body into his as a show of support. So he knows I’m here and not afraid.
He rakes a hand through his hair. “My mom’s sister was a good Christian woman, didn’t have any children of her own, and married well. She believed she was being tested by God to keep me out of the foster care system and agreed to take me when they died. The house I’d grown up in was a seven-hundred-square-foot log cabin in the woods. Moving to a huge house in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago was a culture shock. The first night, they told me I could stay until I was eighteen as long as I didn’t get into any trouble, and then I was on my own.”
I flinch at the words. What kind of people say that to a child who just lost their parents, no matter how horrible they might have been? My voice is full of scorn when I say, “They sound like real gems.”
“I can’t blame them for not wanting to take in a teenager. Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t mind. Obligation was still miles better than getting the shit beat out of me.”
The fierce loyalty I have for the people I care about surges hot in my blood. I want to find his aunt and uncle and make their lives a living hell.
He trudges on in that flat tone. “I signed up for the military and shipped off to basic training three days after my eighteenth birthday. I thanked them for letting me stay, and I never saw them again.”
I want to rage and cry for him. Because I understand now that he’s never experienced love of any kind in his life. I can’t help the choked words. “I’m so sorry, Charlie.”
His spine bristles. “It’s fine.”
He doesn’t want the sympathy, but that’s too bad because he’s getting it anyway. “I’m going to find them, figure out their weaknesses, and plot their demise.”
A surprised bark of laughter erupts from his chest. “There’s my girl.”
I rub my breasts against his back. “You know there are advantages to me being on your side.”
“Remind me never to cross you.” He runs his fingers over my forearm. “So now you know everything except for why I’m sitting here in Revival instead of Chicago. Everyone always thinks it’s some sort of case-gone-wrong story, but it’s not that complicated. I was good at my job, too good. I knew exactly how close I could walk the line. Knew I was recruited specifically for that reason. I…”
He trails off, shaking his head. “I started to like it. Started to feel as if it was a part of me and that part connected me to my father. One night after closing a big case, I went out with a bunch of other agents. We were blowing off steam, trying to come down from the adrenaline high without crashing out. We were regaling one another with our war stories, and I realized I was proud of it. That it had only been a couple of hours and I was already craving the next time I got to fuck someone up. I had one of those dark nights of the soul types of moments, where I came to grips with the realization that if I continued down that road, I would become my father. Maybe it was more dressed-up and more respectable, but our motives would be the same. I walked into the office and quit the next day. So now you officially know more about me than any other person alive.”
