Page 29 of Jonny’s Redemption

“Fuck.” He stepped back and his hands dove into his hair giving it a vicious yank. “I never wanted you to see this. I never wanted you to know. I never wanted this shit to touch you.”

Again, I knew all of that; hell, I understood it. I had a metric shit ton of baggage from my childhood I didn’t want him to know about. Things that I’d never tell him. Things that were so much left back in Kentucky. Things I was so ashamed I’d done that I’d do anything to keep them from Jonny.

A tingle of guilt wound its way around my heart. Maybe I should’ve gone home and not pushed him. He was kind of right, we’d only been a couple for a few days. He was a jerk for calling it fucking, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a tiny bit of validity to his statement.

“I was a total dick. I’m sorry. This is absolutely your business, you deserve to know what you’ve gotten yourself into. I was being a prick not wanting you to see the…” Jonny paused and the cold, detached mask fell into place. “I didn’t want you to see,” he finished calmly.

I hated that he could easily slip back into the controlled, collected Jonny. The man he presented to everyone around him, the police officer always in command of his emotions. The son who would lie to keep his father’s secrets. The brother who would cover up indiscretions. The friend who helped but never allowed the favor to be returned. I much preferred the pissed-off version where he let the curtain fall and he actually felt.

I sensed he needed his façade of indifference so I didn’t call him on it. But I added it to the ever-growing list of things we would be discussing later.

“Is this the first time she’s been brought in?” I asked.

“Yeah. I can’t say it’s the first time she’s driven drunk. I caught her coming home from the store once when I was at her house fixing the back gate. She wasn’t smashed but she shouldn’t have been driving. I talked to her and after that as far as I know she’d call me to go to the store for her if she’d been drinking. And since she called a lot I figured she wasn’t drinking and driving. But today being his birthday I should’ve known she’d drive.”

I didn’t miss the sneer in his voice when he said “his.” I also didn’t miss the part where he took the blame.

“The first time I remember going to pick up my daddy out of the tank I was maybe ten. He’d left me and EJ home and gone fishin’. Daddy’s friend Lou came over and picked us up, said he had to go get Elmer but he couldn’t go into the station, he needed EJ to do it. So off we went to pick up my daddy from the tank. He was sober by then and madder than a boiled owl that me and EJ were with Lou. He wanted to go tie one on but he couldn’t because his kids were there. Daddy yelled at Lou the whole way back about bringing us. Then when we got home he whooped EJ’s ass for leaving the wood stove on. Which was BS because it was winter and it was always burning. Daddy just wanted a reason to wail on EJ.

“He still hadn’t burned out his ire so he belted my ass until I couldn’t sit.” I stopped to take a breath and savagely banished the memory before it took me under. “So, Jonny, whatever you think I’m gonna see in that station is nothing I haven’t seen before. It’s gonna hurt like hell for you to see your ma like that. But I swear to you I won’t bat an eye. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean that as in, I’ve seen worse. However she looks, whatever she says, my heart will break for you, Jonny. Not for me. Not for her. For you. But even if I’d never been down this road I would still be walking into that station by your side.”

Jonny was staring down at me and once again I wondered why I opened my mouth. It was too easy with him. I didn’t want him to be alone, not even in his miserable thoughts about his family. I wanted him to understand he wasn’t the only one who had been forced to do things he didn’t want to do—even if it was only to keep a secret.

“Jesus, Bobby.”

“I didn’t tell you that so you’d feel bad for me.”

“I know you didn’t.” Then he stepped forward, cupped my jaw, tilted my head back, and with a hoarse voice he rasped, “You amaze me.”

His forehead dropped to mine and his fingertips grazed my chin, cheeks, then stopped when he curled his hands around the back of my neck. The closeness eased some of my tension and it seemed to do the same for him. Slowly his breath evened until we were in sync, exchanging air, connected in a new intimate way.

“I’m sorry I was such an asshole. I wanted you here, I didn’t know how to ask. I don’t want to face this alone but I feel like a selfish ass dragging you along. I have no idea what I’m going to find when I go in there. I don’t know how to help her. She’s getting worse and I’m scared I’m going to lose her. Either she’s going to sink further into the bottle or my resentment is going to grow until any love I feel for her is gone and I end up hating my mother.”

As it were Jonny and I didn’t just have a lot in common, we were the same damn person. I knew from experience that if he didn’t stop the resentment it would grow into hatred. There was of course a slight difference between his mother and mine, Anita Spencer hadn’t bailed. She’d stayed and I wondered which was actually worse. Me growing up with the knowledge I wasn’t enough to make the woman who birthed me stay and give me what little she could. Or Jonny having to witness his mother’s spiral into the abyss of hopelessness. Seeing Jonny’s misery I was beginning to think my mother’s abandonment was actually an act of kindness. I didn’t have to see Kathy’s demise. She was a ghost, a distant memory I could barely recall. But Anita, she was a constant in Jonny’s life, a daily reminder of his father’s cheating. I would bet every time he saw his mom drunk it felt like a slap in the face, a fresh wound that couldn’t heal.

God, Jonny.

Hiding in plain sight.

“We got this. Together we’re going to go in, do what we need to do to get your mom home, then we’ll go from there. Together, Jonny. You and me. We’ll do it together.”

I felt his sigh of relief slide over my skin and it washed away the rest of my irritation. I could do this. I could endure Jonny’s snappy attitude and harsh words. All I needed was patience. And if I ran out, I could draw up the memory of this moment—his vulnerability, his honesty, his trust.

All three were precious.

A gift to cherish for a man who pretended to be strong.

11

Jonny walked hand-in-hand with Bobby into the station. The familiarity of it hit him square in the chest. All the anger Bobby had untwisted came rushing back and knotted painfully. He’d spent years of his life in this very building. His job. His passion. His refuge from shit his family had piled on him. His place of business.

Now his mother had sullied his sanctuary.

A cruel twist of fate.

The detective who’d spent years chasing down leads, interrogating bad guys, putting criminals behind bars, was there to pick up his mother after she’d been arrested.

Thank fuck he’d already quit.