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Of course I’d needed love and support. We all did.
I’d spent so long pushing down my desire for support, for an empathetic ear, for someone to drop everything and run to me when I needed it, and I’d forgotten that I’d actually had it.
I turned to Mikey and grabbed him up in a tight hug. “Thank you for loving me,” I croaked into the side of his neck. “I don’t think I ever told you how much I needed you. And you were always there for me.”
“I love you,” he replied calmly and softly. “Always.”
I took a deep breath and squeezed my best friend one last time before letting him go. “Arrange for a car to pick us up, please.”
He was rock steady. “Where are we going?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“Home,” I said firmly. “To Aster Valley.”
As he pulled out his phone to arrange for the car, I pulled mine out to arrange for one last bank transfer. After a few clicks, it was done.
I looked back up at my family. “I’ve transferred two thousand dollars into each of your accounts. Spend it however you want. Mom, Sophie, pool it together for the lawyer, or use it to help your own damned selves. I don’t care. I’m done.”
The noise the three of them made as I turned to leave the house was deafening. They followed us outside and made a scene.
Mom tried to guilt me. “Samson Aaron Rigby, get back in here and stop being so selfish!”
Sophia cried. “I’m sorry for lying, but we need your help!”
And Kira taunted me. “Oh, it’s like that, huh? You have so much fucking money you can throw it at us and bolt? Must be nice. Meanwhile, you’ve always treated this piece of shit better than us. Mikey and his rich family. You always wanted to be one of Coach Vining’s sons instead of Mama and Daddy’s boy! So go! Go be someone else’s brother!”
As if I’d ever want Mikey’s asshole of a father. I ignored them and reached for Mikey’s hand, relieved when I found it dry and steady. Unfortunately, he was used to my family’s theatrics. After we became friends, he’d offered for me to sneak into his family’s finished basement to sleep on the sofa if I ever needed it.
I’d only ever taken him up on it once, and my mother’s sudden crocodile tears reminded me of that night.
“This is all your father’s fault. I never should have given you a Biblical name. So much for ‘god-given strength.’ I should have known. Sin leads to consequences. Samson was too strong, too violent. Just like your father. He betrayed God, and then look what happened.”
The night my father had been arrested, my mother had spouted her convenient Bible bullshit. She hadn’t darkened the door of a single house of God in all the years of my memory, but she was the first to spout about the good book when she didn’t get her way. I remembered her accusing him of defiling their marriage bed, and then she’d turned the blame on me for not honoring my parents.
Thankfully, the car came quickly, and we got inside. We were halfway back to the airport before I realized Mikey was crying.
“Jesus, what’s wrong?” I blurted. Here I’d been trying to keep from losing my composure, and Mikey was the one to lose it.
“It’s so unfair. You had a shit family. You deserved better.”
I laughed at that and leaned over to kiss his forehead. He was so damned sensitive. I loved that about him. “You had a shit family, too. Many people do.”
He sniffled. “Still not fair.”
I put my arm around him and squeezed, sending up a silent prayer of thanks for Tiller Raine giving Mikey a new home, a better family. “But now you have a good one. The family we’re making on our own. By choice.”
He glanced up at me with wet, spiky eyelashes and a devilish smirk. “You think we can add Truman to our family?”
I shoved him away from me with a laugh. “Now you’re fishing. Don’t bat those eyelashes at me and try to get me to declare my undying love to someone I’ve known for all of five minutes.”
We rode in silence for a few more minutes before he said, “He’s good for you. But more than that, I love how you are with him.”
“How do you mean?”
“I remember you dating Will a few years ago. You were protective of him, too, but in a different way. You wanted to carry his burdens, and man did he want you to as well. He used to preen whenever you got all controlling and possessive.”
I thought back to the guy I’d dated for a few months one summer. He’d been harassed by an ex, and it had taken me a long time to discover he’d actually loved every minute of it.
