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“Do you…do you think you might want to meet her someday?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said as I shifted up enough so I could kiss him. “I would really like that.”
I didn’t care that it would just bind me more to this man. I’d accepted that I was going to lose him. I’d take whatever time I could get with him.
But as Phoenix drew my injured hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss into my palm before letting his finger trail over the edge of the white bandage that was wrapped around my wrist, I knew I’d likely never even get the chance to meet his daughter.
“My turn,” I whispered, more to myself than him, and then I turned around so my back was once again pressed against his chest.
Because no way in hell I could look at him while I told him the story that would make him finally realize he’d made a mistake that day in the alley when he’d come to my rescue.
Chapter 14
Phoenix
Part of me didn’t want to hear Levi’s story because it would be so much easier just to sit in silence and watch the sun come up as we huddled under the blanket together. It wasn’t that I needed life to be easy because I wasn’t that naïve. But easier on occasion wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Between the events of the previous night and sharing my own story of loss, I was feeling pretty raw and I would have liked to pretend we were just a normal couple watching the sun rise after a night of romance and passion. But I also needed answers because I’d never been more confused in my life. None of the pieces I had about Levi made sense. How someone as sweet and kind as him could have ended up here.
In short, I needed to know who the hell it was I was quite possibly falling in love with.
Because I knew that was what was happening to me. Despite the terrible things Levi had done to Seth and his family, I could no longer judge him on that one act. But I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he might very well be guilty of what Ronan was accusing him of in terms of targeting Seth again.
“I knew there was something wrong with Ricky pretty early on,” Levi murmured. “I think my parents thought it was just typical brother stuff when he broke my toys or picked on me. But there was just something about the way he’d look at me…like breaking my toys was just the opening act. I was still young when he started really acting out. He’d just turned ten when he physically attacked another boy at school for no reason whatsoever, other than he wanted to see how it felt to make the boy bleed. My father had always believed in that saying about sparing the rod, spoiling the child. My mom went the opposite way and tended to baby us. Neither way worked with Ricky,” Levi said softly.
“One night at dinner a few months after he attacked the other kid, everything changed. We were eating like we normally did and my parents were talking about some troubles my dad was having at work or something…I was only five so I wasn’t all that interested. Anyway, Ricky started to get up to leave the table, but my mom stopped him and told him to finish his carrots. Then she went back to talking to my dad. Ricky didn’t say a thing…not one single word as he stabbed my mother through the hand with his fork. Then he calmly got up and left the table.”
I tightened my grip on Levi as I felt him tremble in my arms. I moved one hand, placing it on his wrist that grasped the arm I had wrapped around his chest. Luckily, his skin was still warm, but I left my hand there so I could hopefully catch any changes in his temperature as he talked.
“My mother was afraid of Ricky after that. My father too. He’d still discipline Ricky, but he never laid a hand on him again. I wasn’t so lucky.”
“He beat you?” I asked.
Levi nodded. “He’d especially get mad if I tattled on Ricky for things. I think he didn’t like hearing how messed up Ricky was…like he saw it as a personal failure or something.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Like when he held a knife to my throat because he caught me looking through his comic books or he pushed me down the stairs for no reason at all.” Levi shook his head. “I learned pretty quickly to stay out of Ricky’s way. We still lived in a house then and had separate rooms, so it wasn’t too hard since Ricky spent most of his time in his room. But after my dad lost his job, we had to move into an apartment…the one my dad and I still live in,” Levi added.
