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She ignores my joke and chews her chicken, quietly waiting for my answer.
“Okay, the short version is it’s hard watching your brothers die. By the end of my enlistment, I was done. I didn’t want to be fighting a war where we didn’t even know who the enemy was anymore.” I take a pull from my beer and watch her let that sink in. “It wasn’t an easy decision.”
“Are you happy you did it? Enlisted, I mean.”
I think back to the kid I was before I graduated.
I thought I was tough.
I thought I knew what it meant to be a man.
I was so fucking wrong.
“I am. It made me the man I am now. Growing up here with the privilege I had... It was easy to be a cocky little shithead who didn’t know how good life was. I left, not knowing who I really was. I know now, and I like the man I became in the process. My only real regret is the way we ended things before I left.” Those words leave my mouth without any forethought.
I guess I was more ready to talk about this than I realized.
Scarlet straightens in her chair, then looks down at the table before raising her eyes to meet mine. “You mean the way I ended things?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t want things to end the way they did.” I try to keep my tone friendly. I wasn’t planning on rehashing this tonight, but I guess it’s better to get it out in the open.
Her hand slides across the table and rests on mine. “We were kids, Cade. We spent two years sneaking around behind everyone’s backs. There was no way we would have stayed together if we did the long-distance thing.”
“Sneaking around was never my choice. It was yours.” Might as well put it all out there.
She pulls her hand back quickly and places it in her lap. “It was my choice. And looking back, it probably wasn’t the right choice. We were kids, Cade. In my defense, my mother would have never let us date.”
“You mean she wouldn’t have let you date me.” My family was well-off. My mom was a nurse practitioner and my dad a former heavyweight boxing champion who trained new champions at his own gym. But we weren’t in the same financial stratosphere as the Kingston family. And her mother was all about appearances.
“That’s not fair.” Her blue eyes blaze with anger. “I never thought that, and neither did my brothers. Don’t put my mother’s bullshit on me.”
Fuck. “You’re right. I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted tonight to go.”
“It’s fine. We needed to get it out there in the open. You’ve obviously never forgiven me for the awful way I ended things, and I can’t say I blame you. I just didn’t see any other way. Could you even imagine the way my brothers would have overreacted if we’d told them?”
I bark out a loud laugh. “Your family... No way. They’d never get overly involved in your business. I can’t imagine why you’d think that.” She spent my entire senior year of high school worried one of her brothers or her mother would find out about us. I tried to get her to just tell them, but she never even considered it.
I didn’t care because she was mine.
Until she wasn’t.
Scarlet wipes her mouth with her napkin and places it on her barely touched plate. “I wrote you letters.”
“I never got them.” I say, shocked by her words. Shocked by the idea that maybe she didn’t let go as easily as I thought, but she’s not looking at me. Her eyes are trained on the napkin in front of her.
“I never sent them. I had things I needed to say, but you weren’t here to hear them.” Her watery blue eyes finally rise to meet mine, and it’s a punch to my gut.
The Scarlet I knew never cried.
And the Scarlet she portrays now wouldn’t want anyone to see this.
I’m not sure if I should feel awful for upsetting her or grateful that she’s opening up.
“I’m here now. I’m ready to listen to whatever you want to say.” Damn, this shouldn’t be so hard. “Whatever you want to talk about.”
Just when I think we’re about to get somewhere, the sound of little feet making their way toward the kitchen catches my attention. Brynlee walks into the kitchen clutching Teddy. A few curls are plastered to her tired face while the rest bounce around her shoulders. “I’m thirsty, Daddy.”
She walks right to me and climbs up onto my lap, then realizes I’m not alone. She looks at Scarlet, then around the otherwise empty kitchen. “Where’s Aunt Immie?”
