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“Melanie Masters.” He nods. “I like it. Smart”–he pauses–“and sexy.”
“Oh, uh, thanks.” I laugh.
Tucking my leg up under me, I sink back into the couch, my body finally starting to relax around him. I guess I just needed a little normalcy. I needed something to bring myself back to just him and me.
Looking over at his arm on the end of the couch, I eye his pine tree tattoos. “What does that mean to you? Why a forest of pine trees? I can’t imagine it’s because of this town. You said this place was your personal prison.”
Lifting his arm, he turns it this way and that, studying it. That’s when I see the inside of his wrist has a small wolf amongst the trees, howling up at the moon that’s crested over the tops of the pines.
“I did get it because of this town,” he says softly, like he’s lost in a memory. “It’s everything I am. Who I am.”
“The lone wolf in a big forest, trying to find his way home?” I don’t even know where that came from. It’s like the words were just pulled from me.
Turning to face me, Alex stares deeply into my eyes, the green in his as dark and dense as the pines all around this house.
“Something like that,” he finally says.
“Why?”
Turning away, he lets out a lungful of air and runs his hand through his hair.
“You said you’d be honest,” I whisper, seeing he’s struggling with whether to say more.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Alex closes his eyes for a second, and then stares straight ahead at the wall.
“I grew up here. I was a quiet kid who never made trouble. I had to be. My dad”–he breathes out–“was a drunk. I can’t remember a time when he was ever sober, really. He wasn’t violent…just, not a good man. He lost his job when I was a kid, and when he couldn’t find something else, he drowned himself in a bottle and relied on my mom to take care of everything. And that was it until the end.
“I was fifteen when he died. He was coming home from The Rusty Anchor, ironically.” Alex laughs without humor. “He was piss drunk and crashed into a pole. Died instantly.”
Reaching out, I place my hand on his thigh, right above his knee. “I’m sorry, Alex,” I say softly.
“Don’t be,” he scoffs. “I’m not. He was never much of a father.”
“Good or bad, he was still your dad.”
Alex turns away from me, and I hope I didn’t just cross a line. But when I go to take my hand away, he grabs it, and keeps it on his leg.
Weaving his fingers with mine, he squeezes gently, and I look down at our joined hands, squeezing back.
“My mom was the best woman I knew,” he continues. “She raised me, taught me to be a man, told me I could be whatever I wanted. She wanted me to be everything my dad wasn’t. But…” he trails off, his voice strained with built up emotion. “I’ve been letting her down.”
“How? I obviously didn’t know your dad, but I don’t think your anything like him.”
“No, I know.”
“Then how are you letting her down?”
“When I was 20, I came home from college one weekend, and I noticed she looked different. Tired, drained, pale. I wanted to take her to the doctor, but she told me she’d already been.” Scrubbing his face, he covers his eyes, rubbing his temples. “It was cancer. Pancreatic. She didn’t want to tell me. She thought she could fight it on her own, but when I saw how she was, I didn’t go back to school. I dropped out to take care of her. I cleaned the house, paid the bills, and made sure she ate and went to her doctor’s appointments. I tried to make things easier for her.”
My heart swells for him, and tears prick the backs of my eyes. “Alex,” I start, rubbing my thumb across the back of his hand, but I don’t even know what to say.
“She died a year later.”
“Alex,” I whisper, choking on his name. The emotion in his voice tells me everything I need to know. He loved his mom very much, and is still broken hearted over her death. His mom was the light in his life, saw him through his drunk father, encouraged him to go out into the world and do whatever and be whoever he wanted, and then she died. Both parents gone by the time he was 21.
“I never went back to school after that. I took a job at The Rusty Anchor and spent most of my nights…” he trails off, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Losing yourself in women?”
