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As we get away from the building and get to the park all that research I did on him comes to the front of my mind and I can’t go another second without answers.
“Sam, I want you to tell me about your childhood.”
“I thought we already covered this,” he says, his stride not changing, his grip on me remaining the same.
“In more detail this time,” I press as I see the joggers I predicted moving in multiple directions, making me feel safe…for now.
“What did you read, Erica? What do you know?”
“I want you to tell me.”
“Okay then,” he says, taking his hand off me, almost daring me to run if I want to. But in reality, it’s more of his way of saying I’m not in a gilded cage. He’s giving me room to flee if need be. I have no doubt he’d chase after me, maybe not in a violent way or maybe so, but he’s testing the boundaries, seeing if I will stay with him on my own accord…or I won’t.
“You familiar with Steve McQueen?” he starts off.
“The old movie star?”
He nods.
“A little, but not much.”
“Well, he’s considered the king of cool, whatever that’s supposed to mean. But like many things, what’s on the surface is a lot different than what’s going on underneath. McQueen, despite it being scrubbed from his Wikipedia page, was born to a sex worker and let’s just call him a very unstable father. He got dealt a rough hand to start life, but the guy made it work.”
“And?” I ask, as he lets that thought rest longer than expected.
“I”m pretty much in the same camp. My mom was a whore, but I don’t give a shit what people used to call her. I loved her all the same. She was my fucking mom,” he says, putting his foot down causing me to flinch. He stops then keeps walking again. “My dad killed her, as you probably already know. Killed a bunch of people actually, women of the night specifically. So of course history repeats itself, right? Well, some things do. I was determined not to repeat what my dad did, and I didn’t…at least not all of it. There wasn’t much good to him, none at all really, but I’m doing what I can to right some of his wrongs.”
Plowing his fingers through his hair, holding it at the crown of his head while he leaves his arm raised, bent, and flexed, we keep walking.
I look up into his eyes, seeing the truth, the hurt, a lot of things. And most of all I see a man who loves me, whether he’s said it yet or not.
But I’m also distracted by the surface, just like he told me seconds ago. His bulging bicep, his jaw made of marble, those eyes, his height…everything about him.
And how he puts me on a pedestal.
“There are some things I’ve done that you might not agree with,” he continues unprovoked. “Guilty as charged. Maybe I shouldn't have done them. Maybe I was right in doing them. Who knows? That’s up to me and my maker, when the time comes for us to meet. All I know until that time comes is that I want to spend it with you. That’s all that matters to me. You, me, the family we will have, and my responsibility as a man to keep us all safe.”
I nod.
“Are you scared of me, Erica?”
“No,” I answer quickly because it’s true. “I’m not scared of you, Sam, because I know your heart is in the right place, your motives pure. No matter what you tell me, or don’t tell me, about your past I feel safe around you.”
“You promise?” he asks, in the first ever approval-seeking way he’s ever displayed around me.
“I promise.”
“Now’s the time, beautiful. If there’s something you want to know, ask it now or forever hold your peace. But before you do,” he says, bringing a finger up to my lips. “Just know that there are bad people out there in this world that have never done time for their dirty deeds. And there are good people on this planet, who have paid the price for what society deemed wrong, whether that’s incorrect or not. It all aligns with your personal values,” he says, the tip of his finger moving from my lips to my heart. “Maybe I’m a bad man or maybe I’m good. I sleep easy at night, very easy. I know I’m good. But for the first time in my life I care what somebody else thinks. And that somebody…is you.”
Wrapping him up in a hug I bury myself in his chest.
“I’m sorry about how your life started. It’s a lot like mine actually. An orphan, bouncing around here and there never finding my place in this world. People trying to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong, often thinly disguised in extreme abuses of power meant to only benefit their own sick and twisted agendas.”
It’s like a cord inside him snaps, all his muscles going tense as I pull my head away from him slightly.
“I want their names,” he says, his gravelly baritone finding an octave lower as his eyes turn into slits, his forearms shaking as his hands turn to fists.
“Nothing happened. I never even let it get to that because I wasn’t as dumb as they made me out for, which is also why I’m not so dumb to realize you’re a good person. And for the record I won’t ask you about your past, just as I ask you do the same for me. All that matters is the future. Us together. Just please don't jeopardize that, Sam.”
