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“I haven’t been with anybody seriously since I got mixed up with Cyrus. This life, it’s…” He blows out a breath and drops his obsidian eyes to mine. “No, I’ve never cheated on anyone.”
I tear my gaze away. The life he resents so thoroughly, it’s mine. It’s the only life I’ve ever known and will ever know. Reece can get out. Him and his family, they can go live in the woods, away from everybody, away from Cyrus, away from me.
And hopefully, after hearing what I’m about to tell him, he will.
This is why I brought him here. Not to bond or bring him further into my life, but to shove him out of it. To show him exactly what Fox Hollow does to families. Exactly what it did to mine.
I lean against my father’s headstone, the chill of the marble instantly slicing through my thin leggings like a finely sharpened sword.
“The story goes like this… One day, while stopping by to talk to my father about getting a new tattoo, Cyrus walked in on him having a psychotic break. He was trying to kill my mom when Cyrus intervened. My father shot at Cyrus, hitting him in his foot, then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.”
That crease between Reece’s eyebrows deepens. “The story?”
“That’s what the cops were told. That’s what my mom was told. That’s what everybody was told.”
“Cyrus saved your mom?”
“I…” My throat clogs and I have to look away from him, scanning the copse of evergreens just outside the fence line. The only two people who know what actually happened are me and Cyrus. This will be my first time saying it to someone else. I’ve lived with the guilt, the fucking shame, for a decade, keeping it all locked up tight inside me so nobody would know the truth. Now that I’m about to tell Reece, the words are stuck. They’re literally fucking stuck in my throat.
“Lex.”
Bringing my attention back to Reece, I watch him take a step toward me, his arms out like he wants to wrap me up in them.
But I can’t let him. If I do, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull myself back out of them.
So, I put a hand up, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t. Just… Just wait.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, the perfect impression of patience even though we both know he has none.
“My father was a tattoo artist. He did tattoos for everyone, even Cyrus and his employees. He got fired from every shop that was gullible enough to hire him because he would accept anything as payment—rims, shoes, favors, tickets to basketball games, you name it, my dad would give a tattoo for it. Herarelyhad enough money to cover even the bare necessities.” I shake my head, remembering the truly asinine things he’d accept, like the used kayak he left sitting outside because it was too big to store in our house. Of course, it was stolen soon after, probably from the same guy who gave it to him. “Eventually he started working right out of our house, days, nights, holidays, it didn’t matter, we always had people over, so my mom and I were familiar with his clients. Some of them were like family. One of them more than the rest.”
“Cyrus?”
“My mom…” My voice catches again, making me frown at myself. At my fucking weakness. She’s the only person that makes me weak because she’s the only person I let myself love.
“My mom had to pick up the slack. A lot. I don’t know what came first or when exactly either started, but she wound up working at The Playgroundandhaving an affair with Cyrus, all behind my dad’s back.”
“In Lost and Found only?”
I take in the man in front of me, wondering how he knows so little about a world he hates so much. Lost and Found wasn’t always what it is today. Cyrus made it up after I started working there as a way to “train me” for it himself. He wanted a reason to fuck me, so he invented one. The fact that it ultimately earned him more money was just a bonus.
But that’s my business and not part of this story. His compassion is useless, it’s his apprehension I’m after.
“Cheating is cheating, rookie. It doesn’t matter where it happens.”
“Fuck, I know, it’s just… She willingly fucked Cyrus? Off the clock?”
“He was generous to us. Both of us. She fell for him, while also loving my dad.”
Back then it was her heart that ruled her, not her fear.
“Did your dad find out?”
“That’s why he’s six feet under.” I point at the ground below my feet, and Reece follows my finger.
With his focus off me, I force the words out before my throat stops working a third time.
“The truth is this… One day my dad was tattooing a Playground girl and she let it slip that his wife was not only working for Cyrus, but also sleeping with him.”
