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Devin nodded grimly. He pulled her back into a hug, her face pressed to his chest. Normally, she wouldn’t mind being snuggled up with his firm pecs, but it was clearly a way for him to avoid her gaze. She allowed it for now.
Exhaling, he said, “Yeah. Told you he wasn’t a good guy.”
“You didn’t tell me he was the ‘shows up drunk to parties and knocks over cupcakes’ kind of bad guy.”
He shrugged, but she could practically feel his wince. “They told you that, huh?”
“Yup.”
“They tell you the part about him smacking me around?”
She drew back. “No.”
His grimace deepened. “Can we forget I just admitted it, then?”
“Seriously?”
“He was a jerk,” he said, as if that were some kind of explanation.
“But he hit you?” More rumors and hushed conversations floated into her memory. She hadn’t understood them then. But Devin telling her this… It slotted an awful lot of things into place.
Devin rubbed his hands up and down her arms, and she didn’t need him to comfort her. Not when he was telling her about his pain. “It’s okay. I’m fine now.”
“How?”
His throat bobbed. “I got out.”
“How?” An intense need to understand this man clawed at her. She shouldn’t pry, but she wanted to know everything. “I mean—if you don’t want to talk about it—”
“Your family, for one.” His gaze connected with hers, a little light coming back to his eyes. “There’s a reason I was always at your place or hanging out in Arthur’s basement.”
“Right.”
“And then, as soon as I was out of high school, I packed my bag. Started working. Got an apartment. The rest is history.”
Was it, though? The pain of it still seemed to live inside him.
She put her hands over Devin’s chest, trying to take in the breadth of him. This strong, incredible man, who’d dealt with so much and who still stayed open and kind.
It occurred to her again, just like that night he’d walked her home after they’d hung out at the bar. Did he ever talk about what had happened to him? How did the pressure of keeping it all inside not make him explode?
Gazing up at him, she took a deep breath. “What happened to him?”
“I have no idea,” he said quietly, ghosts in his eyes. “I assume he rotted in that house for a while. I never went back. He never came looking for me except a couple of times when he was trashed.” He shrugged. “When he did, I just called Officer Dwight to take him home. Otherwise, I had nothing to do with him. Year or so after I left, I got a drunk dial from him. Said he was set up in a trailer park in Florida.”
“You think he’ll stay there?”
“Honestly, I don’t care.”
He meant it, too. The pain in his voice was like a hand reaching into her chest and squeezing.
Zoe’s family was her bedrock. She defied them and fought with them, but deep down she loved them fiercely. She never in a million years could doubt they loved her, too.
Devin… he didn’t have that.
Slowly, she skated her hands up his chest. She took his face between her palms. His scruff was rough against her skin. She stroked her thumbs just beneath his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she told him quietly.
“It’s nothing. Old history.”
