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Jones and Mack shrugged. Grandma took that as a reason to stick her tongue out at me, like she’d won.
“My dad raised me by himself.” Xavier smiled at me. “Dad’s been busy with stuff at his house so he hasn’t been to see us on tour for months. Layla hasn’t gotten to meet him, but he called me earlier to ask about the family emergency that canceled our tour. He’ll be in town in a couple of days.”
I rested my hand over my chest. “Really?”
“Yeah. He wants to meet you. Jagger and Gran, too.” He looked back at Grandma. “My mom left us when I was a baby. Dad did his best but I was a feral child until Mack’s mom took me in and started helping out. She trained me and Dad at the same time. Dad and I have always been close, but if it hadn’t been for Mack’s mom, Emily, we would’ve killed each other after the pizza ran out in the house. Dad and I were a mess.”
Jones rested his elbows on his knees. “Emily saved me, too. Mack’s family did. Emily was the only reason I didn’t end up dead on the streets, though.”
My chest immediately ached for the pain I could see in his expression and I couldn’t stop myself from slipping off the bed and into his lap. I wrapped myself around him and hugged him while he continued.
“I never knew my dad and my mom was a drug addict. The shit I saw before the age of six was fucked. She overdosed when I was ten, though, and I realized just how much I missed living in a piece of shit shack with men coming in and out at all hours. I lived on the streets but I’d met Mack when I was eight and I think Emily knew something was up. She would spot me walking down the street and drag me into their van to make sure I was fed and bathed.”
My heart swelled for the little boy who’d been given such a shitty hand, but also for Mack’s mom. She sounded like an angel.
“I have a learning disability that makes reading and writing difficult but as a kid, it was brutal. I dropped out of school as soon as I’d been able to find enough food to not need school lunches. When Emily found out later, she helped me study for my GED and didn’t let up until I had it. She had me stay with them as much as possible. I honestly don’t know where any of us would be if she hadn’t found us.”
Grandma had listened to both Xavier and Jones with an intense focus and as soon as Jones finished talking, she got up and pulled both of their heads to her chest. “You poor babies. Thank god you have your own personal angel watching out for you.”
I slipped off of Jones and onto Mack’s lap to avoid getting Grandma’s boobs in my face, too. I wrapped my arm around his neck and looked down at him. “Your mom was amazing, huh?”
He swallowed hard and nodded. “She was.”
Grandma looked at him. “Your turn.”
He’d wrapped both arms around me so I felt the way he shook. Before I could tell him that he didn’t need to tell anyone anything he didn’t want to, he spoke. “I was so much luckier than Jones and X… I’m the youngest of five boys. Mom and Dad were happily married. My mom was the best fucking person. We were poor, but she never hesitated to take care of the guys as much as she could. She loved them just as much as she loved her own kids.”
I cupped his face. “It’s okay if you don’t want to share, Mack.”
He turned his head and kissed my palm. “No, it’s okay. It’s good to share, right?”
Grandma made a noise of agreement. “Sure is.”
“Yeah, so, life was good until I was fifteen. My dad was in a wreck and received a traumatic brain injury. He recovered from the wreck, but he was different afterwards. My brothers were already out of the house so it was just me and Mom taking care of him. He was angry all the time, though, and the man who’d raised me was gone. Whatever of him that was leftover was mean and loved to dig into people as deep as he could to hurt them.” Mack cleared his throat and forced a smile. “When Jones said he was joining the military at seventeen, I saw it as my chance to escape my dad. The three of us ran together.”
“Not all of us were cut out for soldier life, either.” Xavier grunted.
Grandma looked them over and pointed at Mack. “You?”
He snorted. “I was fine. By that point, I had enough anger to fight in a war, so I was good. Xavier is a gentle giant, though. The government took one look at him and figured they could turn a man his size into an elite killing machine. They didn’t give a shit to understand that Xavier had never raised his hand to another person in his life. They nearly got him killed.”
Xavier smiled like the memory didn’t hurt him after so many years. “Thankfully, I had my best friends there to save my ass. I managed to escape with a few scars and that was all.”
“And your mom? Emily?” Grandma was just as invested as I was.
“She died of a stroke while we were in the service.”
I plastered myself to him and held him tight. “I’m sorry, Xavier. That’s not fair.”
“What about your dad and brothers?” Jagger pushed the button on his bed to lift himself slightly higher. “And how the fuck are you writing the songs you write if you haven’t such a hard time with reading and writing?”
“Jones does the verbal part of song writing. X or I will write his lyrics out or read things back to him.” Mack’s grip on me loosened with the questions moving away from his mom. His face still remained dark as he spoke about his dad. “I’ve never gone back. I pay for his care. My brothers can handle the rest. It’s not like they did anything to help when our dad was screaming at me and Mom for days on end. They think I think I’m too good for them and that’s why I don’t visit. They still refuse to believe he was abusive.”
I stroked his face and gently kissed him. “Oh, Mack. I’m so sorry that happened.”
Jones grunted. “Hey, I was a homeless kid. Where’s my kiss?”
Xavier just grinned when I looked at him. “I used to eat worms in front of everyone at recess because Dad took me fishing so much that I thought worms were just food you bought at the grocery store and ate. I hadn’t realized he was baiting his hook. No one even dared me. I just saw worms and ate them.”
