Chapter 12
Roman
Eloise might as well have shot off a starter pistol for how adrenaline rushes through my veins, my heart beating hard against my rib cage. I feel like I’m running, trying to catch up to her, barely clinging to my sanity.
First, she hooked me with her outfit. The tight jeans hugging her ass and that even tighter top, with her tits spilling out.
Then she went and put on her hot-pink lipstick, like a neon sign, hypnotizing me.
I spent more than a few minutes trying not to think about what her mouth might look like stretched around my cock.
How that pink would smear and her lips would puff up more than they already are.
Worse was her dare. Try me.
She doesn’t want to know how obsessed with her I am. Because that would require me stripping her naked and eating her out on this table instead of our dinner.
I breathe a sigh of relief when our server arrives at our table, so I can stop holding my breath that I’ll make a goddamn fool of myself.
I let Eloise order first, and she asks for an iced tea even though I remind her she can drink whatever she wants.
She merely shakes her head and offers me a kind smile that eats away at the darkness that has settled over me the last two decades.
After I tell the server I’ll stick with my water, we give her our dinner orders right away and then she’s gone, leaving Eloise and me alone again.
I lean back in my chair, trying to stretch out my legs as much as possible in the tight space.
The restaurant is cozy, intimate even, but not exactly built for a guy my size.
Eloise fits just fine, though, her pink lips curved in a smile as she watches me try to get comfortable.
When I finally settle, I ask, “How long have you and Sloane known each other?”
“Since high school.” Eloise smiles. “She’s like my sister.
I love her.” Then because I love hearing her talk, I wait, knowing she will.
And she does. She goes on about the day they met in gym class freshman year.
Sloane, in all black, stayed in the back when they had to run the track, and Eloise, in what I assume had to be all pink, hung back with her.
“No one who looks at us would think we belong together, but we’ve always clicked,” she says, snapping her fingers.
“Neither one of us fits in with our families, and I think we saw that in each other.” Then she shrugs, adding more quietly, “Sometimes the people who are supposed to see us the clearest, don’t. You know?”
That felt a little more honest than she might have meant to be, and it seems like maybe Eloise needs someone to see her clearly.
And fuck, if that doesn’t break my heart.
I have the impulse to do violence again, but since it’s mostly frowned upon by society at large, I try for a different topic.
“Do you have siblings?”
“One, a brother, but we’re not like you and your siblings.
I’ve always wished I had a family like yours.
All together and…” She has a faraway look in her eyes, and there is something in her desire to be wanted that makes me want to spill everything.
Tell her about my whole life so she knows she’s not alone.
That I see her. And even though my family is great, I haven’t always been great.
I don’t deserve my family, but she does. She deserves the world.
I scrub a hand over my face then fold my arms over my chest. “I, uh…” I shrug.
“I don’t know if…” When she tips her head to the side, curiosity and concern written across her features, I spit it out.
“I’m not sure what you heard about me, but it wasn’t only alcohol.
It was pills too. Mostly pills, actually.
For about fifteen years of my life, I swallowed anything that would take the pain away. ”
She sits quietly for a few moments, which may as well be hours in Eloise time. Then she sets her hand on the table, palm up. “Do you… Will you tell me about it?”
Anything. Everything she wants to know. I’ll tell her.
I take a deep breath and shift forward in my seat to place my palm on hers, her dainty fingers folding over mine.
I don’t really know where to start, so I go all the way back to the beginning.
“I don’t have memories of my father at all.
For all intents and purposes, Ian is my dad.
Ours left when I was two, so my brothers and sister know and remember more about him than I do, but to me, he’s…
a shadow. He’s nothing except half my genes, and I guess I got stuck with the addiction half. ”
“What about your mom?” Eloise asks, and I let my attention drift to her fingernails, the round tips, her thumb brushing back and forth across the back of my hand.
“She was everything. Mother, father, friend, confidante…angel. I can appreciate now as a parent what it must have taken for her to keep four kids fed and clothed and happy, but I didn’t understand back then.
In my memory, she was perfect, and whatever attention I didn’t receive from her, I had from Ian.
I never wanted for anything. Until it fell apart. ”
I lift my gaze to the wall directly across from me, lost in the past. “I had a full ride to Penn State for football, and my mom would come to as many games as she could. I was on track to be drafted. That was the goal. I was the number one defensive end in the country, but I tore my quad and needed surgery. I called Mom right away, and she came out to stay with me for a few days. I lived off campus with a bunch of guys, and there was my mom in the middle, cooking dinner for all of us, making sure I was doing my PT.”
Across from me, Eloise laughs softly, drawing my gaze back to her, and I allow myself a semblance of a smile, a few moments to sit with the happy memory.
Before I permit the sad ones to invade. “She went home, and a few weeks later, she was gone, and I never even saw her. She was in the hospital for three days, and I never went. I wasn’t there. ”
Eloise frowns, brows together, head shaking, as if I shouldn’t be upset about that. As if it wasn’t my fault. And while her death wasn’t my fault, my not being there was. I should have been with her. I should have held her hand. I should have told her I loved her. Every day.
Because she gave up so much for me, and I couldn’t even give up a weekend to drive down there.
“You were in college,” Eloise says in my defense, but there is none. There is nothing I regret more in my life than not being there when my mother needed me.
“She never asked anything of me,” I go on, voice like tissue paper.
“And I couldn’t do one basic thing for her and be there in the hospital.
” I clear my throat of the emotion there.
“I never had to face hard things, and I didn’t want to go and face what I knew what be the hardest thing I ever had to do. ”
Eloise squeezes my hand in support, but I shake my head, feeling unworthy of it. “It’s my biggest regret. I ran away from it and I kept running.”
Eloise folds both of her hands around mine, tugging slightly, as if she can will me to accept her words. “You have to forgive yourself.”
I shrug.
“Your mother would want you to. She’d never blame you.”
I fix my gaze on the condensation of my water glass.
“If you were in the position your mother was in, would you blame Mazie?”
“That’s not…” I trail off, my mind coming to a stop. No one has ever asked me that question before.
“You wouldn’t blame her. I know you wouldn’t. You’re an amazing parent, like Ian. Like your mother. And you know deep down your mom wouldn’t want you still blaming yourself about this.”
I shut my eyes to the sting, her words sinking in, and a long moment passes before I can meet her gaze. When I do, I find her features full of understanding. “No wonder you’ve struggled for so long. You’ve been holding on to this since you were in college? Of course you self-medicated.”
I lick my lips and lay out the rest. “After the funeral, I went back to school and gave up. On classes, on football, on my friends. The only ones I kept around me were the ones who never said anything to me about how much I was drinking or how many pills I was taking. Who offered me names and numbers of people who could get me more. I dropped out and slept on couches. I stopped answering calls and texts and got jobs fixing cars when I needed money so I could buy more drugs. If it came in pill form, I took it. Something to sleep. To stay up. For my pain, real or phantom. And chased it all with a bottle of whatever was closest.”
Eloise doesn’t physically react, save for tightening her grip on my hand. “You went to rehab?”
“A few times, although it never stuck. Ian paid for it every time.”
“He’s a good man.”
I dip my chin. “The best. My best friend.”
“One of your five,” she says, and I raise my gaze to her, her soft smile unraveling the tension in my chest.
“Yeah.” I huff a sort of laugh.
“Not many spots left.”
“Lucky you already have one,” I say, and she agrees, dragging her thumb back and forth over my knuckles.
“So you haven’t talked to your dad at all?” she asks, and when I shake my head, she quirks her brow, thinking for a second. “None of you have?” I shrug as she tips her head to the side. “None of you care to find out about him? He’s your dad.”
“So? He’s our dad, but that doesn’t automatically make him worthy of our respect. Is that why you let your mom talk down to you?”
I know I’ve made a mistake the moment she rips her hand away from mine, and I lean forward.
“I’m sorry, Eloise. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She bites into her lip, and I’m about to apologize again when the server sets down our food. I thank her then turn back to my date. Her green eyes have a glassy sheen. Fuck me.
“I’m so sorry, sunshine. I’m an asshole. Please, don’t—”