Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
MARCO
There had only been one other time in my life that I’d felt the kind of debilitating, agonizing pain I felt at that very moment.
Fifteen years ago, I’d had my heart ripped out of my chest in the worst possible way.
I thought there’d never come a time when I’d experience that kind of torment again, but as I watched Rhodes storm away after flaying me wide open, I knew I’d been wrong.
“Oh my god,” Gypsy breathed, covering her mouth with both hands as she sobbed. “This is all my fault. Oh god. Marco, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did this.”
Unable to stand the distance between us, I grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into me, wrapping her in an embrace as I fought to swallow down the lump in my throat.
Burying her face in my chest, she continued to cry while clutching me as tight as she could. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she kept repeating over and over. “You must hate me. I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you did.”
“Stop,” I replied, my voice sounding like gravel as I pressed a kiss to her head. “I don’t hate you, girasol. I’m pissed off, but I could never hate you.”
“That’s good to know,” she said on a sniffle, lifting her face so she could look at me. “Because I’m in love with you, and loving you while you hated me would make this moment suck even more than it already does.”
Lowering my forehead to hers, I squeezed my eyes closed and held on to her even tighter as those words flowed through me like a balm to the burn I was feeling in my chest. “Yeah, it would,” I teased. “Guess it’s lucky for both of us, then, huh?”
She let out a watery laugh, brushing at her damp cheeks with the back of her hand. “I have to fix this,” she stated a few seconds later, glancing back toward Rhodes’s bedroom. “I can’t let him think those things about you.”
Hesitating for a moment, I studied those gorgeous honey-brown eyes before speaking. “You trust me?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.
“All right. Then I want you to let me be the one to go talk to him. There are some things he needs to hear, and they have to come from me.”
“I—” she started to argue, then stopped abruptly. “Okay.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, I leaned forward and brushed a kiss against her lips, not realizing until just then how much I’d missed being able to hold her and kiss her whenever I wanted.
“After that, you and I need to talk, Gypsy.”
“I know,” she said with a sheepish nod.
“Let me take care of Rhodes. Then I’ll take care of you, yeah?”
The smile she graced me with right then shot rays of warmth throughout my whole body, fighting back the last of the chill that had seeped into my bones over the past couple of weeks. “Yeah, sweetie.”
That was the first endearment I’d ever gotten from her, and while I wanted to pick her up and carry her into her bedroom to show her just how much I loved hearing it, there was something else I needed to do first.
Rhodes was lying on his back in the middle of his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The sight of him like that felt like a knife had just been plunged into my gut. This kid had a piece of my heart in a way I knew I’d never want it back and seeing him hurt killed.
His eyes were the only thing that moved my way when I entered his room. “Go away,” he bit out.
Instead of doing what he wanted, I sat on the side of his bed and issued my own command. “Sit up. We gotta talk.”
In spite of how much he might have hated me just then, he did as I said, throwing his legs over the side of the mattress to sit beside me.
It was a testament to what an amazing job Gypsy had done raising these kids that he didn’t have it in him to be outright disrespectful, no matter what he was feeling.
“There are a few things I want to clear up with you, the first being I never broke my promise to you, Rhodes.” His head shot my way, and his lips parted to issue an argument, but I cut him off.
“Your sister needed time. And to be honest, so did I. But I never intended to stay gone. Whether she and I were able to work it out or not, I care too much about you to do something like that. I was always going to come back, Rhodes. Always.”
I caught the glassiness forming in his eyes before he turned away, looking at the floor as he ground his jaw side to side.
“Another thing I want you to know is that I love you. I’m in love with Gypsy.
I want to spend the rest of my life with her.
And you come with her. I want that too. Not just because I want her any way I can get her, but because I love you, Holly, Sunny, Ray, Lee—I love all of you.
You kids each have a separate piece of my heart that’s yours alone no matter what. And that’s forever. You understand?”
He nodded as his throat bobbed with a heavy swallow.
“Good. Now, the last thing I want you to know is that I’m here.
If you’re ever pissed at me about something and want to let me have it, I’m here.
If you need to talk about something that’s bothering you, I’m here.
No matter what the issue, no matter the reason, I’m here, Rhodes.
You call me, and I swear to you, I’ll drop everything to let you tear me a new one if that’s what you need.
Your brothers and sisters will all get the same thing, but you’re turning into a man, which means the time I get with you is shorter, and I want everything you’re willing to give me until that day comes when you won’t need me anymore. ”
I watched as he clenched his eyes closed, a lone tear breaking past his lids and falling to the floor.
As hard as it was for me to do, I placed my hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Then I stood up and started for the door.
I stopped with my hand on the knob when he said my name. Looking over my shoulder, I met his gaze and held my breath as he said, “Just so you know, I love you too.”
It was my turn to fight back the tears as I nodded. “Good.”
I waited until he lay back down and propped his hands behind his head before opening the door and stepping through.
Gypsy
I spent the time Marco was in with Rhodes rehearsing everything I needed to say to him, but when he stepped into the hallway, everything I’d come up with flew out the window.
He started toward me, and I could see the determination in his gaze as he grew closer. Holding my hands up to stop him, I took a step back and started speaking at a rapid pace.
“I’ve been thinking over everything I need to say, and there’s a lot. But I can’t do that if you touch me, because you have this way of scrambling my brain. So I need you to just stay there. Please. It’s the only way I’ll be able to get it all out.”
His lips tugged up with humor as he slowly lowered himself into the recliner all the way across the living room. “All right,” he said on a chuckle. “This far enough, or do you need me to go to the other end of the house?”
“You’re hilarious,” I deadpanned, earning myself that cocky smile of his I loved so damn much.
“I’m listening, baby. But you need to know, nothing you tell me right now is gonna change the way I feel about you.”
“I know,” I said with a nod, finally feeling the truth in his words.
I’d been a fool for way too long when it came to this man.
He’d never been anything but honest and open.
He never made me feel like I was less than him or undeserving of a man as incredible as he was.
All those insecurities were in my head, and it was time I let them go, so I proceeded to open up and give him all of me.
“I believe you. But I need to say it anyway so you’ll understand why it’s a strong possibility that I’ll screw up a lot more before I get the hang of this. ”
He waited patiently, giving me the time I needed to get my thoughts in order.
“When I was a teenager, I fell in love with a boy. He made all these promises about taking me away from my parents and giving me and my family a better life. It wasn’t the broken promises that hurt.
It was the fact that he’d been seeing my best friend behind my back the entire time.
I wasn’t good enough for him, but she was, so while he was lying to me, he was making real plans with her.
That betrayal hurt worse than any of the others, because I thought of that girl as a sister.
She was my family. They both broke my heart in such a way that it never healed right, but I hadn’t given up.
I wanted something for myself, so I tried again.
But when he’d stolen everything he could from me, he moved on to Rhodes, taking what little I had to give him. ”
“Shit. Gypsy—”
“I met someone else a while later, but that ended when he put me in the hospital for two days.”
Marco’s entire body locked tight, and I saw him visibly struggling to keep his seat.
“All my life I’ve been told I’m not good enough. My parents started it, and then everyone else I let in made me feel the same. Eventually, if you hear something enough, you can’t help but start to believe it.”
His hands clenched and unclenched over and over, but he didn’t say a word.
“I knew you were different the moment you walked through my door carrying those grocery bags. I knew then that you were someone who actually deserved my heart, and I realized I was in love with you after the concert in DC. If I’m being honest, I’ve loved you a lot longer than that, but that’s when it really hit me.
That was when I knew. And it scared the hell out of me,” I said on a whisper, two tears falling down my cheeks as I forced myself to finish.
“I knew the moment you walked away from me that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, and I’m so sorry it took me so long to try and make it right.
But if you’re willing to forgive me, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to let go of the past. I think.
...” I cleared my throat and pulled in a fortifying breath.
“I think, with your help, I might actually be able to do that.”