Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Erin wiped the kitchen counter, while Gavin put the leftovers in the fridge.
It was Friday, which meant dinner and a movie at home with Erin and Oliver, a tradition they’d started shortly after Valentine’s Day, when Erin had asked Gavin to give her a chance.
Nowadays, he struggled to remember a time when she wasn’t one of his best friends, and he was ashamed of himself for acting like such a tool at the beginning.
They’d just polished off the better part of the beef stew Erin had made—God, she could cook—and Oliver had slipped away to grab a shower and change out of his work clothes.
Erin kept a drawer of comfy clothes in Oliver’s room, and the first thing she’d done after arriving at their apartment was strip off her scrubs and don a soft, long-sleeved T-shirt and yoga pants.
Knowing her, he figured she was about five minutes away from stripping off her bra as well.
She’d done enough sleepovers with Oliver that Gavin was used to her unfastening her bra at random times and pulling the straps off through her shirt sleeves. He’d called it a cool trick the first couple of times she’d shed the lacy material without revealing so much as an inch of skin.
“You’ve been quiet tonight,” she said, when Gavin pulled three beers from the refrigerator, popping the caps and handing her one. “You feeling okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just been a long week.” He was relieved his mother hadn’t attempted to contact him. Then he figured she probably didn’t know where he was or how to reach him.
If there was one thing that didn’t exist in the Collins family, it was a secret. So Gavin appreciated that neither Padraig nor Aaron appeared to have told anyone else about his mom’s release.
For the past few nights, he’d lain awake trying to imagine seeing her again, playing it out in his mind.
He’d had years to consider their reunion, but as he’d grown older, the visions of it continually changed.
When he was fifteen, all he’d wanted was to see her again, to go home.
However, as more time passed, as he’d grown closer to Oliver, Sean, Lauren, and Chad, he’d started to see his childhood in a different light, and the anger, resentment, and guilt associated with those memories ate at him like cancer.
Right now, Gavin was torn between telling her off or… He swallowed heavily. He was terrified he’d revert to type and do what he’d always done.
Forgive her.
Give her a chance to make things up to him.
Reassume the caregiver role.
Gavin had never been able to hold on to his anger toward her, even after the most brutal of the beatings.
Instead, she would shed what he now believed were crocodile tears, blame her anger on her loneliness or sadness, remind him he was all she had, and somehow, she’d always find a way to convince him the beating would never have happened if he hadn’t done X, Y, or Z.
And in the end, because Gavin hated to see her cry, he’d tell her it was okay. Then, because he’d wanted the peaceful times to last, he’d go out of his way to take care of her, cooking meals, cleaning the apartment, stealing money and food.
Sometimes, he struggled to mesh the Gavin he’d been growing up with the man the Collins family had raised him to be. None of them, not even Oliver, knew about the things he’d done to survive…or the things he might have done.
The night he’d run away from his mother after she’d sliced his arm with the knife, he’d been stopped by their creepy landlord and handed an eviction notice.
The fucking asshole had insinuated he would look the other way on the late rent if Gavin blew him.
Gavin had shoved the guy away, but he’d woken up in a cold sweat too many nights in the ensuing months, wondering if he would have gone through with it if the cops hadn’t been called and his mom committed.
He couldn’t believe how all of the shit going down around him had felt normal at the time.
Now, he was disgusted by it, even though deep inside, he knew he’d had no choice.
No. That was wrong.
He’d had a choice—he could have confided in his social worker or teachers, but he hadn’t. Because in his young mind, there wasn’t anything better on the other side.
Better the devil you knew and all that.
What was he going to say to his mom now? Too many times he’d played it out, imagined that this time, he would be able to unload every single hate-filled emotion on her, that he’d finally be able to tell her just how much she’d hurt him.
But he was terrified of unleashing all of that, of taking the lid off a fury he’d spent all of his life keeping bottled up.
He wouldn’t be like his mother. He couldn’t spew horrible things, couldn’t inflict that much pain on someone he…
Fuck. Someone he loved.
How could he love her? How could he still love her after everything?
If he never saw her, he’d never have to risk losing sight of the man he’d become without her in his life.
So yeah…it would be a hell of a lot easier if the reunion never happened.
“You sure you’re okay?” Erin asked, and he realized he’d let the silence between them linger a little too long.
He nodded, hoping she didn’t see through the lie.
Gavin hadn’t told Oliver about his mother’s release from the psychiatric hospital.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to do so all week, but every time he opened his mouth to say it, he couldn’t do it.
Probably because his emotions were all over the fucking scale and he didn’t know what to say.
As for Erin, well…he’d never said anything to her about his past or his mother other than she was gone forever, letting her assume his mom was dead.
Since the subject of his mother came up so infrequently, it really hadn’t been an issue.
Until now.
“I’m sure. Just tired.”
The two of them walked to the living room. Erin claimed her usual spot on the couch she shared with Oliver, while Gavin took the recliner. “Since you’re not in a chatty mood, I think we should talk about me. Because as you know, everything about me is fascinating.”
Gavin laughed, perfectly aware of why Oliver was so head over heels in love with her.
Erin was genuinely fun to be with. She’d taken to calling him her best gay friend, while Oliver was her best boyfriend, and Layla, her best cousin friend.
Erin liked to tease them, saying that she had so many best friends because she was, in her own words, “a goddamned national treasure.”
And because she wasn’t wrong, he, Oliver, and Layla always let the joke stand.
“Okay, so let’s dive in here,” he said. “What part of the Erin saga haven’t we covered tonight, because I can’t imagine there’s much we’ve missed? You barely came up for air at dinner.”
Erin had entertained him and Oliver at dinner with a recounting of her rather exciting workday in the E.R.
Apparently three men had all been transported to the hospital, bloodied and bruised after an argument over a football game turned violent.
The EMTs who’d responded to the call had erroneously believed the fight to be over, so when it erupted again in the waiting room, it had taken two doctors and three security guards to pull them all apart.
“The hunt for a roommate continues.”
“No luck?”
She shook her head. “I’ve met with three women in the last week, and the fact that every single one of them sounded a different alarm makes me think I’m probably going to have to take Jordan back once she gets sick of her new boyfriend.”
“What sort of alarms?”
“One woman asked about the hot water situation. Said she likes to take two forty-five-minute showers a day. What the hell could she do in a shower for an hour and half every day?”
Gavin wiggled his eyebrows. “I could probably come up with a list for you. How kinky do you want me to make it?”
“Gross. Pervert.” She threw one of the throw pillows from the couch at him. He caught it midair and placed it behind his head.
“Another one wanted to know what size clothes and shoes I wore because she just loves sharing clothes with girlfriends. Given the fact she showed up in mom jeans and an ancient, stained hoodie, I’m pretty sure that sharing means she plans to invade my wardrobe because hers is crap.
And the last one asked if I would be annoyed if she practiced her clarinet every night.
Not to be rude, but who still plays the clarinet after ninth grade band class? ”
Gavin chuckled. “Maybe you could take up the flute and the two of you could march around the pub. Give us a parade. Everyone loves parades,” he said sarcastically.
“Everyone does not love parades,” she retorted.
“Parade?” Oliver asked, clearly missing every part of their conversation, except the last word.
“Are you talking about the Christmas one? Because if so, I’m in.
I love parades.” He picked up the beer Gavin had carried in for him as he sank down next to her, confused when she and Gavin cracked up laughing.
“I stand corrected,” Gavin said, once he managed to pull himself together. “Ollie loves parades.”
Oliver rolled his eyes, figuring out he was the butt of some joke, but he didn’t care enough to find out what it was. Instead, he reached for the remote and fired up the movie.
They’d decided to watch Christmas movies every Friday night in December, and tonight’s selection had been Gavin’s choice, Die Hard, which he proclaimed was the greatest Christmas movie ever made.
In honor of the viewing, he’d changed into the Nakatomi Plaza 1988 Christmas Party T-shirt Erin and Oliver had bought him last year for Christmas.
“Everybody ready?” Oliver asked.
Erin and Gavin nodded, and Oliver turned the lights off as they settled in to watch.