Chapter 5 Scarlett #2
“No, thanks.”
He closed the door and twisted off the bottle’s cap, tipping the rim to his lips.
My breath hitched and I forced my eyes away from his handsome face. I didn’t let myself study the way his shirt accentuated the breadth of his shoulders. Or how sexy it was to see him walk around in bare feet.
Too much ogling and I might forget that I didn’t trust Luke Rosen.
“Smells great in here. Have you eaten yet?”
I shook my head.
“Then I guess we can eat together for a change.”
Ugh. He was going to force me into the dining room again. “Sure.”
Luke took another long pull from his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. It was a mesmerizing thing, this man’s throat. Seriously, didn’t he have a flaw?
I turned away to hide the flush in my cheeks. A flaw, a flaw. I needed to think of a flaw to focus on if I was going to survive this dinner. Come on, Scarlett. Think of something.
Lightbulb!
He’d dated Presley. There, that was a flaw. Okay, not exactly. Really, it just showed his good taste. But my sister and I had traded enough men. Well, one, but Jeremiah had been a doozy so I wasn’t in a hurry to repeat that mistake.
Luke had dated Presley. Therefore, he was off-limits. Plus, he was the enemy. Two very substantial facts to focus on instead of his handsome face.
I grabbed a serving spoon from a drawer.
“What would you like to drink?” Luke asked.
“Water is fine. I’ll get it,” I said, walking to the sink to fill a glass. When I came back, he’d dished my plate.
It was very domestic. Easy. Then he took another drink of his beer and I found that bob of his throat again.
My mouth watered.
He looked up, beyond the amber bottle, and for the briefest of seconds, I could have sworn his eyes darkened with desire. But he was gone before I could analyze the look, taking both of our plates out of the kitchen.
And straight into the dining room.
It was just a room. The only room I hated in this house.
I had no choice but to follow, my steps heavy and slow. The table was nice enough, a lighter color wood than the floors. The tall-backed chairs were classic with clean lines. But everything about the room made me edgy.
“How was your day?” he asked as I sat down.
“Okay.” My stomach twisted and I picked up my fork. “How was yours?”
He sighed. “Fine.”
The days when Luke came home and immediately went for a beer, combined with a fine, meant he’d had a long day. But the details were something he didn’t share, maybe couldn’t share, so I didn’t ask.
Luke lifted his fork, diving into the pasta. He put the first bite in his mouth, flinching and reaching for his beer as he sucked in some air. “Ah. Hot.”
I froze, holding my breath, as I stared, unblinking, across the table.
He chewed openmouthed, swallowing his bite with a gulp of his drink. When he looked my way, his eyebrows came together.
Probably because the color had drained from my face.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“I should have warned you it was hot.”
“I saw it steaming. I was the idiot who ate it.”
“Right.” I gulped, then focused on my plate.
Trauma and fear were horrible dinner companions. They’d stolen my appetite.
“Scarlett, it’s not your fault.”
“I know.” And I did. It wasn’t my fault he’d burned his tongue. But too many times I’d watched my mother get punished for the same thing. It hadn’t been her fault either.
“Hey.” Luke’s gentle voice made me look up. His eyes, so kind and concerned, were waiting, begging for an explanation.
And for the first time, I didn’t want to shut him out.
“Did Presley ever tell you about our childhood?”
“No.”
That wasn’t a surprise. I doubted she’d told many people about our upbringing. Habits and all. “The table makes me nervous.”
“The table.”
I nodded. “My father’s favorite place to explode was at the dinner table. If he burned his tongue on something my mother cooked and she hadn’t warned him, hell, even if she had warned him, he’d use it as an excuse to blow.”
Luke set down his fork, leaning his elbows on the table. “Define explode.”
“Do you really need a definition?”
His jaw clenched. “I had no idea.”
“It’s not exactly something that makes great conversation.”
“Because we have so many great conversations,” he deadpanned.
I laughed. “True.”
“How about we have one now?” Before I could object, he held up a hand. “You tell me whatever you want. Leave out whatever you don’t.”
Oh, he was good. Those eyes. That honest face. They shattered my resolve.
“My father is a monster disguised as the nice neighbor next door. From the outside, we were the perfect family. Picnics on Saturdays. Church on Sundays. Girls with straight As and parents who loved them so much, they kept them close. But on the inside, our home was a cesspool of fear and rage.”
“Your father hit you.”
“He beat us.”
There was a difference between those who hit and those who beat. Physical blows weren’t as powerful unless you paired them with mental torture too.
“My mother took the brunt of it. He’d punch her when she didn’t cook something he liked. He’d rape her when she waved at the man who lived next door on her way to the mailbox. And for us . . . he demanded perfection.”
Tension radiated off of Luke, rolling over the table in waves. But it was a different kind of tension, the protective kind. Something I’d only ever felt from my sister. And from Jeremiah.
“When he exploded, it was always physical. He wouldn’t scream or yell. It was just this terrifying, silent rage. He’d hit me or Presley in the arm or kick us in the shin because we missed a word on a spelling test. Mom didn’t work so he’d crack her in the face.”
Luke flinched and the faint sound of molar grinding against molar caught my ear.
“For us, with school, he’d keep the bruises where we could cover them with pants or sleeves.
He’d drag us around by our hair. Which is probably why Presley cut hers short.
So no one would be able to do that to her again.
If we complained about eating broccoli, he’d send us to bed hungry.
If we cried, he’d ‘give us something to cry about.’” I rolled my eyes with the air quotes.
It felt good to roll my eyes, something I wouldn’t have dared in my father’s presence.
“And your mother didn’t stop him?”
“She loves him.”
“She just let it happen?” From the little he’d spoken to me about his mother, it was clear he’d adored her. And she him. Luke’s sense of right and wrong was so noble. So definite. My mother wasn’t someone I expected him to understand.
“It’s a sickness,” I said. “Presley hated her for it. But I don’t.
She’ll always cower before him because she doesn’t know any better.
Because in between the bad days, he worships her.
He makes her feel like she’s his entire world and without her, he’d die.
He’s warped her mind. She doesn’t work. She doesn’t have friends.
He is her entire world and it’s his game.
One that he never lost until Presley left. ”
“When was that?”
“Ten years ago. After we turned eighteen.”
Luke nodded but otherwise sat motionless, hanging on my every sentence. Now that the words were shaking loose, I couldn’t seem to get them to stop.
“I haven’t told many people about this. It’s humiliating,” I confessed as my eyes blurred. “Much like my mother, I don’t have friends.”
“Scarlett, you don’t have to—”
“No.” I shook my head and blinked the tears away. “It actually feels good. I have very little control over my life. But keeping my secrets . . . no one can reach into my mind and take them. What I tell people, what I give to them, is my decision.”
Understanding washed over Luke’s face. Staying quiet about what I’d seen at the Warrior clubhouse wasn’t just to protect my life. It was also me grasping for a shred of control when otherwise, I was at the world’s mercy.
I was trapped here. Before that, I’d been trapped in Ashton. And before that, I’d been trapped in suburban Chicago.
“Presley got out,” I said. “I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a fool,” I whispered. “After graduation, Dad was as bad as ever, maybe because we were eighteen and we were old enough to leave. He wouldn’t allow Presley or me to get summer jobs.
He didn’t want us to have any money. One day, he came home from work with applications to the community college and told us to fill them out.
That he’d pay for our classes and afterward, he’d find jobs for us at his company.
Everything was planned. Presley joked that he’d find our husbands before too long. ”
Luke leaned his elbows on the table, the meal forgotten.
“Presley wanted out. So did I. And Jeremiah was going to help us because he loved me.”
Luke nodded, like he’d heard this part before. After Jeremiah died, Presley had probably told Luke how Jeremiah and I had known each other from Chicago.
“Jeremiah was my high school boyfriend,” I said.
“My secret. My parents never knew about him, or maybe my mother did, but she never let on. He knew what life was like at our home and he wanted to help us get out. Presley and I scraped together money from babysitting and he covered the rest to buy us all an old junker to drive off into the sunset.”
“But you didn’t go.”
“No.” I dropped my gaze to the table. “Almost.”
Luke didn’t utter a word as I thought about that night. About the mistake I’d regret forever. Maybe if I had been brave, maybe if I’d just gone with Presley, Jeremiah would still be alive. Maybe none of this would ever have happened.
I couldn’t blame him entirely for his death. Part of it had been on me too.
“Presley had her sights set on Montana. And I wanted California. I wanted to live beside the ocean, to fall asleep to the sound of the waves and be a world away from my father. Jeremiah was going to come with me. We’d drop Presley off in Montana, then continue on our way. But . . .”
“Your father found out.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Your mother?”