Chapter 11 #2
I think about that little house with the garden in the backyard and the outdated but cozy kitchen.
She used to bake with me there, when I was little, teaching me how to crack eggs and use measuring cups.
Sometimes those memories bring warmth—other times they fill my chest with a deep, breath-stealing ache.
I snuggle in closer to Lawson, not wanting to give in to the pain threatening on the periphery.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his chest. “It wasn’t always stable, but it’s not like I was abused or something. Some kids have it so much worse.”
I notice it immediately—the change that comes over him. He doesn’t stop rubbing his fingers over my tattoo, doesn’t tense up, but there’s something different in the way he’s breathing, something that tells me that what I just said affected him.
He never talks about his parents, I realize suddenly. Lawson isn’t the most talkative guy to begin with, but he does open up with me sometimes—usually when we’re lying naked together like this. He talks about the bar, about his sister, his new nephew, his brothers. But never his parents.
I press another kiss to his chest, wondering if I should bring it up. To my surprise, he does it for me. “I had those kind of parents,” he says, voice low and flat.
I swallow, feeling nauseous suddenly. “The abusive ones?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even, knowing instinctively that if I show a lot of emotion or pity he’ll shut down.
He gives a jerky nod in response. “They were pieces of shit. Never around. Used drugs. Fucking sold drugs from our trailer, sometimes.” He swallowed. “Knocked us around.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, trying hard not to let tears flood my eyes. He sounds so flat talking about it, like he’s afraid to let any emotion out. “No kid should have to deal with that.”
He breathes in deep, his arms tightening around me for a second before he seems to force himself to relax. His voice sounds a lot more normal when he speaks. “It’s okay. I was lucky. I had my brothers.”
“You guys are close.”
He chuckles a little. “Understatement. We relied on each other when we were kids. Made sure we took care of Julianna.” There’s a pause. “Mac, especially. He was the oldest. Pretty much raised all of us.”
“You feel indebted to him,” I surmise, hearing it in his voice.
“I wouldn’t be here without him,” he says simply. “And we sure as fuck wouldn’t have the bar if it wasn’t for how hard he worked his ass off after dad kicked him out.”
"Your dad kicked him out?”
He’s silent for a long time. Just when I think he won’t respond, he clears his throat. “It was my fault.”
I jerk back, looking up at him. His eyes are locked on the ceiling, face expressionless. “How could it have been your fault? You just said your parents were assholes—”
“He was defending me. Mac. He always defended me.”
I feel sick. An image of a young Lawson, hiding behind his not much older brother comes to mind, and I want to hit something.
“Dad was awful to all of us, but it was worse with me.” He swallows. “I was a really quiet kid. Didn’t like to talk much at all. Had a hard time…I stuttered sometimes. Or got all tongue tied when I couldn’t get my thoughts out. Dad fucking hated that.”
Anger courses through me at the shame in his voice. No kid should be made to feel like that, especially about something they can’t control.
“I mostly grew out of the stutter by the time my teens hit, but I still didn’t like talking much. And talking to my dad just totally set me off, made me clam up just like when I was a kid.”
Of course that’s what happened. It sounds like his dad was basically terrorizing him about his speech since he was a kid. Who wouldn’t clam up around that bullshit?
“Anyhow,” he continues. “I was about fourteen and Dad was going off on me. Kept getting in my face.” I catch a sly smirk tilt Lawson’s lips. “I told him to fuck off—and I didn’t stutter once.”
“Good for you.”
He shrugs. “Pissed him off pretty good. And God knows he was probably high at the time. He was wailing on me and wouldn’t stop.”
I hate the way he says it, so casual and flat, like getting beat by your father was a normal occurrence.
“So Mac got in between us, knocked him on his ass.” Another shrug. “They kicked him out after that.”
“So you lost the one person who protected you.”
He shrugs again. “I still had the twins. And they got big faster than I did—Dad wasn’t so eager to mess with any of us once they both had a few inches on them.”
“Because he was a fucking coward,” I snarl.
Lawson chuckles and looks down at me. “Feeling protective of little old me, Nova?”
“I’d beat the shit out of him if he was here right now.”
He laughs louder now and leans down to kiss the tip of my nose.
“My little spitfire.” When I don’t relax, he kisses me again.
“Really. It wasn’t too bad. So long as I had Jules and my brothers, we made it work.
And then my folks took off to God knows where—so you’ll have to take a rain check on that ass-kicking—and we were able to get Jules out of there.
Mac got the bar and we all helped him out. We did okay.”
“You did better than okay,” I insist. “Way better. You should be proud of yourselves.”
He doesn’t meet my gaze and grumbles something non-committal. I can’t tell if he’s embarrassed—or if he’s disagreeing with me.
“Will you tell me more about them?” I ask, not wanting him to shut down. “Your siblings?”
He releases a long, raspy breath, his body relaxing slowly. “Yeah,” he says, voice a rumble. “I’ll tell you about them.”
And he does. He tells me about Sawyer’s craft beer operation, how it’s starting to get national attention.
He tells me about Julianna falling for his best friend, Nick and how pissed he was, but how he can now admit to being relieved his sister has someone like that to take care of her.
He tells me about Jonah meeting Ellie and Lucas, and how much they’ve all taken to being uncles.
He doesn’t say much about Mac, but I guess he already said it all—his older brother raised him, stood in between him and his dad’s fists, and then used the bar to provide a way for them all to make a better life.
“I’m glad you have that,” I murmur into his skin once he’s trailed off into silence. “It doesn’t take away from what your parents did, but I’m glad you guys have each other.”
“You didn’t have that.” It’s not a question.
“Not really. Not after my grandma died.” It’s my turn to tense up.
Am I really going to risk telling him this?
I never talk about it with anyone, not even Linc.
But there’s something about this moment with Lawson in the dark, sharing our secrets, trusting each other with the big truths. It almost feels sacred.
So I take a deep breath and broach the subject of my biggest secret.
“When I was fourteen, my mom got married and left the country.”
He tenses under my cheek, but I don’t look up.
“Her new husband wanted to go, so she went. He didn’t want to bring a teenager, so they didn’t.”
“She left you?” I’ve never heard his voice sound so dangerous. “When you were still basically a kid?”
“I have an uncle,” I whisper and Lawson’s body goes rigid. “He’s um, not really a good guy. Pretty fucked up, actually.”
“Did he hurt you?” he rasps out and I realize his body is coiled tight, as if one word from me would send him off on a rampage against my uncle. Which would be a very bad idea.
“No,” I say quickly, rubbing his chest, trying to calm him down.
“It was just a shitty situation for a teenage girl to live in. The kind of people he had around.” I’m unable to stop my shudder.
“He does some illegal shit,” I admit, and it’s strange how much lighter it makes me feel to say it out loud.
“Tried to pressure me into doing it too.”
“Jesus,” Lawson mutters.
“It’s part of why I’m leaving,” I say softly.
“As soon as I turned eighteen, I moved out.” I remember how pissed he’d been when he found out, when I told him I wasn’t going to help him anymore.
I hadn’t been able to admit that part to Lawson—that he hadn’t just pressured me to do illegal things, he’d succeeded.
I always told myself I didn’t have a choice, but that did little to stop the guilt. I helped a bad man to sell drugs and God knows what else. My uncle hurts people, and being involved means I hurt them too. Even if I was only a scared, stupid teenager.
I can only hope the guilt might finally fade when I leave North Carolina behind.
“You’re leaving because of him?” Lawson’s voice is tight, like he’s fighting to control it, to control himself.
“Partly. He keeps trying to convince me to come back and work for him.” I don’t tell Lawson that those attempts are starting to feel a whole lot like threats.
“I think it will be good for me,” I say instead.
“To be away from him. To have a fresh start.” I laugh a little.
“Did you know that’s what my name means? ”
Some of the tension seems to leave him. “What?”
“Nova. It means new. That’s why my mom picked it—she said she always wanted me to be ready for new beginnings.” I shake my head. And here I was, only ever wishing for a life that stayed the same long enough for me to feel at home.
“It’s also an astronomy name,” he says, pulling me up so I’m draped over his body, my face hovering above his.
It’s the first time I’ve looked him in the eye since we started this strangely personal conversation, and I’m not quite sure how to read his expression.
As ever, he looks intense and dark. But there’s a softness there, too, one that I’ve never seen before.
“I know,” I tell him, closing my eyes when he runs his hand over the top of my head, smoothing my hair. He seems to like doing that—taming my wild mane of crazy waves out of my face. In fact, he touches my hair a lot.
“I looked it up,” he admits, sounding a little sheepish. “After we met. A nova is a star that appears as a sudden bright light in the sky.”
Our eyes meet in the darkness and my breath catches at the pull I feel. It’s like we’re connected, in some unexpected way I’ve never experienced before. It feels strange. Good. Overwhelming.
And scary as hell.
And from the look in his eye, I just know he’s thinking the exact same thing.
It’s a relief when he kisses me, when he pulls my body tight against his.
A relief to fall into the familiar motions of making each other feel good, to take a break from the overwhelming intensity I’d felt a moment before.
It’s good that he kissed me before we could acknowledge it, before we could let it grow into something bigger.
So why is there a part of me that feels disappointed?