CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CONNECTICUT, PRESENT DAY
While Chris had been a little more on the skeptical side, Barbara—Stormy's mother—welcomed me into her home with arms wide, wide open. The moment I stepped into her kitchen, smelling cookies and fresh bread and apple pie, she wrapped me in a hug that made my heart weep and my lungs heave with an excruciatingly forlorn sigh.
God, how I missed my mother, and Barbara reminded me of her instantly. Full of love and laughter and acceptance, not at all batting a lash at my long hair or the webbed tattoos encasing my exposed hands and forearms. I supposed that probably had something to do with the type of guy she'd expect her body-piercer daughter to bring home to meet the parents. But it touched me all the same, and I knew immediately that I'd hit the jackpot when I walked through that front door.
“God, Stormy, when was the last time you brought a boy home?” Barbara asked, as if I wasn’t a man staring directly toward middle age. “It's been forever.”
Stormy's cheeks reddened beneath the pleasant, warm lighting as her eyes volleyed quickly toward me. “Um, I—”
“Billy, wasn't it?” Chris chimed in, a sour distaste forming the refreshed scowl on his face. He shook his head. “That guy was such a—”
“Chris.” Barbara didn't look at all pleased. “We're not going to talk about that. We don't talk about that.”
“You brought it up,” he pointed out.
“It was a rhetorical question,” she fired back, raising her brows and daring him with a look to continue.
He didn't.
She sucked in a breath and turned back to her daughter, satisfied. “I'm so glad that you two could make it for Thanksgiving. You must be pretty special for Stormy to want you here, Charlie,” she said. “And I hope you like cookies ‘cause”—she swept a gesture across the island, littered with full baking sheets—“I made a lot.”
A memory came forward, one I had forgotten I'd even had until this moment. Mom baking cookies for Christmas. Rolling out the dough on the dining room table. Dumping out a big Tupperware of cookie cutters. Holding my hand as we pressed each cutter into the sticky, flattened sheet. The kitchen filling with the warm, sweet scent of sugar cookies baking, then us decorating them once they were cooled. I could remember the way they'd tasted and how much we'd enjoyed making them.
My lungs deflated, and my heart ached, but I looked up at Stormy's mother and offered a genuine smile. “I love cookies.”
***
Dinner was a couple of delivered pizzas. I was surprisingly grateful for that. It had been way too long since I'd eaten Connecticut pizza, which was arguably better than that in the Salem area. Or maybe it was just that it tasted like home and things I missed, but could never have again.
“So, Stormy, how're things at the office?” Chris asked, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin after polishing off another slice. “Poke any interesting holes in anyone lately?”
The woman at my side grinned around a bite of pepperoni pizza and swallowed. “Things are good. Can't say any holes are interesting at this point, but …” Then, she sat higher in her seat, excitedly raising her brows. “Actually, there was this guy who came in, wanting a set of dermals in the shape of Cassiopeia. You know, the constellation? Apparently, that's the name of his daughter. And I thought it was really sweet.”
I cocked my head, envisioning the design done in sparkling jewels against someone's skin. “That is ni—”
“What are dermals?” Barbara asked.
Stormy seemed eager to explain as she leaned forward in her chair, planting her elbows on the table. “I'll spare you the gory details. But basically, it's a piercing that's implanted beneath the surface of the skin. It's anchored in by a piece of metal that looks like a foot, and—”
Barbara looked absolutely disgusted, her nose scrunching and her mouth frowning. “ Anchored in ?”
“Well, what I do is punch a little hole into the skin and slip the foot under the skin. The skin then heals around it, growing through the little holes in the metal to—”
“Oh God.” Barbara waved her hands frantically. “Nope. I don't want to know any more.”
Stormy wilted at my side, her shoulders slumping. Her parents might not have noticed the subtle changes in her demeanor, but I did. “I mean, you asked …”
“I don't know how you can do that for a living,” her mother went on, shaking her head and pushing her plate away. “I'll never understand how you can inflict pain on someone in exchange for money. I mean, it's messed up enough to want that done to yourself, but to be the one to do it? I'll never understand.”
Stormy pressed her lips shut, clamming up instead of defending herself. My gaze swept from her—now picking at a slice of pepperoni, peeling its edges off the cheese with the tip of her black fingernail—to her mother, who was lifting her glass of water to her lips with a shake of her head.
I understood that it was a common thing for parents to disapprove of the choices their kids made, and I understood that Barbara’s chastising had come from her heart, only wanting what was best for her daughter—even if the execution had been brash and uncalled for.
But Stormy had also told me the reasons why she’d left Connecticut. That not only had her youth been misguided, but her parents hadn’t given her the acceptance she needed to thrive in their environment. It lit a match beneath my skin’s surface to watch her—a strong, confident, and outspoken woman—transform into an ashamed and withered version of herself in the presence of her parents. Like she’d never stopped being that girl, wishing for their approval—and why shouldn’t she have it? She’d made a name for herself. She’d crawled out of the filthy hole of addiction and God knew what else and found the light of day, and her mother had the gall to criticize?
Without another thought, I opened my mouth. “When I was eight years old, my brother’s best friend cornered me in the school bathroom. He threw my backpack into the urinal and then proceeded to piss all over it. He was eleven years old, old enough to know better, and it wasn’t even the first time he’d done something like that. Even though my mom never knew it was he who did all this messed-up shit to me, she knew I was horribly bullied for simply being myself. It was around that point when she pulled me out of school and taught me herself.”
I took a moment to breathe, offering a pause to my story to find that every pair of eyes around the table was now on me. The realization that I was center stage and speaking my mind to an audience of people I barely knew—with the exception of Stormy—sent my heart off at a gallop. But I wasn’t going to back down now, not when I was proving a point for her, so I trudged onward.
“My mom always encouraged me to be who I was, no matter what that might be. Even if it wasn’t what she envisioned, which I’m sure it never was. Now, my parents have both been dead for a long time, but I’d like to think that, if they were still alive, they’d be proud of me for whatever the hell it was I was doing with my life. Because at least I’m doing something to make an honest living.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Stormy’s sidelong glance and the gentle lift to one side of her mouth. Her palm slid over my thigh, where she found my hand and her fingers interlocked with mine.
“And what is it that you do?” Chris asked in a monotone.
“I’m the caretaker at a cemetery just outside of Salem,” I replied, holding my head high.
“Do you think that’s what your parents would’ve wanted for you?” he asked without malice, only genuine curiosity.
I lifted and dropped one shoulder in a shrug. “Frankly, sir, I don’t think it matters either way. A parent’s job is only to make sure that kid becomes a good person, not to dictate every one of their life’s decisions.”
Chris folded his hands on the table and tipped his head with intrigue. “Do you think you’re a good person?”
“Dad! Seriously?”
“What?” Her father shrugged. “It's an honest question.”
Stormy's hand tightened around mine, her nails piercing my flesh. I didn't flinch at the sharp dose of pain. Her father was challenging me, sizing me up. He wanted to know if his daughter's taste in men had truly changed all that much in the past fifteen years. Could I blame him? Wouldn't I have done the same thing if I had a daughter with a history of self-destruction? It didn't matter that she was in her mid-thirties. It didn't matter that she had been on her own for over a decade. They would always be her parents, she would always be their child, and they would always be concerned for her well-being. I couldn't fault them for that any more than I could honestly say I was a good person.
“I don't know,” I replied, holding his firm gaze.
His brow lowered with suspicion. “You don't know?”
Stormy's grip loosened. Her thumb stroked lightly over mine, and I could almost feel that featherlight touch through the barrage of reasons why I didn't think I was a truly good person at all. No, I wanted to be. I wanted to believe I was. But want wasn't the same as truly being .
A good man didn’t abandon his older brother.A good man didn’t have blood on his hands. But I did. I had walked away. I had stolen a life. I’d the choice to do things differently, but I hadn't. And knowing I'd been capable of it at all only told me I could do it again. So, how was I supposed to look into this man's eyes and tell him I was worthy of his blessing?
Fuck, why am I even here?
“No,” I replied, my voice rough like sandpaper and my heart sinking like an anchor to my gut. “I don't know.”
“Hmm.” Chris raised his folded hands, rubbing the side of his finger against his bottom lip. “Well, would you like to know what I think?”
I wasn't sure that I did, but I lifted my chin anyway. Ready to listen to this man's assessment of my character after knowing me for a total of three hours.
“I—”
“You know what? This is stupid,” Stormy interrupted in a tight, quavering voice, removing her hand from mine and pushing away from the table. “I thought it'd be a good idea to bring Charlie to meet you guys. I thought you'd like to see that I had finally, for once in my life, found a decent guy who actually likes being with me and treats me well and cooks and cleans and doesn't waste his time getting fucking high. But I guess I was wrong.”
She stood and was already heading for the dining room doorway when her father spoke up. “Stormy, if you'd let me finish—”
“Dad, why did you even have to start ?” She spun on her heel to face him. “You were already giving him the third degree before he even said anything to you. And, Mom,” she went on, turning to face her stunned mother, whose eyes were misting with tears and her mouth parted with shock and despair, “all Charlie was saying was, maybe it'd be nice to support me once in a while. Like, maybe it'd be nice to just … be happy that I'm happy. You know? Would that kill either of you?” She left the room then, her heavy platform boots clomping loudly against the floorboards as she moved through the living room and toward the front door.
God, what the hell is happening?
My gaze fell to the half-eaten slice of pizza on my plate as I remembered what Stormy had said about her parents not that long ago. About how she loved them dearly but needed the distance to keep the peace. I understood that now. How quickly it had all unfolded … was that my fault? Yes, maybe, but also, no. Their wounds ran deeper than my hurried attempt to defend her career.
I lifted my head to look from her mother to her father, both seeming troubled and lost. How can they not thank God every fucking day that their daughter hadn't faced the same fate as her friend, buried across the street?
My teeth dragged over my bottom lip as I exhaled deeply and shook my head. People never learned. They never knew what they had until it was gone—it was a common phrase for a reason—and nothing I could say was going to change that. Except …
“I might not know if I'm a good man,” I said, slowly rising from my chair. Her parents both startled at the sound of my voice and looked at me with wide-eyed acknowledgment. “But I do know that she's the greatest woman I've ever known. God smiled at me for maybe the first time in my life when He sent her my way. And I know you think it's your job to want better for her, but …” I released my breath and pushed the chair back in, hardly able to understand how I was capable of speaking to them in this way, defending her without a hint of weakness when I'd never been capable of defending myself. “I pray every single day that she never agrees, even though she probably should. Because if anything could convince me that I'm a good man, it's knowing that she, for some reason, thinks that I am.”
I didn't wait for them to speak as I turned and went in search of Stormy. Hardly able to hear my footsteps over the thundering of my heart.
***
She was on the darkened porch, leaning against a wooden post. Her breath came out in short, angry puffs of silver, fading into the cold night.
“Are you all right?” I asked, quietly closing the door behind me.
“Well, I’d fuckin’ kill for a smoke, but …” She sighed and rubbed her hands vigorously over her exposed forearms. “Yeah. Well, I mean, I will be, eventually. I just …” Her sorrowful gaze swung toward mine. “I'm sorry.”
Taken aback, I narrowed my gaze while I undid the buttons of my shirt. “The hell are you sorry for?”
Her weak smile didn't quite touch her eyes as she huffed a bitter laugh and thrust a hand toward the house. “For this . For telling you it'd be fine here. I mean, in fairness, it usually is. I don't always argue with my parents. But”—she released a long-winded sigh as I laid the shirt over her shoulders—“my sister is usually here with her kids, and the focus isn't on me, and my parents just freakin' love my brother-in-law. Which is a fucking joke, considering the dude has done major time and—”
“Your brother-in-law was in prison?” I hadn't expected that after the judgment her father had over me.
Stormy rolled her eyes and nodded. “Yeah. And that's …” Her eyes flitted to the cemetery across the street, now blanketed in darkness. “That's a whole other thing. But anyway, he's not a bad guy at all. I like him a lot. And it's because of him that my sister and nephew are even alive, so really, I owe him.”
There was so much I didn’t know about her family. In the past three minutes, she had unloaded a few facts that frayed with countless curiosities and questions. And it made me wonder. If she had told me so little about her family, just how little had they known about me? She had told me she loved her family, and I believed her. But she had also said her relationship was strained, and I was beginning to understand just how far that road traveled in both ways.
“Maybe you should talk to them,” I said, standing at her back and bringing my hands to her shoulders. Absentmindedly rubbing out the tension she held there while wishing I could call my own parents and tell them everything there was to know about her.
“You saw what happens when I try to talk to them.”
My mouth lifted in a smile. “I'm not sure I'd call that talking.”
“Excuse me. My mom asked a question, and I tried to explain before she cut me off and disrespected me and my job. Then, you cut in, which I did appreciate, and my father proceeded to disrespect you . So, forgive me for not wanting to go back in there and have a fucking heart-to-heart with them but—”
She was cut off by the door opening behind us, and we turned our heads to watch as her parents came outside to join us. Her mother in a thick sweater, her father, in a coat. They'd come more prepared to weather the night's chill, and that told me they'd likely come prepared in other ways as well.
“Stormy,” Chris said before clearing his throat. “We want to apologize.”
My heart suddenly felt lighter at the sincerity in her father's tone. Barbara stood closer to her husband and nodded in agreement.
“We're both sorry,” she said. “It's just always been like this with us. You know we love you—”
“I know,” Stormy replied quietly, dipping her chin to her chest. I held her shoulders tighter.
Barbara inhaled through her nose, the sound shaky, as if she might cry. “We've just never been great at communicating, and we've never been great at accepting that you've …”
She was quiet for a moment, as though struggling to find the words she wanted, when Chris added, “Grown up.”
“Yes,” Barbara said, nodding. “But we want to do better. We will do better.”
When it was clear her parents had nothing left to say, Stormy nodded and replied, “I mean, it's not like I can say I've been all that great at talking to you guys, so …”
“That's on us,” Chris said.
Stormy shrugged. “Honestly, it's probably on all of us.”
“Well then, let's all make a promise to try, okay?” Barbara said, her voice tight with determination and emotion.
Stormy sucked in a deep breath before nodding. “Okay.”
“And we want you to know that we are proud of you,” Chris added quickly, like he'd been waiting to say it.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Even if we don't completely understand—”
“Yeah. I know. You don't have to understand; it's fine.”
Chris reached out cautiously to touch his daughter's hand with his fingertips, almost like he didn't quite know how much was too much. Then, the two of them turned, ready to head back inside. Her mother opened the door, crossed the threshold, but her father hesitated.
“Oh, and, Charlie,” he said, meeting my eye. “I don't know what your story is. I hope you'll tell us one day. But for whatever it's worth, I think it takes a good man to stand up for the people he cares about. And I think your parents would've been really proud of you for that.”
***
We finished getting ready for bed in the guest room that had been Stormy’s childhood bedroom. For the first night in weeks, we didn’t conclude our day with sex. I didn’t initiate, and when she didn't either, I assumed she was just uncomfortable with the idea of her parents’ room being just down the hall.When we cuddled together, her back to my chest, she confirmed as much in different words.
“The last time I had a guy in this house, my mom walked in on us fucking in the bathroom,” she admitted quietly.
I didn't like the idea of her fucking someone else here. Hell, I didn't particularly like the idea of her fucking someone else at all.
“And if that wasn't bad enough, later that night, my dad walked in on us going at it again in here.”
My lips pressed together as a humiliating wave of jealousy steamrolled over me. I had shared a bed with this woman every single night for weeks, and I had been at least somewhat aware of her colorful and relatively promiscuous past. But hearing about it now made me feel disgusting on various levels. I tried to remember that I was a grown man with a past of my own, and it helped to calm the envy a little, but not enough to make me feel any less ashamed.
She must’ve felt my arm stiffen around her middle because she turned into my embrace, pressing her hands against my chest. The room was dark, but I could just make out the outline of her eyes staring up at me.
“I was an idiot back then. I had no respect for myself or my parents, and that guy, he wasn’t any better. I didn’t give a shit about anything other than forgetting about life, and I did whatever I could to get there, usually with drugs, but if I didn’t have drugs, sex and booze worked too.”
My throat worked hard to move around the hardened lump of emotion that had appeared out of nowhere. She reminded me so much of Luke. Almost too much. And sometimes, when she spoke like this, it felt like something—maybe someone—was trying to give me a message. Like maybe, just maybe, I had been put here on this planet to be here for her, the way I couldn’t be there for him.
“But I give a shit now,” she continued, her tone hardened and sincere. She tapped her finger against my chest, just above my hammering heart. “I give a shit about us . And I give a shit about what my parents think. I want them to know we’re the real thing and that I’m not just with you because … because your friend can hook you up with some good shit or whatever. And I want them to know that I am capable of respecting their house rules, even if I never did in the past. I care too much about you and us to use you as a way to rebel against them. And I just …” She released a breath, long and harsh, like she’d been holding it for a while. “I just wanted you to know that, in case you were wondering why—”
“You don’t need to explain anything to me,” I replied in a whisper, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I know, but at this point, you might expect that I’m just going to put out all the time.” She laughed awkwardly, dipping her chin to avoid my eyes in the dark.
God, is that what she thinks? Does she believe I’m only with her because of what her body can offer?
“Stormy, I am grateful for everything, but expect nothing. If I have given you the impression that I only want you for—”
“Oh Jesus, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I just …” She huffed with amusement and embarrassment. “I just didn’t want you to feel insulted that I’m just all, like, okay, kiss on the cheek, let’s spoon, good night. Because I seriously love our sex life, okay, and I’d really love to go at it right now, especially with that hot way you defended me today. But … I’m trying to do the right thing, so …”
I rested my palm against her cheek, stroking my thumb over her cheekbone. “I’m not here to get laid in your parents’ house,” I said quietly. “I’m here because I want to be with you. That’s all. And if you told me you never ever wanted to have sex with me again—”
“Which would never happen.”
I snorted. “But if you did , it wouldn’t matter. How I feel for you runs deeper than that. I—”
“Are you in love with me?” she asked, a touch of hope pushing her words along a breathy whisper.
The question knocked the wind from my lungs as I searched for that green gaze in the darkness. My heart was frantic, wild, unable to find a steady rhythm as it tried to burst through my bones and flesh to rest against hers. And I didn’t want to lie to her despite all the fear I held in being honest, so the only word I could manage was a strained, whispered, “Yes.”
She released a gust of breath that sounded almost like a laugh as she leaned into me and pressed her forehead to my shoulder.
“Wow,” she muttered, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear. “Nobody has ever said that to me before.”
I had thought I loved Amanda, and I had been absolutely certain that I loved Jersey, and I supposed that, at the time, maybe I had. Maybe I had loved them to whatever capacity my younger self could. But I knew for a fact that I'd never felt like this—God, not even close.
I wouldn't have come back here, to Connecticut, for anyone else. I could've only done that for Stormy. Because she didn't run, and for her, I had come back.
Luke should meet her.
My cheek rested against the top of Stormy's head as I worried my bottom lip, thinking about him. Thinking about taking some time this weekend and seeing if I could drive up to Wayward Correctional Facility to visit my brother for the first time in five years.
“Charlie.”
Startled from thoughts about Luke, I lifted my cheek from her head, and she looked up to find my eyes in the dark.
“Yeah?”
Her hand curled around the back of my neck, her fingertips pushing into the hair at my nape. She pulled my lips toward hers, then kissed me gently, tender and sweet. Her breath stuttered, and I realized she was crying. I smoothed those tears away and brushed the hair from her eyes as she pressed what seemed like a hundred kisses to my lips, cheek, and jaw before touching her forehead to mine.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I just wanted to say that I'm in love with you too.”
“Wow,” I whispered into the dark. “Nobody has ever said that to me before … and meant it.”
Giddiness grabbed ahold of us both as we laughed, nearing hysterics, surrounded by pillows and blankets and the walls that had seen too much of her youth. But now, they’d seen something else—a rebirth. The declaration of her love for me and mine for her. And we kissed and hugged and came dangerously close to breaking her parents’ house rules.
With grins on our faces, she turned in my arms and once again pressed her back to my chest. She threaded her fingers between mine and brought my hand to her mouth, where she kissed my knuckles and sighed.
“I’m happy I could be your first,” she said, her elation now fogged by sleep.
I pressed a single kiss to her shoulder and whispered back, “I’m even happier to be your last.”