Chapter 8
Max
After so many years, I can’t believe Drake is standing in my living room.
When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about what it would be like to have my own place.
What type of home I’d have. Would I have a family?
Was I capable of loving someone? Would I find her?
The girl I pinky promised to marry. When I’d wander the streets, I always looked for Drake until I finally stopped searching. I never imagined I’d see him again.
After so many foster siblings, he was the only one I ever truly called a brother. Even now, standing here as adults, he’s still my brother. Nothing about that has changed.
Drake is standing in front of me, just as badass as ever.
Hands shoved into his denim jeans, a fitted t-shirt, and a black leather jacket.
He always had a pack of cigarettes that he got from his older friends.
I once asked if I could have a hit. He scolded me for it.
Still gives that look to anyone who crosses his path—the kind that makes strangers step aside.
Those who know him know it’s just his face.
The face you have to have during hard times, or you’ll get walked all over.
“Damn, brother, this is a nice pad you got here.” He whistles, scrutinizing the place. “I’m proud of you, little bro.”
The thumping in my chest swells with pride. “Thank you, man. Make yourself at home. I’ll go get you a beer.”
Drake sits while I fetch a Corona from the fridge. Rainey saunters down the stairs, her footsteps making themselves known.
“Hi, Sunny.”
“Hey, you, I’m glad you made it,” she tells him.
Her cheeks are still freshly flushed, and her hair is damp when I walk in, and I know she’s timid, knowing that Drake knows what we were up to when he called. I hand him the beer and sit on the loveseat where Rainey is already sitting.
When we walked into the private rooms in the arena, I didn’t have much time to talk to Drake because everyone was in the room, ready to celebrate my victory. I didn’t want them all to eavesdrop on our conversations. We had a lot to talk about.
Carlos had planned for us all to meet at a restaurant or his place to party, but all I wanted to do was come home to my Sunshine. I told him we’d have to celebrate another time.
“Of course, now that I’ve found you two, you’ll never get rid of me.” The corners of his lips quirk into a light smile.
“Good. You’re stuck with us now, Drake,” Rainey exclaims. “The pizza should be here shortly. I also ordered us some wings.” She winks playfully at him.
“Did you get the habanero, Sunny?”
“You bet.”
Ahh, I’d forgotten he was always the one who loved spicy food.
We eat comfortably when the chicken arrives and watch fight replays. We haven’t spoken much about what we have been up to all these years. It hasn’t been the right time with everything going on.
“So, how many times have you two lost touch through the years?” Drake asks me, licking the bone clean.
Dabbing my face with a napkin, I say, “Seven years later, after seeing her at the high school, I ran into her in Tahoe. We spent the summer together.” I sigh and squeeze Rainey’s hand. “Then I had to leave her.”
“Why?” Drake cuts in.
“So many different reasons. One, I was jobless and homeless.”
Drake’s eyes soften.
“And second, she didn’t know who I was, like she didn’t remember the past. Her father didn’t make it easy. He threatened me for the second time. He didn’t want Rainey to know that she was adopted. Rowan was afraid she would remember me.”
Drake’s jaw tightened. “Threatened?” he seethes.
He’s still the same protective ass he was back then.
I tell him everything that happened from start to finish with Rainey and me.
I also tell him about Andrew, who’s been M.I.A.
since Rowan has been hiding. From what I heard last, Daniel is searching for him again.
Who knows what he did or whether he owes him more money?
“This is all fucked up. I can’t believe this happened to you both.” Drake takes another bite of his pizza, swallows, and then says, “Your adoptive parents are assholes. Sure, they kept you safe, but they went too far.”
Rainey nods, the color draining from her face as she picks invisible lint off her shirt.
This conversation is heavy for her. I probably should have waited for her to be far from earshot when I filled Drake in.
I avert the conversation by asking a question I had wondered about for so many years. “What happened to you that night?”
Drake sets the paper plate on the coffee table.
“I lived on the streets for a couple of months. I showered at truck stops and washed my clothes at laundromats. I had saved enough money for food. The streets are a tough place for anyone, especially kids. There were a couple of times I almost got robbed.” He laughs.
“I beat the shit out of them. Then some guy came up to me and said every Saturday night around eleven, they have fights at the park. It’s low-key.
I started fighting for money. Until I got a job at a restaurant.
I worked there until I turned eighteen, then enlisted in the military. ”
I wonder if this was the Underground fights or something else? I’ll leave that question for next time. “What happened to the girl you were dating?” Drake was so fucking in love with her. Every time she was around, he had hearts in his eyes.
He runs his fingers through his hair. A broken laugh vibrates in the room. “We stayed together for a long time. I lived in a small apartment shack that a woman rented to me. It was home, and I would take Lyn to my place. It was a dump, but she was fine with it. We talked about a future together.”
I remember now her name was Lindsey, but he called her Lyn.
Drake’s jaw tightens. “When I enlisted, I told her when I’d get back, I wanted to marry her.
I was gone for a year. I called her when I could.
I would write to her all the damn time. Not once did I receive a letter from her.
When I had two months off, I went looking for her.
I thought something had happened to her, but no, I found her in the arms of another man.
” He laughs again. “Engaged. Fucking engaged to another man. We had been together for three years, and that’s all it took—me being gone for a year for her to fall in love and marry. ”
Rainey gasps. “I’m so sorry, Drake. God, what a bitch.”
I’m speechless myself.
We change the topic. He keeps telling us military stories with his buddies, which makes us laugh.
It’s past midnight. Rainey yawns and takes her leave for bed. Drake and I stay up talking and drinking.
“You know, when I got my shit together, I came looking for you to take you with me,” Drake admits.
The thought of him even thinking of looking for me to take me with him makes my heart expand. Not even my dad came to get me out of the mess he made.
“I didn’t remember your last name. I went to Mrs. Sara’s house to see if she could give me your last name, but she was gone. Someone else lived there.”
“I appreciate it. It means a lot, brother.”
“Hell, I even went to find a social worker who could give me information about you.” He takes a Corona, twists the top, then squeezes a slice of lime into it with a dash of salt. He shakes his head. “Fucking dumbasses wouldn’t give me any info about your whereabouts.”
I mirror him, twisting the cap off my Corona before squeezing a wedge of lime into the bottle’s neck and rimming it with salt. “Don’t work yourself up about it. Shit was supposed to happen this way.”
“Maybe, man.” His shoulder relaxes as if the weight he’s carried dissolves.
Our conversation meanders through the years we’ve missed.
We laugh and joke about the hard times that glued and shaped our lives into what they are now.
Drake’s stories paint a picture of a life of struggle and hardship.
He’s never told me why he ended up in foster care.
I do remember asking when I told him small snippets of why I was abandoned, but he’s never shared his past, and I never asked again.
I always figured he would tell me when he was ready.
Rainey
“Hello?” I hold the phone to my shoulder while packing my shit in plastic containers at Max’s. I plan to take all my old belongings home, the ones he has carried with him all these years when I was in the foster home.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Collins?” a husky voice asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m Fred Simpson with Simpson’s Law Firm.”
I scrunch my nose. What the fuck?
“Umm, okay?”
“Your mother, Jenna Collins, left a letter for you. She was very specific about the terms of when to deliver this envelope to you and only to you. I was not allowed to share this with Mr. Collins.”
Wait. What?
“She left a letter for me? Rainey or my sister?”
“Yes, ma’am, it’s for you. Rainey.”
“When did she give this to you?”
“She was in her final moments. Jenna asked me to come when she was alone.” He clears his throat. “Jenna said it was urgent, but it had to be given to you a little after her passing. I apologize. It slipped, and we completely forgot.”
I grab the pen on top of the dresser, jot down the address, and tell him I will head down to his office when I get a chance, then set the phone down.
What could the woman who kept so many secrets have to say?
More secrets. It’s always more secrets with that woman.
Why couldn’t she give it to me in person before her passing?
Because she was a coward. Or because she loved me.
I still don’t know which. Jenna Collins is a mystery.
“Rain?” Max’s husky voice startles me, causing me to leap onto the bed. He laughs. “What’s going on? Why are you getting spooked?”
My damn heart is going a mile a minute. Holy shit. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.” My hand goes to my chest. “Ay, mi corazón.”
“I called your name like three times.” He rubs his palm on my chest, soothing my thumping heart. “Where’s that head of yours, hmm?”
“Oh, um…Well, I received a call—”