The Foster Family, page 12
“He’ll sue. Press charges. He’ll end up coming out smelling like a rose. He always does. Just let it go.”
“He hurt you and you want to let it go.”
I licked my lips and pulled in a breath, gazing at his profile. “I came here with no one. No one back where I’d started to call and tell I’d arrived safely, no one to greet me at the airport. I came with a backpack of clothes and a suitcase of textbooks, and I managed for two years on a sad little paycheck and tiny apartments I shared with people I didn’t know. I ate Top Ramen and apples and peanut butter, and when Andrew popped into view, I made a stupid choice because I was so sick of being lonely.”
He nodded.
“Three people appeared to save me today, Malcolm, and maybe it’s pathetic to hear, pathetic to say, but that’s more than I’ve ever had at any one time in my life. Ever. Please, just let this go. He isn’t worth whatever you’re thinking right now.”
“Why does he hate you so much?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t really care.”
“Do you think he’s the one who broke into your place?”
I’d tried not to think about that, but now I shrugged. “Him. Maybe. Or some of his friends. I have no idea.” I dropped my head onto the backrest. “Does it even matter anymore? It was clearly aimed at me and there’s nothing left to destroy, so why chase it down? If there’s nothing else they can do to me, it’ll stop.”
“You think so?”
Honestly, I had no idea, because I couldn’t imagine I’d ever done anything to anyone to incur that kind of wrath. It wasn’t random, but how could I, who had never been close to anyone, have created that much hate in another human being? It made sense it had been Matt, even though I’d dismissed the idea when Malcolm had suggested it. But then, I could see Matt telling me I had to move out just because. I could even see him locking me out, but I could not see him doing something that destructive and mean. It wasn’t the kind of guy he was. Hell, you had to care an awful lot more about a person in the first place to be that vindictive than Matt had ever cared about me personally.
No. If he wanted me out so he could move someone else in, he’d just say so. And he had. And he’d shown way more remorse about doing it than I would have expected, so I didn’t really think he had trashed all my stuff.
Andrew could certainly be that destructive and mean, but he was a football star, a scholarship student because his stepfather wasn’t as invested in him as he was in Andrew’s mother, and getting caught in that sort of shit would ruin all that. He might be a cold bastard, a bully, even, but he wouldn’t break the law. He had too much to lose. Football wasn’t just his life, it was his entire future. However much he hated me and everything I represented about himself, he wouldn’t take that kind of chance. He just wasn’t that stupid.
“Well.” Malcolm broke through my thoughts by squeezing my fingers. “We’ll figure it out, but right now, I want your things in the trunk of this car and you safely at home where we can keep you.”
I waited, expecting something after keep you, but there was nothing. I shot him a look. He was watching me, calmly patient, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about telling another human being you were going to keep him. Like a toy. Some object you’d found on the beach like a pretty shell that sounded like the ocean or an interesting bit of driftwood to be polished up and put on display.
“I can stay at Lissa’s,” I told him. “You don’t have to do this.”
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I—”
“She’s pregnant.”
“What?”
He sighed and let go of my hand. “I’m not supposed to tell you, because she wanted to, when she was ready, but Marcus told me. He likes you, Kerry, and he wants you to be safe, but he also wants his wife and child safe, and I don’t blame him for thinking maybe having you there is not the best for them right now. Not until we know who broke into your home. Not until we are sure Andrew is out of your life.”
“Marcus is kicking me out.” How many times had it happened, and yet, it never left me unaffected. My chest closed and I fought for breath. I was not going to have a panic attack over this. Not now. Not in front of him.
All Malcolm did was reach over without even turning to face me and curl his fingers around my good wrist. “Calm down,” he said softly. There was no mistaking the command in the quiet words. It wasn’t a suggestion. He wasn’t placating me. He was telling me to calm down, and he expected me to just do as he said. As if it was that easy.
I drew in a shallow breath, then another and a third, and it got easier. The moment faded. He tightened his fingers. The connection solidified as I obeyed, and when I was breathing normally again, he loosened his grip, but his hand remained, warm and reassuring on my skin.
“He most certainly is not kicking you out.” Malcolm turned again to face me. “He was not suggesting you move out. He was asking what I thought he ought to do to keep everyone safe. He was worried about you and about his family. I was the one who offered the solution of you coming to stay with us. He very wisely agreed to my suggestion. It only makes sense.” He settled firmly back into his seat, took his hand back now that I was calm and compliant again, and turned the engine off. “You’d be moving in eventually anyway, so this just makes sense.”
“I would be.” I stared at him. He was so smug. So sure of himself. “Says you.”
He actually grinned. “Says me. Yes.” He opened his door and got out.
That, in his mind, had settled everything. He had spoken. I was supposed to just agree, because obviously, he knew best.
I remained where I was, arms crossed, as he sauntered up the walk to Matt’s front door and knocked.
Chapter 10
MATT SPARED a glance for me in the car before letting Malcolm in. A few moments later, Malcolm, Matt, and his sister came parading out, loaded down with boxes, which Malcolm opened the trunk to deposit.
“You know,” he said once he had relieved himself of his first load, “you can sit there and pout all day long, but it doesn’t change a thing.”
“Only makes me look bad, yeah, I know.” And I didn’t give a flying fuck what he thought of me. If he thought he could rule my life with a touch and a few commands, he would have to think again. I’d gotten this far under my own power. I could manage.
He shrugged and went back inside. It took them three trips to load everything I had left in the world, besides my clothes, into the trunk of Malcolm’s car. When they were done, Matt came to my side, and I rolled down the window.
“This okay, man?” he asked, some concern on his face. “I mean, you look pretty pissed. Jesus!” He got a look at my face, I guess, as I turned to look at him.
“Yeah.”
“Fucking always hated that asshole,” he muttered, reaching fingers toward me, then dropping his hand as though suddenly realizing he’d been about to touch me. “Fuck.”
I sighed.
“This Malcolm guy. He’s okay?”
I shrugged. Fine time for him to ask, now all my shit was out of his house.
Matt bent to rest his arms on the edge of the open window frame. “Dude, talk to me, man.”
“Why?” I gazed at him. “What do you care?”
“We’re friends, Kerry. This is fucked-up.”
“We were never friends.”
He frowned, jerked as if he was about to stand, then made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. “Dude, you think that if you want, but if we aren’t, it was never because I didn’t want to be.”
For a heartbeat, I stared at him. Was I hallucinating? He had never given two shits about me or what I did. He was happy to get me and my crap out of his life. I was “lost.” He didn’t need that kind of distraction. I reminded him of his own words, and he looked a little bit sick.
“Yeah. I said that.” For a moment, his gaze shifted to someplace he couldn’t see me, but then it was back. “Look, I was out of line, maybe. I was stressed. It was a bad night.”
“Yeah.” Anything to get this over with so we could get out of there.
“I’m not… good at this shit, Kerry, okay? I was scared. I knew Allison was coming, and that was some fucked-up shit.”
“You didn’t want her to be in the middle of my drama. I get it.”
“Do you?” He glanced to where his sister was standing on the lawn with Malcolm. She was like Matt, willowy thin, and unlike him, short. Allison MaKey was a tiny, delicate little thing, and she looked about fourteen. Next to Malcolm’s bulk, she looked like the child she still was, even though she was, theoretically, college-ready. I looked back to Matt.
“Yeah, Matt. I get it.”
“I don’t want this to be the last time we see each other, Kerry.”
That got my attention. “What?”
It was his turn to shrug as he straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I know, right? I didn’t think it would happen, but yeah. I miss you. Allison’s a good kid, but you know. She’s not a dude.”
I laughed. “Matt, I am not a dude, either.”
That got him to smile. “No. But you’re you, and I sort of didn’t realize it was nice having you around.”
I blew out a breath. “That’s me. The invisible boy. Until suddenly I’m not there.”
“Dude, that isn’t what I meant.”
“It’s what Andrew meant,” I said, suddenly realizing what the pounding had been about.
“Huh?”
I pointed to my face. “Andrew. He was fine with me being invisible boy, there to get his rocks off when he wanted. Just pissed him off when I suddenly wasn’t there for his pleasure.”
“That is fucked-up.”
I sighed. “Is Malcolm coming?”
“If Andrew comes back here looking for you, I’m calling that Officer Karl guy.”
“You do that,” I agreed.
“I wish I had done it sooner,” Matt said.
“You couldn’t know he’d really come looking for me that hard, Matt. It isn’t your fault.”
“I mean even before all this. I wish I’d really told you what I thought of the whole thing from the start. I should have said something.”
I laughed at him. “You think I would have listened?”
His gaze was intense. I’d never really noticed how blue his eyes were. “Maybe you would believe me now when I say I thought we were friends if I’d acted more like one then.”
“Maybe.”
“Malcolm said I should come over one weekend for barbecue. Bring my boyfriend. Is that okay?”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“Missing the point, asshole.” Matt grinned.
“Yeah, Matt. It’s okay.” I gazed up at him and he looked… relieved. Happy. I didn’t even know. He looked like everything he’d said had been real and he honestly thought I’d just tell him to fuck the hell off, take my shit, and go.
“So I’ll see you around, then,” he said with a tentative tilt to his grin.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Good.” His grin softened to a genuine smile “That’s excellent. If you’re missing anything, let me know. If it’s here, I’ll make sure you get it back.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Malcolm was back, then, opening his door and climbing in, and Matt backed away from the car. “See you around, Grey.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “See you.”
Then we were pulling away from the curb, and he was standing in the middle of the street watching us go.
“You haven’t spoken to him since you left,” Malcolm said. There was disapproval in his tone.
“I—there was nothing to say.”
“How about ‘I found a place. I’m doing okay. Thanks for holding on to my stuff.’?”
“None of which I would have had to say if he hadn’t kicked me out.”
“Granted.”
“He only wants to pretend at being friends because you were there, and you always get what you want. He doesn’t—”
“Do not,” Malcolm said, warning thick in his voice, “presume to tell me what he feels about you or doesn’t feel. You don’t know because you never asked.”
“It never came up.”
“You never bothered.”
“It was a place to stay. Not like we were family.”
Malcolm’s lips drew tight. His fingers whitened on the wheel, but he said nothing. Miracle of miracles, he kept his demanding, arrogant trap shut for a change.
The entire ride to his house was ominous, and when we arrived, he popped the trunk and stalked up the walk. From the curb I heard a door slam inside, and the eerie silence stretched out from the front door to greet me as I stared into the trunk and wondered how to get my books into the house.
I was as achingly sore as I had been before my nap in the hospital. My wrist throbbed, and every muscle in my neck screamed bloody murder if I tried to turn my head in any direction. I was perching on a hard chair in the kitchen, trying to decide what to do, when the front door quietly opened and closed, and Charlie appeared.
“Why is the car open?” he asked.
I shrugged and held up my wrapped wrist.
He made an exasperated sound, peeled out of his suit jacket, and proceeded to bring my boxes in.
“Thanks,” I told him when he returned on the first trip.
He grunted and went back out for the next load. He took a seat at the table when he was done, and after a moment, I hopped from my stool, took a beer from the fridge, and fumbled with trying to open it until he took it from me and opened it himself.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” I sat back on the stool.
“You’re home,” he said after he’d sipped his beer and set it on the table. A note of relief wended through his words.
“Where else would I be?”
“Oh.” He spun his beer bottle around on the table. “I don’t know. Anywhere else.”
I stared at him and he watched me back. “Why would I be anywhere else?”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but you require a lot of looking after, Kerry.”
“Thank you.” I offered him a twisted grin, but his own expression remained so neutral it scared me.
“Looking after something requires a certain amount of emotional investment.”
“I can damn well look after myself.”
“With scads of success,” he said.
I let the sarcasm skid off me.
“Comes back to that whole thing about emotional investment. You have to care to do a good job, and you’re doing a lousy one. Malcolm never does less than a good job at anything.”
“So he cares, is that what you’re telling me?”
On a strong man, a look of distress is like seeing an old nag. Something you know is supposed to be strong and powerful reduced to skin, bones, and fright. Not pretty.
“It’s what he does,” Charlie said very quietly, as though maybe he was afraid he’d be overheard. “He cares. Too much sometimes, and it kills him a little bit when it doesn’t work. He puts it on me to be the one to get attached, to take the blame for letting guys in, for being the one to want them, because he can’t carry it. He never could.”
“So you bend yourself into a pretzel and do whatever he needs so he doesn’t have to admit what he wants?”
“You don’t know him, Kerry. Don’t judge.”
“If it hurts him so much, why let him do it?”
“Because once in a while, it works. He finds what he needs in one of them. He’s happy like I can’t quite make him.”
His gaze had gone far away to some guy who wasn’t me who had done this thing Charlie said Malcolm needed. Some guy who wasn’t him either.
“This is fucked-up,” I said. “This is so fucked-up that you think you have to let your boyfriend fuck some other guy to be happy. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“He doesn’t fuck them. He never fucks them, Kerry. He just loves them.”
“And not you.”
He shook his head and actually laughed at me. “He loves me. And he fucks me. I can’t explain. You have to be part of it to understand.”
“And if I don’t want to be?”
He glanced to the pile of boxes he’d made in one corner. “Then don’t unpack.” His tone went cold, his eyes hard when he looked back to me. “If you don’t want to, just sleep on the couch and find a goddamn apartment and don’t even talk to him anymore. Just….” His chest was heaving and there was fire in his eyes as he stood. “You need a down payment, I’ll give it to you. Whatever you need. Do not move in here, offer him something, and then refuse.”
He was standing there, ready to buy me out, do anything to get rid of me, and there was no way not to believe he meant every word. I’d never seen walls go up so fast.
“I didn’t say—”
“Just make up your mind by morning,” he warned and turned to head down the hall to their room at the back of the house.
“Fuck, Charlie, cut me a little slack here. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”
He wheeled back and shoved his face in close, one hand on my chair, one on the table, pinning me under his glare. “What’s going on is that he sat in that hospital all day, hovered, because already, he can’t walk away. He can’t say no to you. He can’t disengage now.” He straightened from where he’d been leaning over my chair. “You ever see the movie Serenity?”
I nodded. “What has that got to do with anything?”
Charlie pointed down the hall to the door of their room. “He’s Wash.”
I frowned.
“You’re the spike.”
That was like a cold bucket of water over my head.
“He will fly this relationship through every fucking thing, believe he can navigate the minefield that seems to be your life, and he will never see that spike coming until it goes through his heart. Do not do that to him.”
“Don’t do it to you, you mean.”
He shook his head. “I can take it, kid. Believe me, of the men in this house right now, I am the one who can take it. I’m fucking titanium.” He sucked in a breath. “He’s skin and bones and very breakable. And you. You’ll walk away because you have nothing invested anywhere.” He glanced at my pile of boxes. “Not a goddamned thing.”
