I was forever grateful that he let me fall apart in his arms, but I hated that he’d been the one to have to comfort me when he’d just been dealt a huge blow of his own. How did one ever reconcile with the fact that their son had just beaten and tried to rape a woman you’d known since she was a little girl? I hadn’tknown until then that he and Carol had heard a lot of my struggle with their son, and I wished I could have saved them from that experience.
I felt Trev’s eyes on me, and I tried my hardest not to show my thoughts. But I should have known it was a lost cause. I’d never learned how to hide what I was thinking.
“So, how long are you going to keep yourself and my nephew in this purgatory?”
My gaze shot to his, and he gave me a pointed look.
“We’re not in purgatory. We’re just finding our feet,” I defended.
“They’re at the end of your legs, honey. Legs that should be walking toward him right now, but instead you’re stalling. Why?”
I sighed and shook my head. Trev was good at treating people with kid-gloves when the situation called for it, but after a while he got tired of it and attacked an issue with all the grace of a bull in a China shop. Normally, I appreciated that part of his personality.
“Trev…”
He shifted closer, and I looked up at him, not sure how to answer.
“You’re scared,” he said softly. I opened my mouth to refute his claim, and he held up a hand to hold me off.
“Not that he’d hurt you. I never believed you were scared of him in that sense, and even now after everything you’ve suffered, I’m pretty sure that’s not your concern. What I meant was, you’re scared his feelings for you will fade, or he’ll let his past interfere and keep you at arm’s length.”
I studied him and sighed. “You know about his dad?”
He scoffed. “We were raised in the same household, sweetheart. We were both messed up after the way our parents treated us, especially the old man. Neither of us were headed down very bright paths. I got lucky and literally got sense knocked into me,showing me a better way. But my brother, he clung to everything dark and painful because it was the only life he knew. I tried to help him, but every time I tried, more and more time would pass between his visits and that meant I couldn’t check on Flynn.”
I nodded and grimaced. “He’s worried he’s like his dad.”
Trev’s expression fell, but he nodded slowly. “I get that. But when you’re with him, he’s the man I always knew he'd be. We can all see it. He’s in love with you, Chiara, and he’s hurting not being with you.”
I frowned, and he shook his head. “You might not be accepting his calls, but I am. We talk every other day now, and never once has he failed to ask about you. I can hear it in his voice. He’s missing a part of himself, and it’s because you’re over here trying to pretend the distance from him is forhisbenefit.”
“It is,” I argued.
“Maybe it started that way,” Trev agreed. “But I think if you’re honest with yourself, you’re afraid things between you will be different now. Maybe because things are real now; maybe because of what you’ve suffered. But now you’re the one running scared, and he’s there waiting, hoping you’ll come home to him.”
I wanted to argue, I really did, but every word he said knocked the breath out of me, and I knew he was right. I was running now.
“He’s leaving on that road trip of his sometime soon, sweetheart. Who knows how long he’ll be gone or where life will take him? Do you really want to let him slip away?”
I swallowed hard and glanced away. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure Trev could hear it, and I struggled to clear my mind and think clearly.
“Look, Ellis is gone now,” Trev said, his voice strained. I inwardly winced at hearing that name and slowly turned my gaze back to him. “You and Flynn have a chance to build a life together and be happy. That’s all anyone wants for the two ofyou. I get being hesitant about relationships now, but you have to know Flynn would never push you for anything before you were ready. We see how safe you feel with him. Maybe he can make you feel that way again.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, and I turned my gaze back to the bedroom as I tried to sort through my thoughts. I guess the only question I had left to answer was, what was I going to do now?
~
Flynn
“She’s gone. You can come out now.”
Trev’s voice rang through the house, and I stepped through the living room to meet him in the hallway where he stood in the doorway of my old bedroom. I hadn’t been able to stay away another day. I rolled in a few hours ago, and I’d been determined to go straight to Chiara’s, but Trev talked me down. He said Ara would be over for lunch later, and that I could quietly watch over her there, then we’d decide what I should do.
I had to admit, it was fucking good to hear her voice after all this time.
Watching her from afar made me feel like a creeper, but I needed to see her, and I had to admit, Trev was right. After hearing his conversation with Chiara earlier in the hall, she wasn’t ready for me, or at least at the time hadn’t been. But after his talk with her, I could tell she hadn’t stopped thinking over his words.
I leaned on the wall opposite my open bedroom door and shoved my hands into my pockets.
