Page 543 of One More Kiss
Andrea
Not again.Everything slowed to a halt. Why did I always attract this kind of guy? He seemed so nice, and had gone completely out of his way to help me when my car had broken down. He was so quiet, so reserved, that the idea of him spending time in jail was almost laughable. The expression on his face though, a mixture of shame and resignation, told me that he was serious.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”
He rested his hands on his thighs and stared at the coffee table in front of him like he couldn't even look at me. “It was Halloween, my sophomore year.”
“How old were you?”
He sighed. “Fifteen. We were just being kids, hanging out, being stupid. There was an abandoned house out past the Presbyterian Church… At least, we thought it was abandoned. We were hanging out on the front porch, smoking cigarettes, passing a joint around. I dropped it, and a stack of newspapers caught on fire. The house was old, and it went up in flames faster than we could stop it.” He gave his head a little shake. “We freaked out and ran. I should've gone for help, should've done something.”
I remained riveted in place as he spoke, not even wanting to ask questions. He said they thought the house was abandoned. My heart jumped into my throat at the implication, but he continued before my mind could run away with me.
“We stopped by a party later that night, and this kid we were with started running his mouth, telling everyone about the fire. Another guy who was a couple years ahead of us in school said there was an old woman who lived there. She… didn't make it out.”
He stopped and swallowed hard. “I think about that every single day. She probably never even heard us messing around downstairs, because they found her still in bed—said she died of smoke inhalation. She never even had a chance.”
I studied his profile from where I sat a few feet away. His face was a stoic mask, but something in his tone spoke to me. He sounded like he truly regretted it. “You were just a kid.”
He finally looked at me. “I still have her death on my hands. Doesn’t matter if it was unintentional or not. One second… All it took was one time, breaking the rules, being stupid. I knew better.” I heard the admonishment in his voice, the self-recrimination. “I didn't even wanna go that night.”
“Then why did you?” I asked quietly.
He blew out a breath. “A girl. Why else? She was Ramon's little sister, and I wanted to impress her. I'd never tried drugs before that night, but I thought I'd show her how cool I was by taking a hit of that joint. It was fucking dumb.”
I did some quick math in my head. Though I didn't know exactly how old he was, he told me that he’d only been home for a few weeks. He’d spent more than a dozen years in jail. “Why so long? What happened?”
“They rolled on me. I got hit with substance abuse, arson, and murder.”
Jesus. I couldn't even imagine. One mistake made by a young kid and it snowballed into a decade of misery. How many other kids had done the exact same thing and escaped unscathed? Kids all over the world drank underage or tried cigarettes and drugs. Mick was just one of the unlucky few who had been caught and made an example of. “I'm sorry you had to go through that.”
“I deserved it,” he said flatly.
I shook my head. Not like that—never like that. He'd been stripped of his childhood for one stupid mistake. “You’ve more than paid for it.”
My ex had gone to jail, too, but the circumstances were entirely different. Blaze had intentionally broken into someone’s home with the intent to steal whatever he could get his hands on. Except, the family had been home that night and the breaking and entering he’d planned had quickly turned into burglary. The sentence was automatically increased, and as far as I knew, he was still spending his days in jail.
But Mick was nothing like Blaze and at some point during the course of the evening, I found that I truly enjoyed his company. I was no longer wary of him the way I was a week ago. The fact that he was open and honest enough to come clean about his past told me everything about his character that I needed to know.
Mick wiped his hands on his thighs, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Anyway. Thanks for dinner.
He pushed up from the couch like he planned to leave, and I studied him. “Where are you going?”
He turned toward me and rubbed one hand over the back of his neck. “I just thought…”
“What? That I’d kick you out?”
He dropped his hands and shrugged, his helpless gaze meeting mine. “Kind of, yeah.”
I stared up at him. “Will you hurt me or Maddie?”
His eyes widened. “God, no. Never.”
I gave a perfunctory nod. “Then you don't need to leave.”
He shifted on his feet. “Are you sure?”
I smiled. “Not unless you have somewhere better to be.”
His dark eyes met mine, and he gave his head a little shake. “There's no place I'd rather be.”
