I round the couch and hand him a beer before settling in next to him. He pulls me close with the hand that isn’t holding the phone, and smiles.
“Yeah, Jules, I know. I promise that I’ll be home to visit soon. Yeah. No, I haven’t forgotten how to work a phone. Yeah, she’s great.” He stops talking and looks into my eyes, giving me a light squeeze so I know she’s asking about me.
I’ve talked to Julie, his youngest sister, a few times over the phone, and once when she came to visit. She’s such a sweetheart and we connected instantly. His other sister, Peyton, I haven’t met in person, but each time I’ve spoken to her on the phone, I can tell that she’s just like Julie. Both of them share the same huge heart and compassionate soul that Beck has.
“I think mom said she would be driving down to visit sometime next month. You know how she is; she wants to wait until you and Pey can come down with her.” He laughs at whatever Julie says in return.
I settle into his chest and enjoy the feeling of his voice vibrating against my body. This feels so right, sharing this moment, even though it’s just a small one with him. Doing things that normal couples take for granted feels like a huge accomplishment for me. When he hangs up the phone and turns to me, catching my smile, he offers one just as big back to me.
“What’s that smile for?”
“I’m just enjoying the moment.” My smile fades when I realize that it’s time to have this talk with him. “How’s Julie?” I ask, trying to buy some time to settle the butterflies in my stomach.
He gives a snort, shaking his head a few times. Obviously, he knows me well enough to know my stalling tactics. “Do you really want to know or would you rather I sit here and let you calm down a little while before we talk?” He isn’t mad, just being honest.
“You really do know me, don’t you?” I laugh softly. “I really do want to know how she is, but I do also need a second to collect my thoughts.”
“I understand that. We’ve got all night. Jules is good. She’s complaining about some class she’s taking. Keeps going on and on about how she shouldn’t have waited until she was twenty-eight to go back and get her degree. She’ll figure it out though. She says mom wants to come down, especially when she found out you had been hurt. Don’t worry, I bought us some time.” His smile gets big when he talks about his family. He’s so lucky to have come from such a loving family. Even without having a father around, there was never a lack of love in his life.
“I would love to see them again.” I don’t think I realized how true that statement was until just now. Even though I’ve only met Julie in person, I have talked to the other ladies in his life a few times when he was teaching his mother how to FaceTime.
“I would love that, too.” I lean back into him, and we both sit here for a few minutes in a comfortable silence. He takes a few deep pulls on his beer, and I spend the time figuring out how to start this chat.
“I’m really not sure that there is a real easy way to start with this one. I suppose it would be really easy to take the cheap way out and just give you my journals that Dr. Maxwell made me keep.” A nervous giggle bubbles up before I can squash it. “Okay. Let’s just start with my father.”
He sits there and gives me the silence I need, his thumb slowly rubbing against my bare shoulder.
“The first time my father ever hit me, I was five and had forgotten to make my bed. That was also the first time of many that he told me that he wished I had never been born. It wasn’t easy living with my parents. My mother was just as nasty as he was, except her words were her weapon of choice. I learned real early in life that I would be better off keeping my head down and making sure I did everything they wanted.” I steal a glance at him and can tell he’s pissed, but holding it in so I can finish.
“I won’t lie and pretend that there was much good about my childhood. I had one nanny that gave me as much love as she could, but when she was caught sneaking Barbies in for me to play with, my parents fired her. I’ll skip all the sordid details, but whatever you’re imagining is probably spot on.”