He dipped his chin and put his face close to hers. “I’m a guy, a guy who grew up without a Dad. Shit happens to you, you want someone to talk about it with. So, I get what you’re sayin’ more than pretty much anyone would get what you’re sayin’. You needed your Mom and she died the week before you needed her. That would suck, baby. What I need you to know is, growin’ up without a Dad, I get it and that means you can talk about it with me.”
She stared him in the eye for long moments before her body relaxed and she whispered, “Layne.”
“You don’t have to hide anything or be embarrassed about anything, not with me. Yeah?” Layne stated.
“Yeah.” She was still whispering.
Layne took in a breath. Then he let it out.
Then he realized he’d made it through the minefield without getting blown to pieces, Rocky was safe and in one piece in his arms and he relaxed.
When he did, he noticed Rocky watching him with a look he couldn’t read on her face.
“You okay, baby?” he asked.
“I don’t really need to process my period anymore, Layne,” she said softly. “I’m kind of used to it by now.”
“You get embarrassed,” he told her honestly.
“I lived with two men, one of them a teenager, they avoided any of my period paraphernalia like the plague. And, newsflash, sweetheart,” she put her hand to his jaw, “you’re also a man.”
“Yeah,” Layne smiled, “but I don’t have any hang ups about that shit. I grew up alone in a house with a woman.”
Her mouth got soft.
“And I just want you to know you’re safe with me, always safe with me, with anything,” he told her.
Her lids lowered but not to half-mast, they closed and when they opened, her face was openly troubled.
“You’re worried I’m going to leave you,” she whispered, surprising Layne by taking it right to the point.
“Yeah,” he whispered back, his arms getting tighter around her, her hand slid from his jaw and both her arms closed around his neck.
She pressed into him and she did this deep, getting up on her toes so her face was close to his. He looked in her eyes and there was an intensity there, so strong it felt like her eyes were burning into his.
“Don’t let me leave you,” she whispered so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.
But he heard her, he not only heard her, he understood what she was saying and his chest seized, his gut twisted but his arms got even tighter.
“I won’t,” he whispered back, his voice was quiet too and thick.
“No matter what.” She was still talking low.
“No matter what,” he replied.
“Promise.”
“I promise, baby.”
She held his gaze then she asked softly, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“You told Marissa, when she found another man, not to tell him about her past.”
Oh fuck.
He wasn’t out of that minefield yet.
“Yeah,” he answered carefully.
“Honestly? Do you think, even if she finds a good guy, a really good guy, she shouldn’t tell him?”
“What are you really askin’, baby?”
“I’m asking about Marissa.”
“Then, if you’re askin’ about Marissa, yes.”
Her head moved back half an inch. “Because you think he’d think less of her? Judge her?”
“No, because she deserves to be loved for who she should have been, who she’ll be, not despite what was forced on her.”
He heard Rocky suck in breath and her eyes went back to intense and seeing it, he decided he’d managed not to get blown to bits yet again, he’d managed to hold her together and she’d made him promise never to let her go. He could do that. He could make her stay. He had her permission. Whatever it was, when they finally faced it, he had her permission to do what he had to do to make her stay.
Thank Christ that was done.
He also decided she’d had enough for one night, so had he, and it was time to move, the fuck, on.
So he lowered his head to take her mouth but her head went back another half inch and he stopped.
When he did, his eyebrows went up and Rocky whispered, “I need to go upstairs and get ready. My man’s hungry.”
And before he could say a word, she pulled out of his arms but she did it with both her hand trailing along his neck and down his chest before she turned and strutted up the stairs.
Layne watched until she was out of sight, going so far as to move to the foot of the stairs to enjoy the whole show.
Then he cleared away the pizza and beer, checked that the apartment was secured, turned out the lights, went upstairs and ate dessert.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nothing Means Everything
“Layne,” she whispered, pressing into him, her fingers digging into his neck.
Layne opened his eyes, dipped his chin and saw her staring up at him, her eyes burning.
“Tripp.” She kept whispering, her body pushing into his, hard, like she wanted him to absorb her, her fingers digging into his tense neck so hard he felt pain. “Tripp,” she repeated, her voice scared.
*
Layne’s eyes opened and he heard his cell phone.
Rocky shifted and then came up on an elbow.
Another dream. Another fucking, shitty, fucking dream.
“Baby,” Roc whispered, “your phone.”
Layne rolled, putting a hand to the floor, reaching out with the other one, he yanked his jeans toward the bed and pulled his cell out. He pushed off the floor, rolling again to his back as his eyes slid across Rocky’s clock to see it was ten after eight.
They’d seriously slept in.
The phone stopped ringing by the time he settled back. He flipped it open and looked at his received calls, Rocky moving into him again.
Tripp. Tripp at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. The boys had to be at the pool with the team but not this early.
Fuck.
“Who was it?” Rocky asked.
“Tripp,” Layne answered, scrolling down to his son’s phone number in his contact list, he hit go.
Rocky pressed closer as Layne listened to it ring, his body tense because of the time and because of a phone call from his son at that time and because of his fucking dream.
It rang twice before Layne heard Tripp saying in his usual Tripp way, “Yo Dad!”
Layne pulled in breath.
Then he let it out while replying, “Yo, Pal. You called. What’s up?”
“I was actually calling Rocky but she wasn’t picking up. I thought you might be with her.”