Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Rapid-fire? I can handle this. Teal. You?”
“Blue. Morning or night?”
“Definitely night.”
“I love early mornings.”
“I knew you were weird.” Anthony smiles. “Favorite food?”
“Mexican and Japanese.”
He gives a sexy moan. “Oh my God. Same.”
We toss a few more easy questions back and forth, and I file his answers away for the future. Who knows when I might need the information. Something about Anthony makes me want to spoil him, praise him and show him what it’s like to be treated the way he deserves. I have a feeling no one in his life has ever done that. Actually, Hayes and Donovan do now, but I want to be one of those people for him as well.
When Anthony goes to speak next, I expect him to ask another question, but instead, he says, “My mom left me when I was young and never came back.”
My spine stiffens, my gaze never leaving his as I nod for him to continue. Whatever he wants to share with me, I want to hear. I recognize this moment for what it is—Anthony giving me a piece of himself, trying to open up and let me in to see the real parts of him, not just the confident, happy-go-lucky guy he shows most of the world.
“I’m sorry,” I say, when he doesn’t continue. “That had to be tough.”
“I was used to her partying, being gone for days at a time, so at first, I didn’t think anything of it. But one day became two, then three, then a week. I stopped going to school, and that’s what eventually got the cops called to our apartment. I’d been alone for three weeks.” He looks down, tracing the designs on the table. “She went shopping before she left—big shopping. The kind of shopping we never had the money to do. She knew she was going to leave. I guess I should be grateful she made sure I had enough to eat, but all I can think is that she knew she was going to leave, yet she did it anyway.”
His words, the sadness in his tone, take a sledgehammer to my heart, shattering it into a million pieces. I can’t imagine what that was like for him, how it feels to carry that pain around. The load has to be heavy, and I wonder if Anthony has ever had anyone to help him bear it.
I decide right there and then to be that person for him, even if things don’t work out between us.
“Come here,” I say. When he looks up at me, I lean forward and take his hand across the table. “Come here, little dancer.” I’m surprised it doesn’t take more prodding for Anthony to set his feet on the ground, get up, and walk over. I pull him to my lap, wrap my arms around him from behind and kiss his back through his shirt. “I’m so sorry you had to live through that. Maybe in her mind, she thought what she was doing was best for you. But that doesn’t make it easier to have lived through.”
“No. It doesn’t. I went to live with my uncle after that. He’s not a bad person, he just…didn’t want me, and neither did his wife. I was an afterthought, the boy they got stuck with because the sister he’d abandoned when she needed him, never figured out how to get her life together.”
What is wrong with people? I will never understand them.
I kiss his shoulder, tighten my hold on him. I know what he told me about that period in his life—him being shy, quiet, loving dance and meeting Aliyah, then ending up in California. I don’t know the details, though. “You deserved better.” He doesn’t respond, so I say it again. “You deserved better. None of that is your fault. It’s not because you are lacking in any way. It’s because you were dealt a shitty hand, and I’m sorry for that.”
Anthony leans back into me, giving me some of his weight. “Thank you. Let me finish, though. I want to get it all out. My mom’s family, they came from money. Lots of it. My mom couldn’t keep it together, though, and my grandparents left everything to my uncle—or I guess my mom’s part of the money was under his control. He could give it to her if she got her life together, which she never did. When I turned eighteen, they saw that as a way to get rid of me. They gave me money to disappear and start a life, and I did. I came to LA, got an apartment, danced, worked, never let anyone know what was in my bank account, and eventually bought Lush.”
It takes my brain a second to catch up before it all clicks into place. “The club is yours?”
He chuckles. “Surprise.”