Page 49

FORTY-EIGHT

LENNON

It’s so cold in this concrete waiting room that my toes have gone numb and are beginning to turn purple in my Louboutins.

Hours have gone by since they booked Saint, and I’ve spent the majority of them crying so much that I’m fairly certain I have nothing left in me to cry. I tried to scrub the smeared mascara off my cheeks with a wet napkin in the bathroom, but it didn’t help much.

My eyes are swollen and puffy, my stomach twisted into a tight knot that has me nauseous. That and the fact that I can’t even remember the last time I ate. There are blisters on my feet from pacing the room while wearing stilettos, but I haven’t been able to sit still, overcome with worry.

I drop my head into my hands as another wave of tears threatens to spill when I hear the double doors jiggling. My eyes snap to the door, waiting on bated breath.

A second later, it opens, and Saint walks out of it. My entire body sags with relief, and this time, the tears that wet my cheeks aren’t like the ones that I’ve spent all night crying.

“Saint.” His name rushes from my lips as I run to him as fast as my feet can carry me on these heels, and I crash into him.

My arms slip around his neck, and I squeeze so tightly that I’m actually worried I might hurt him.

“I’ve been so worried. I’m… I’ve been going out of my mind…

” I trail off when my throat gets too tight with emotion.

His hand runs along my hair as he presses his lips to my forehead. “I’m fine, baby. Are you okay?”

I can’t help it—a mixture of a sob and a laugh bubbles out of me, and he pulls back to look at me, smoothing back my hair from my face. “Hey, hey, talk to me.” His thumbs sweep along my cheeks, brushing away the tears as they fall.

“God, Saint, you just got arrested. You spent half the night in jail, and you’re worried about me ?”

“Fuck yeah I am. I’ve been losing my goddamn mind sitting in there, not being able to get to you,” he whispers. “I’m so?—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” I cut him off. “No. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

For a beat, he’s quiet while his eyes search mine.

“Let’s get home, okay?I don’t fucking want you in this place any longer. I wish you never had to be here in the first place.” His jaw tenses as he reaches for my hand and threads our fingers together, and I nod.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long at all to get an Uber, and we pull up at my apartment twenty minutes later.

Saint was quiet the entire ride, his gaze fixed out of the window, uncharacteristically so. Even when we walk inside my apartment and go to my bedroom, he’s still lost in thought.

I shut the door behind us and turn to him, watching as he drops down onto the edge of my bed and stares down at the floor.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

He lifts his gaze to mine. “I need to tell you something.”

My heart plummets to my stomach at the look in his eyes, the serious tone of his voice.

I nod, pushing down a nervous swallow. “Does it have anything to do with… what you said to my father?” It’s been there in the back of my mind since the gala, a gnawing feeling in my gut that I didn’t get the full picture, that I was somehow missing pieces that I don’t quite understand. Saint knows something about my father.

“Yes.”

I wobble on my feet slightly, and he curses, jumping up from the bed, gently grasping my arm. “Just… go sit, okay? Let me help you take these off.”

I don’t even feel my feet anymore. They’re past the point of numb, but still, he guides me to the bed and places me at the edge. Then deftly works to unclasp the thin straps around my ankle and removes my shoes. I wiggle my toes around to bring the feeling back to them.

Saint stands to full height and shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants. The white sleeves of his shirt are rolled to his elbows, and his tattooed, veiny arms are on display, distracting me slightly.

“Lennon.” I lift my eyes to his, and he swallows roughly. “I need you to understand something before I tell you what I’m about to tell you, okay?”

When he sees the slight nod of my head, he continues.

“The only person in my life I’ve ever felt any type of love from is my mother, and even then, it’s…

it’s always felt like her love for me has taken a back seat to my father.

I realize that sounds fucked-up, and it is, but it also doesn’t make it any less true.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m even capable of loving someone.

How can I when the only love I’ve ever witnessed is selfish and toxic. Destructive. Painful.”

I bite the inside of my lip to stop from crying, but it doesn’t help. If anything the sting only makes the tears well faster.

He exhales, and it’s a broken, staggering breath like he’s expelling the poison from his lungs.

I want to reach for him, but I stay where I am since he’s the one who created the distance.

“I’m fucked-up, Lennon. My heart is fucked-up.”

I shake my head, denying each word, but he just keeps going.

“I’m the product of a fucked-up family. Of an abusive addict father. And I’m terrified that I’ll end up just like him.” His eyes hold mine so intensely my heart stutters. “I haven’t told you the full truth. I purposefully kept it from you, and I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”

I don’t understand what’s happening. What is he talking about?

He pauses, raking a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. “My dad used to work for Rousseau Enterprises. Your father was his boss.”

When he says it, I feel like the floor has fallen out from beneath me. What?

“Why didn’t you tell me that? I don’t understand.”

“Because, baby, your father is the man behind all the fucked-up things that happened to mine.”

There’s a heavy, crippling silence that fills the room, and I suck in a sharp breath that does nothing to make my head feel less light.

“My dad… used to work in maintenance. He was a structural welder, so he repaired any of the metal foundation issues, things like that. He was working on a scaffold a couple stories up, and he was tied off just as he was supposed to be. Safety requirement. But the tie-off failed, and he fell. Fractured his spine, broke a vertebra, herniated disk. He was in the hospital for six months, had another six of intensive physical therapy. That’s when he got addicted to the pain pills.

That’s when everything went to shit, when my entire life blew up. ”

I lift my hand to my mouth, covering it to stifle the noise.

I still don’t understand what that has to do with my dad, but I know that it’s…

it’s bad. It’s so bad. I can see how much reliving it just to tell the story to me is affecting him.

He starts to pace the room, unable to remain still, hardly taking a breath as he talks.

“It wasn’t that he just fell and got hurt.

Or that he became an addict using something that was supposed to help him.

The only way that he would get coverage for the injury was to use workman’s comp to file a claim against Rousseau Enterprises.

There was no other choice. None. We were drowning in medical debt.

So much fucking debt that I’d probably work my entire life and still not be able to pay it off.

Probably not even put a dent in it.” He stops pacing to flit his eyes to me, rolling his lips together like the next part is the most painful.

I brace myself.

“It could’ve been simple—so fucking simple that it makes me sick—if your father had done the right thing, but he didn’t.

He fought the claim with all of his expensive, fancy, piece-of-shit lawyers.

Lennon…” He trails off, dragging his hand down his face, and holding my gaze.

“He fucked up. The safety protocols weren’t followed—that’s why the tie-off failed in the first place.

That’s why there wasn’t a failsafe in place.

That’s why nobody even fucking checked it before he got up there.

My dad said he overheard the conversation with his superintendent, and when he confronted him, your father called him a liar and accused him of being high.

Said he was using before he ever fell. Your father lied about it all, and my dad’s claim was denied. The appeal was denied too.”

Oh my God.

“Saint…” I start, but he shakes his head, stopping me.

“He almost died, and your father covered it up to protect his company. To save face. He has all the money in the world, so could’ve paid it all off, and my dad never would’ve tried to file the claim, but instead, he ruined our fucking lives, Lennon.”

As I take in everything he’s saying about my father, the only question I think is: Is my father even capable of something so greedy and despicable? And I immediately know the answer. Yes, yes he is.

I rise from my bed and cross the room to him, reaching out to him, but he captures my hand in midair.

“Wait, please.” His words are strained, tight. “Just… wait till I tell it all to you, please, baby. You need to know.”

There’s more?

Nodding, I take my hand back and wrap my arms around myself.

“It’s been years. This has been our life for years.

My father has never been able to hold down a job since, which only makes his addiction worse.

A never-ending cycle of fucked-up that I’ve never been able to break free from in the last eight years.

I didn’t even know who to blame. My father for letting addiction take him or your father for being the catalyst of it all.

So, I chose both. They are both equally guilty for the things they’ve caused.

I’ve been living with so much anger, so much pent-up rage beneath the surface, sometimes it felt like I was going to combust. I wanted your father to suffer the same way that I have.

And when you walked into the rink that day…

I thought I finally found a way to make him pay for it. ”

I don’t even need him to hear it because I know.

I know, deep down in my gut, I know.

“Me,” I whisper.