Page 64 of The Substitute (New York Gods #4)

AMbrOSE

Clenching my jaw, I stand on the front stoop of the house I never truly felt welcomed in and contemplate what I’m about to do. A part of me loves Savage’s mom, too, but I can’t allow myself to let her back in if she’s with my father.

Before I can knock, the door opens, and the housekeeper smiles at me. “Good morning, Mister Ambrose.”

“Good morning, Miss Julia.” I force a smile at her. She’s a nice woman and has only been here a few years. She steps back and lets me in without hesitation. Did my father not tell anyone he cut me off and I’m no longer welcome? Seems unlikely. Is she risking her job by letting me in?

I clear my throat. “Is my father here?”

“He’s gone for a business trip, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I was hoping to talk to my step-mother.” Tension seeps into my muscles like raindrops filling a pail. The first few drops seem like nothing, but in no time, the bucket is almost overflowing.

“She’s in the sitting room,” she says. “Would you like me to announce you?”

“No, thank you. I would like to surprise her.” A knot forms in my throat. Will she be happy to see me? Will she cry and tell me how much she’s missed me? Will she be angry I’ve been gone for so long?

Julia gives me a slight bow and goes back to her work.

I stare down the hallway for a moment, bombarded by the memories that haunt this place.

I’m sure some would see it as beautiful, but if these walls could talk, they would tell an ugly story.

It’s tainted with my father’s hatred and the despair we all suffered at his hand.

My hands flex and clench at my sides as I force back the racing thoughts. I take a step forward, and the door opens behind me. Startled and ready for an attack, I spin around, braced for impact. I’m damn near panting when I register Savage standing in the opening.

“It’s just me,” he says softly, not moving an inch as I breathe and get control of my heart rate. When I let my hands drop, he finishes coming inside and closes the door. He’s so close, I can smell Tobi on him, but he doesn’t touch me.

I close my eyes, and let myself take comfort in it. In the scent of him and Tobi, in Savage being here without me telling him I was coming.

“How did you know?” My words are quiet as I drop my forehead to his shoulder. Allowing myself the acceptance to take what I need and what he’s silently offering.

Savage wraps his arms around my waist and leans his head against mine. “Don’t be dense. I have your location and alerts set up for specific locations.”

It warms my heart and makes me want to laugh at the same time. “The bridge?”

“That’s one.”

Why didn’t he come the night I was up there with Tobi? We were there a while, but I didn’t see him. Was I so focused on Tobi that I didn’t notice anything else?

“Yes, I saw you both that night,” Savage answers my silent question.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I want to ask how much he heard, but I can’t break Tobi’s confidence if he hasn’t told Savage.

He lifts his shoulders. “I listened some but couldn’t make out much. I think whatever it was, was good for both of you.”

“He’ll tell you about it. Give him time.”

“I know he will.” Savage pulls me more solidly against him. “What do you need right now?”

I shake my head, not sure how to answer him. What do I need? I need a father who’s not a piece of shit. I need a childhood that wasn’t traumatic at every turn. I need to be able to love the men I love out loud without the fear of losing my dreams. I lean into him. “Just this.”

“I’m always here for you.”

“Do you think she’ll listen?” The fear that she won’t leave is heavy. Savage loves his mother, protected her as well as a kid could against the man his father became, and I don’t want to be the reason he loses her.

“Look at me.” He waits until I lift my head. “Her choice has nothing to do with you. If she stays, that’s on her. Your value, your worth, is not dependent on our parents or anyone else. I’m on your side no matter what.”

“Are you sure?” He’d already told me as much, but I don’t want to ask him to give up his mother.

“You were right all along, and I didn’t see it. I’m so sorry I didn’t. This is her choice, and if she wants to choose a monster over her own children, there is nothing I can do about it.”

What the fuck am I doing?

I’m risking my entire future in so many ways.

Being gay is enough to end a career before it begins, but fucking my step-brother who I share with another man? It’s over. All of it.

Doubt threatens to drown me.

Tobi and Savage deserve to be loved in public. I can’t ask them to hide for me. It’s not fair to either of them. It’s selfish and completely fucked.

And Savage is about to risk his relationship with his mom.

For what? For a chance that we’ll last any substantial amount of time?

How will it work when he’s in med school or residency and isn’t ever home, and I’m away playing hockey?

How will Tobi handle being alone all the time, and how will we handle it when we can’t talk to each other?

My throat clogs with emotions I can’t let go of yet. Later I can, but not now.

All I can do is nod. Stealing myself for one more act of defiance in my father’s house, I press my lips to his and take the kiss I crave. It’s not deep or heated it’s a reaffirming connection. He’s here on the battlefield of life with me.

“Ready?”

“As I’m going to be.”

Savage takes my hand in his and leads the way down the hall to the sitting room.

“Good morning, Mom.”

Savage’s mom looks up from her book and gasps when she sees me.

She covers her mouth, and tears fill her eyes.

Guilt and anger tighten around my stomach until I want to vomit.

I’ve always known she cared about me since she was the only one who was ever nice to me, but how do you live with a monster and do nothing to stop him? I was a child.

“Ambrose,” she whispers through her tears.

“Hey.” I duck my head and shove my free hand in my pocket, my eyes on a constant swivel, looking for a threat in this exposed place. I knew this was going to be hard, but fuck.

“Hey, Mom,” Savage says, letting me go and stepping forward to wrap her in his arms when she stands.

Just being in this house is setting my teeth on edge. My skin is crawling with hyperawareness, waiting for my father to strike. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been told he’s gone. He’s always lurking.

“He’s not here,” she says. “He’s out of town for work.”

I nod, and she comes closer. I tense, and she stops, a tear falling down her cheek.

Fuck, that makes me feel like a shitbag.

“Can we sit?” Savage ushers her to the couch and gets her a glass of water from the bar. I find the chair with the best protection from surprise pop ups and sit, folding my hands in my lap.

Savage watches me, clearly understanding what is happening in my head. We spent a decade in this house when I wasn’t away at school. He witnessed some of the shit I lived through at my father’s hand. It left a mark on him, too.

“Mom, it’s time.” He takes a seat next to her and covers her hand with his. “You need to leave him.”

“What am I supposed to do?” The defeated rounding of her shoulders tells its own story. She feels trapped here, too.

“Leave. Divorce him.”

“And do what? Everything I had is tied up in his finances. How am I supposed to live? Where am I supposed to go?”

Savage looks at her for a minute before he responds, “Do you really think I would let you be homeless? We’ll make a plan.”

“I can’t let you do that.” Her chin trembles.

“If you want to stay in either of our lives, you will.” And there it is. The ultimatum has been thrown down, and now we have to deal with the consequences of it. The words are said with love but leave no room for misunderstanding. There’s no doubt about his seriousness.

She gasps, and tears fall freely from her lashes. “What?”

“Don’t ask me that. I’m not going to explain to you what he is when you know. You shielded me, yes, but that left Ambrose to take the brunt of it. And he was just a fucking kid.”

“I couldn’t tell him how to raise his own kid—”

“I’m not letting you make any more excuses.

You could have left any time. You could have taken both of us with you.

” Savage looks at me for a long moment, allowing me to see how much I mean to him.

“Ambrose means more to me than anyone else, and I won’t allow his father in my life.

If you stay with him, you are as bad as he is. ”

My throat aches at his words. I know how much he loves his mom, so for him to be able to do this… Does this mean he loves me, too?

I don’t know how to handle that.

“Savage.” She reaches for his cheek, and he lets her.

“You don’t have to take it anymore. You have no one to protect except yourself. Let me help you.”

She looks at me with regret etched into her skin. The echo of pain for the things she couldn’t change have aged her.

If I’m being honest with myself, I know she couldn’t stop my father. The abuse started before she got involved, and if she left, there’s no way Father would have let me go with her. She was damned either way.

I guess by staying, she made sure I survived, though there were so many nights I wished I hadn’t. I am thankful for that. I know she did her best at the time, but everything Savage said is true.

“Ambrose,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

My throat burns, but I force words out. “I know.”

“I’ve always loved you.”

I nod, no longer able to speak.

“It’s time to prove it,” Savage says. “He cut off Ambrose a year ago, and now I’m done allowing you to pretend like nothing is happening.

Ambrose is more important than money or the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to.

It’s time for you to make a choice, too.

I have enough from my father to keep a roof over our heads and go to med school.

We don’t need all this.” Savage gestures around us.

By the time we leave the house, I’m emotionally raw. I’m not paying attention to where I am or where we’re going. Savage takes charge, and I’m blindly following him. Into a car, out of a car, up stairs, and into an apartment.

I know he’ll keep me safe. Even in my fucked-up state, I trust him. I didn’t know I could ever get to that point. It’s sad and eye opening at the same time.

“Hey, when Tobi gets here, just send him up, okay?” Savage says, and it takes me a second to realize it’s Lovelace. We’re at his place.

“You got it. Anything I can do?” Lovelace asks as Savage pulls me up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Order Thai. I’m fucking starving, and he will be too when he breathes for a few minutes.”

“Done,” Lovelace says.

The door closes, and Savage cups my face.

“What is going on in there?” Savage rubs his thumb from the bridge of my nose to my hairline. It’s a comforting motion his mother used to do when I struggled to fall asleep sometimes.

“Everything. Nothing.” I shake my head. I can’t find the words to string together.

“Okay, clothes off. In bed.” The command in his voice is just strong enough to have me moving but not enough that I want to fight him.

Savage helps me strip my clothes off and drops them on the floor. It doesn’t matter where they land. Once I’m naked, he pushes me to sit on the edge of the bed and stands between my knees.

“Do you need to take control or to lose it?”

I shake my head, unable to make any decisions right now.

“Okay, I’ve got you.” He kisses me and loses his clothes, then climbs into bed. “Come here.”

The emotions that threatened to choke me earlier come flooding in, and I can’t hold them back anymore. There’s no levees or flood walls to slow them down.

Falling onto him, I bury my face in his neck and scream. I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt so out of control, but once it starts, I can’t stop it. The sobs rack my body, and Savage just holds me, wraps himself around me, and lets me work it out.

I cry for the little boy who wasn’t loved, who was never good enough for his father, for the teenage boy who suffered torture at the hands of the church.

From the depths of my soul, I let out the fear that I can’t have my dreams and be loved.

That I’ll lose everything once again, and this time, I’ll be left a shell of a person because it still won’t kill me.

Once again, I’ll have to find a way to survive, but I won’t have spite to keep me going.

I can’t let him win. I swore to myself years ago I wouldn’t give up, and I can’t now that I have Tobi and Savage.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, screaming my sorrow into Savage’s skin, when Tobi comes in. I don’t hear the door open or close, but I feel him. His warmth surrounds my back, and he kisses my shoulders while I fall apart.

When my throat is raw and my mouth is beyond dry, the tidal wave dies back, leaving me exhausted in the arms of the men that have come to mean more to me than I thought possible.

It’s not until my body starts to relax that I realize how stiff my fingers are.

Was I digging them into Savage? Did I leave bruises? I hope not.

“I’m so proud of you,” Savage says against my temple.

“I don’t want to lose you.” My voice cracks. “Either of you.”

“We’re not going anywhere.” Tobi runs his hand along my arm and back up.

“I’m scared you’ll hate me if all of this hockey is for nothing.”

Savage lifts my face to his and wipes the tears from my skin.

“We’ll find a way to make it work. It’ll be hard while I’m in med school and my residency, and I’m sure there will be fights and hurt feelings along the way, but we’ll work it out as long as we all promise to be honest with how we’re feeling. ”

“We’ll figure it out.” Tobi puts his chin on my shoulder. “If I know anything, it’s that you two are stubborn and don’t know when to give up.”

Savage and I chuckle because he isn’t wrong.

I wrap my arm around Tobi as best as I can and kiss Savage. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He smiles against my lips. “Tobi, come here.”

He scrambles up and somehow ends up lying on both of us.

He cups the back of my neck and kisses me, too. “I love you, Ambrose. Even if you are a hockey player.”

“I love you too.”

Savage grips Tobi’s hair and pulls so their mouths meet. “I love you, baby girl.”

Tobi whimpers and squirms before he can speak. “I love you, too.”

Exhaustion is taking over as we settle back down into the mattress. The love and support of these two protects me as I slip into sleep, more content than I ever thought I could be.