Breathless In Love (The Maverick Billionaires #1)(40)
She knew only one thing. “No one has ever been nicer to me,” she told him. “Or to Jeremy.”
“That’s now. But back then—” He broke off and his chest rose with a deep breath as if he was trying to force himself to do something painful. “Remember when I said some kids were bullying Matt the day I met him?”
She could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingertips. “Yes. And you rescued him.”
“Evan, Daniel, and Sebastian rescued him, Harper.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I was one of those bullies.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Harper tipped her head back to look at him. The strong lines of his face were tense, the bedside lamp casting dark shadows across one half.
“You were bullying him?” She shook her head, unable to put the amazing man she’d fallen for in that picture, even as a boy. “I can’t believe that.”
His jaw flexed. “Believe it.”
“But I’ve seen you with Matt’s son, Noah. I’ve seen the way that little boy looks at you, and the way Matt trusts you. How could he trust you with his son if you did that?” No father would have let a son of his near the man who’d been his bully when he was a child.
He filled his lungs with another deep breath. “Because, in the end, I changed.” He exhaled sharply. “I changed my mind.”
“I don’t understand.” And she truly didn’t—couldn’t understand anything he was saying to her when it was the exact opposite of what she’d come to know about him.
“I belonged to a gang. In my neighborhood, you were either a bully or you got bullied,” he said in rapid-fire bursts. “You had to act like them to be accepted. So I did.”
His arm still bound her to him as if he was afraid she’d get away. Reaching up, she forced his palm against her cheek, holding him, too, as she tried to piece it all together.
“Road Warriors?” When he nodded, she said, “So if you felt you had to be a bully to fit in, then why did you change your mind about Matt?”
“Maybe I felt sorry for him because he was so scrawny. Or maybe there was just something in his eyes when he looked at me, like they were a kind of mirror that made me see myself in them. See what I was doing.” His whole body was rigid along the length of hers. “I told them to leave him alone. So they turned on me.” She felt his shrug, as if what the bullies had done to him was nothing and only what he’d been about to do to Matt had meaning. “That’s when Daniel and Sebastian rescued me. They were always good fighters.”
“I’m sorry.” She understood bullying. She’d seen neighborhood kids pick on Jeremy. She’d put herself between them. But Will a bully? She remembered his defense of Jeremy at the grocery store, and, in a way, his story made sense of his reaction that day. He’d seen himself in that clerk. Cruel and demeaning. And he’d gone overboard to protect her brother. “But the gang took you back?”
“I went back. I thought they were my people. I thought they were my family, the only one that would ever want me. And that isn’t all I did.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb, his touch a contrast to what he was saying. “You need to know everything. Everything I’ve never told anyone but the Mavericks and my foster mom and dad. I was a burglar and a car thief, too.” He moved slightly, indicating the tattoo on his arm. “I stole anything I thought I could sell. I was really good at picking out the good stuff.” His laugh was more of a snort, angry and mocking. “I still am. I’ve made a fortune at peddling the good stuff.”
Her lips parted. She couldn’t seem to close them again.
“My dad sent me into houses. I was small and I fit through windows where he couldn’t. He’d toss me in and I’d unlock the place for him. Since I was always able to spot the best stuff, dear old pops put that skill to excellent use. We lifted everything we could carry.”
“Your father?” No one could do that to a child, especially not their own child, could they? Except that she wasn’t naïve. She knew people did awful things to children all the time. But this was Will. Not some fifteen-second news bite about a stranger.
“He’s in prison now. Three strikes and you’re out.”
It was hard to breathe, hard to hear, but she knew it was harder for him to tell. “How old were you when he made you steal for him?”
“It started when I was eight. A couple of years after my mom died. When my father figured I was old enough to follow orders without screwing up.”
Her whole soul ached for him, as if she’d suddenly been shoved through a tiny window right along with him, shards of glass scarring her the way his father had scarred him. She’d wondered why he’d sidestepped all her questions, why he’d never told her his story. Now she knew: This was the truth he hadn’t wanted her to pry up.
She’d told her story so many times that she’d ended up feeling as though it defined her, as though it had too much power over her. Whereas, even though Will had told almost no one else, she could see the enormous power his past had over him—and that he believed it defined him, too.
But couldn’t he see? “None of that was your fault.”
He pulled from her then, almost to the opposite side of the bed. So far, far away that even if her hand had been on his chest, his heart, she still wouldn’t have touched him.
“Maybe I wasn’t to blame at first. But all the stuff I did later was my fault. All the bad choices. Lots of bad choices.”
She ached to run her fingers down his arm or to smooth the tightness from his forehead. Anything to ease his pain. But he needed to get it out, and she was afraid that he’d stop if she pushed him just then. Still, she needed to say again, “You were just a kid.”
“I was a bully. I was a thief. I could hotwire a car like that.” He snapped his fingers, a loud, sharp sound in the quiet. “Still can. I probably would have gone to juvie when they put my dad in jail if it hadn’t been for Susan and Bob. Daniel’s parents took us all in when we needed it. Except for Matt.” He shrugged, pressed his lips together, the shadows taking over his beautiful face. “He never moved in officially, he was just underfoot all the time.”
When he talked about Susan and Bob, his voice was reverent, rife with emotion and meaning. The Mavericks, Susan and Bob—these people were the most important in the world to him. No wonder they were bonded beyond blood relation. She didn’t know his friends’ stories or anything about their lives, but if they’d come to Daniel’s parents, she now knew they must have seen things as bad as Will had.
She wanted so desperately to reach out. But Will remained untouchable. “They must be good people.”
“The best. I should have accepted what they offered me long before I did.” A wisp of wind could have carried the soft words away, but other than the rustle of sheets as Will moved, there was only the sound of his voice. “But I didn’t stop doing the things my dad taught me.” His fingers bunched in the sheet as he pulled it higher. “I loved speed. I loved drag racing. I loved cars. And I loved stealing them. I was one of the Road Warriors. And I thought they loved me, too. But I didn’t have a clue.” He turned his head, finally looking at her, one half of his face in light, the other in darkness. “That’s what I did to Susan and Bob. To the people who tried to help me. Gave them heartache and worry.”
“I’m sure they understood, Will.” But she realized the useless platitude in that even as she spoke the words. Words that did nothing to ease his pain.
“I left the Road Warriors when I was sixteen.” He paused, stared at the far bedroom wall as though he could actually see his life playing before him. “Or maybe it’s better to say that they ceased to exist.” Harper stretched out her hand, across the wide chasm of mattress between them as he told her, “That day with Matt, I at least learned I didn’t want to be a bully. And I never did that shit again. But the Road Warriors were different. The lowest on the totem pole always got picked on. That was our way of life. It happened to me, it happened to all of them. Until you weren’t the lowest anymore.
“We had this kid who wanted to be one of us more than anything. He was like a gnat, always buzzing around. And he couldn’t do anything right. His name was Eddie, and they called him Eddie Munster after that old TV show.” He shook his head at the wall, still watching the movie in his mind. “They didn’t let up on Eddie. It was freaking endless. But he kept coming back for more. You just wanted to tell him to give up. It was never gonna happen. He’d never be one of us.” Even his voice changed as he spoke, dropping letters off his words. “But ya gotta understand how badly you need a family out there. You’ll take any kind of abuse just to belong.”
She closed her eyes, held her breath as her heart broke in two for him. That was Will himself, the kid who’d taken any abuse just so he could be a part of them. She wanted to cry for him, scream for him, take care of him, never let him hurt ever again.