“How long did that last?”
“Three months. Thankfully it was summer, so we weren’t freezing. I was finally able to get work at a fast-food place, but Reed was too strung out to even think of holding down a job. I begged him to stop using, but I might as well have been talking to a fence post.”
Cody reached out and brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face, and she leaned her face into his palm, soaking up his warmth. He was strong and honorable, and she wondered if she deserved such a man. She was almost to the end of her story, but she’d come to the hardest part to speak of.
“What happened to him?”
“He overdosed. We were living in an abandoned building with some other kids, most of them druggies, and Reed started going with them during the day, stealing purses, picking pockets, that kind of thing.”
She’d sworn she wouldn’t cry, but hot tears rolled down her cheeks. “I didn’t even recognize him anymore. The beautiful boy I’d fallen in love with was gone. He didn’t try to stay clean, he hardly ate enough to stay alive, and he had dead eyes. All that mattered to him was scoring.” His lifeless eyes had haunted her for a long time, still did sometimes in the darkest hours of the night.
“I came back to the building one evening after I got off work and found him. He was barely alive, and all the kids had split, afraid of sticking around for the cops to come. Not one of them, the ones he considered his friends, cared enough to get help. Since I didn’t have a phone, I ran down the street until I found a cop, but it was too late. When we got back to the building, Reed was taking his last breaths and I held him while he died.” She swiped at the tears. Hadn’t she already cried an ocean of tears for the boy she’d loved and lost? How did she even have any left to shed for him?
“What happened to you?”
“I got sent back to Florida, back into the hands of Protective Services. Honestly, I didn’t care anymore what they did with me. But a funny thing happened. They finally got something right when they put me in Pat and John Haywood’s home. I wasn’t a fun kid to be around, but they turned out to be more stubborn than me. They were my salvation.”
Cody caught Riley’s hand and pulled her between his legs. She lifted the edges of the blanket and wrapped it around them, resting her face against his chest. Her story had just about ripped out his heart, and he was in awe of what she had made of herself considering what and where she’d come from. If she could recover from a life gone wrong, how could he do any less? From her, he took the determination to deal with what he faced.
“I’m sorry he died, darlin’.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I’ll say it again, he made the choice to take the road he did.”
“I can’t argue with that, but I’ll always live with knowing that if he’d never met me, he would be alive today and happy.”
“You can’t know that either. Maybe he would be, or maybe he would have found his way to drugs some other way.” When she shivered, he slid off the railing. “Don’t move.” He grabbed his guitar, putting it inside before locking his front door. “I think we’ve bared our souls enough for one night, don’t you?”
She nodded, and the tears glistening on her cheeks tore at his heart. No sixteen-year-old should have experienced what she had. Hell, no child should have to live a life like hers—in and out of foster homes, an abandoned, unwanted little girl. He didn’t think she had any idea just how strong and determined her character was. How beautiful she was.
Although he’d never understood his parents, or they him, he’d appreciated that they’d loved him, even if it was in their own way. They would never be different from who they were, would never understand the man he was, but that no longer mattered. He was blessed to have them.
Riley pulled the bottom of the blanket up around her waist, and they walked to her house, hand in hand. Not a man who had ever wanted a long-term relationship before, he now wanted one with her. Considering they’d yet to make love, his coming at this relationship with Riley from a friends-first angle was novel.
When they stepped inside her house, she dropped the blanket. Taking his hand, she led him to her bedroom. He kicked the door closed behind them to keep out nosy critters.
By unspoken agreement, they didn’t speak. Maybe they’d talked themselves out. He didn’t know, only knew that words weren’t needed between them to understand what this night meant.
He was all for a little rough sex when his partner was of a like mind, but this brave, beautiful woman standing in front of him with warmth in her eyes meant just for him had not had an easy life. On this night of confessions, he wanted to worship her, wanted her to know that the world was sometimes soft and tender, even though she’d never known such a thing. Maybe she had with her Reed in the beginning, but he’d ended up abusing the love she had for him.