Coast (Kick Push Book 2) (The Road 3) (18 page)

“Right. And then you brought us here, led us to that garage apartment and we put away all the groceries you’d bought. Do you remember what you said to me? Because I’ll never forget it, ma’am. Never.”

She sniffs once, holding her breath to stop the cries from forming.

“You took my hand in yours and you said, ‘It’s not much of a house, but you and Tommy, you can make it your
home
.’ You didn’t just give Tommy and me a place to live. You didn’t just save us. You gave us a family when we had none. And you gave us
you
.
You
are our home, Ma’am.”

—Becca—

L
oud hammering wakes
me from my sleep, and I get up quickly and run downstairs to check on Grams. She’s fast asleep, exactly the way I left her in the early hours of the morning. Josh is out on the porch with another guy replacing the window that Grams had thrown a vase—aimed at Dad—through the night before.

“Morning, sleepy head!” Tommy calls out, standing in the middle of the driveway with a skateboard in his arms.

I wave to him, just as Josh asks, “You sleep okay?” He’s wearing work pants and work boots, the kind I’d seen him in often, back when we were together.

I nod. It’s all I can do since I left my phone upstairs. Dad’s voice from the other end of the porch grabs my attention. “How did you get a replacement so fast?” he asks Josh.

Josh ignores him, so the other guy—I now recognize as Michael from Josh’s old job—answers. “Josh’s uncle is my boss, and he called in a favor.”

Dad’s eyebrows rise. “A favor?”

“Yeah. Before Josh decided to make us all look bad by becoming a pro-athlete, he worked construction,” he says slowly, like it’s something Dad should know. He pats Josh on the shoulder as Josh hammers at the window frame. “My boss made a call to our supplier this morning and got it cut to size.” Michael shrugs. “Josh can do the install on his own. I’m just here to deliver and get free shirts and shoes.”

“The garage door’s open,” Josh mumbles, and without a second thought, Michael makes his way across the driveway toward the garage, cracking jokes with Tommy as he passes.

Josh faces me. “You better get some shoes on, Becs. I haven’t swept the glass yet.”

“I didn’t know you could do this stuff,” Dad says.

Josh scoffs and finally acknowledges him. “With all due respect,
sir.
There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

*     *     *

“What the hell
was that about?
” Cordy asks for me.

Dad rubs his hands across his face before sipping on his coffee. “What was what about?”

Grams woke just as Josh was finishing up on the window and he offered to take her for a walk. She’s mobile enough to be able to eat on her own and go to the bathroom, but she still tires easily, so a walk meant him and Tommy on skateboards and her in her chair—something Tommy thought was hilarious. “The Really Wheely Team,” he called them.

Cordy says, “
The way Josh spoke to you this morning. That’s not like him. Did you say something to him?
”

Dad shrugs. “I may have a had a word with him and I don’t really feel like repeating what all was said, if that’s okay with you.”

I stare incredulously.

“Sweetheart, I just worry about you. That’s all.”

My eyes narrow, and I become unreasonably angry. Not for me. But for Josh. “
I don’t care what you said, but whatever it was, you’re wrong. I care about him, Dad. And maybe that’s not enough for you, but he’s going through enough as it is. You need to apologize to him
.”

Dad sighs. “Becca. Don’t make a mound out of a molehill.”

I tap my phone again, the words repeated. “
I don’t care what you said, but whatever it was, you’re wrong. I care about him, Dad. And maybe that’s not enough for you, but he’s going through enough as it is. You need to apologize to him
.”

“You don’t know him like I do. He’s going to carry your words with him long after you leave, long after you realize you regret them. You have to apologize to him, Dad. And soon.”

“What makes you think I regret it?” he asks.

“Because I know you. You’re just like him. You’re hot-headed and you don’t think before you speak. You see everything in one dimension. You know everything. Until someone makes you realize that you don’t.”

He shakes his head as he looks down at me. “You’re wrong, Becca. And he’s right. I’m not like him at all.”

—Joshua—

I don’t know
why Martin’s standing at my door, looking into my apartment like he has every right to. “I waited until the lights were out assuming your son was asleep. Is he?”

My jaw clenches, but I nod anyway.

He lifts a six-pack of beers between us. “You owe me nothing, but I’m asking anyway. Just hear me out.”

*     *     *

I should wear
a watch. That way I could at least tell you how long I sit at the bottom of the stairs, sipping on a beer offered by a man I might possibly hate. If he’s waiting for me to speak, he’ll be waiting forever. I don’t have forever. Besides, he’s the one who knocked on the door, and if silence is his way of hearing him out, then he has shit backwards.

“You think she could still be in love with you, Josh?”

My mouth opens, but the words are lost and I feel my heart sinking. “She sent me a letter,” I murmur as if it’s somehow going to be enough.

Martin quirks an eyebrow. “A letter?”

“Yeah.”

“What did the letter say?”

I shrug and avoid his gaze. “It’s irrelevant. I don’t know why I said it.”

He sighs. “Are you messing with Becca’s head?”

“No!” I snap.

“
I
think you are, even if you don’t realize it.”

I suck in a breath and hold it there—in my chest—sitting right next to my battered heart.

After a while, he says, “Becca’s stronger now, Josh. Stronger than she’s ever been.”

I speak quickly, not giving my mind time to think. “If you honestly believe that me existing is making her weak in any way, then I’ll leave her alone.” I roll my shoulders, trying to find courage in my words. “I think, at the end of the day, you and I both want the same things. We want Becca to be happy. Regardless of what Becca’s probably told you, I do love her. I’ve always loved her. From the first moment I saw her until now, I haven’t
stopped
loving her. I haven’t been able to move on—”

“It’s been—”

I laugh once, cutting him off. “Two years. Trust me. I know.”

“And you haven’t—”

“Not once,” I interrupt. “Swear on my father’s grave. I
can’t.
”

He leans back, running a hand through his hair, but he doesn’t speak, so I add, “I realize I’ve made mistakes, horrible ones, but I’m human. I’m flawed. I’m working on those flaws, but I’ll never be perfect. I know that. So if it’s those mistakes that prevent me from living the rest of my life without the person I’m insanely in love with, I’ll wear that.”

“I appreciate that, Josh. Really I do,” he says, his voice soft. And I wonder what his angle is, what he could possibly expect from me. “But Becca’s so fragile and…”

I ball my fists, and he must see it because his words die in the air, and he waits for me to speak, both of us knowing my words come from deep frustration and regret. “It’s like you think I don’t know that.” I exhale loudly and try to keep my emotions in check. “She had these nightmares. She’d jerk in her sleep and wince like she was in actual physical pain. She’d cry, even when her eyes were shut tight, somehow tears would still come. And that was on a good night. Other times she’d scream, but it was silent, you know?” I turn to him, making sure he
sees
me. “Because even though she could speak before”—I swallow the pain of the past—“it didn’t always work.”

“You don’t need to…”

I ignore him and keep going. “She’d bite down on her thumb so hard it would leave marks. She’d kick at me, hands covering her head, and she’d plead for it to stop, and the only way I could do it was physically.” I disregard the knowledge of who I’m speaking to and tell him exactly how it is, exactly how I feel. “She wanted me to take away her emotional pain by replacing it with physical pleasure. And I’d do it. For her. I’d regret it as soon as it was done, but I wanted to make it stop just as much as she did. I didn’t know any other way.” My breath leaves me in a shudder, the ache in my chest making it almost impossible to inhale and painful to exhale. “And somewhere along the lines, she needed me and I wasn’t there,” I say, my voice lowering. “Truthfully, I wasn’t anywhere. I was lost. She needed me and I was
lost
. She broke because of me. She tried to
kill
herself because of
me
. So you don’t need to tell me how fragile she is. Believe me, I was there. I fucking know.” I gasp for air, wishing the words back, but it’s too damn late. “I used to walk around with a chip on my shoulder… poor me; single dad at seventeen, completely alone and forgotten. But then I’d look down at Tommy in my arms, a baby boy who was mine and mine alone, and I’d wake up every day grateful we had each other. Swear, I thought it was impossible to love anyone as much as I love my son.” At the thought of Becca, air fills my lungs, slow and steady. “Then Becca showed up and she completed the gaps in my life that I didn’t even know were missing. And I’d give anything to go back in time, back to even before we met. Because I know I’d
see
her in ways the others hadn’t. I’d do anything to
fix
her. I’d take care of her the way she deserved to be taken care of. Not like how her—” I choke on a sob and push it down. “I don’t understand how a parent can do that to their child. How
anyone
can do that to a kid… I look at my son and I see the way he looks at me, the way he relies on me to guide him through this world and—” I’m crying, tears falling fast and free. “Her mother should thank God she’s dead, because if she wasn’t, I’d fucking kill her myself. And I’d make her hurt a thousand times worse than she ever did with Becca.”

I realize Martin’s watching me with a look on his face I can’t decipher. He takes a sip of his beer, and then another. And another. We go through an entire beer each, a comfortable silence somehow keeping us together until he finally says, “I’m lost, too.”

I bite my tongue, confused by his words. “We’re all lost here, sir.”

“Yeah,” he says through a sigh, kicking out his legs. “But I feel out of place. Like I have no purpose being here. Becca—she at least knows Chazarae. She lived with her for a while. You’ve been here for years. I only spoke to her a few times on the phone, met her once when I picked up Becca from that ‘Personal Development’ place and took her to St. Louis, and then again when we came here for her birthday. But I don’t know her. I mean, yeah, she’s my mother, but… I don’t know her at all. And I see Becca getting all worked up, and you fighting her battles for her and I know I should be feeling something but I don’t know what it is…” He takes a sip of his beer, his head dropping forward. “It’s like Becca all over again.”

I sit up straighter, light finally shining on my confusion of his actions. “What do you mean?”

He’s quick to respond, as if he’d been waiting to tell someone, to lift the weight off his shoulders. “I mean, when I got her I had no idea what to do. I had a daughter who needed help and so I tried to do everything a dad was meant to do. I gave her a home, gave her support, but she’s not a little girl who needs her hand held to jump over puddles, you know? She was eighteen, a woman, and the majority of the time she was a strong one. Now, she’s even stronger, so I don’t really understand what my purpose in her life is. I feel like I should protect her from all the bad in the world, but you’re right, I was eighteen years too late and she’s already experienced them all.”

“I didn’t mean what I said. I was angry and this whole thing with Chazarae…” I trail off.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have pushed the wrong buttons. I’m just having a hard time with everything. Add to that the guilt I feel because I should be working, making money, but if I’m at work, then I can’t be here, and right now I don’t know which one’s more important. All that is going through my head, and then we get told that Chazarae needs medical support and all I can think about is how much it’s all going to cost—”