My mother stares at me, pleading in her eyes. But I can’t approach her. Not when she brought him in here with her. The layers of make-up and the hairspray-locked curls in her shoulder-length brown hair don’t hide the bruises. They’re burned into my memory anyway, every single one she’s ever gotten.
Carson lets out a chain of curses behind the bar before he walks around and stalks toward her.
“Is that…” Naima trials off, but I know what she’s asking.
“Yeah. That’s my mom. And the dude with her is the guy I put in the hospital last week when I walked in on him almost killing her in her trailer.”
I focus on Naima, staring her down while she inspects my mom, waiting for her terrified and disgusted reaction to what I just told her.
“He was hurting her?” Her voice is quiet, but tinged in white-hot, intense anger.
I nod. “Yeah.”
There it is…the recoil. The disdain. Of course.
I glance back toward my mom, wanting to look anywhere but at that expression on Naima’s face. I was starting to think that maybe she could see every nasty thing there was to see about me and still stick around. But obviously I was…
“Then he deserved it.”
Her four plain words said in a flat tone have me reeling back toward her. My mouth snaps shut, trying to find the words that just don’t come. She glances at me, done observing the situation with Mom and that walking dick.
“Baby…” I finally find my words. “You’ve gotta be the coolest woman on the planet.”
She takes my hand, and together we walk toward the invading couple.
With every step I take, the anger inside me roils and boils, bubbling and frothing just under my skin. My muscles are stretched so tight it’s painful, and my bottom lip is probably bleeding from the pressure my teeth apply.
“Baby boy,” Mom starts, but I hold up a hand to cut her off.
“What the hell are you doing here? With him?”
I spare him a glance. I shouldn’t have.
His expression, underneath the yellowing bruises, is smug, taunting. He tightens his hold on my mother’s waist, and I see her eyes widen momentarily in fear. Dropping Naima’s hand, I step forward until I’m in his face.
“Ace.” My name from Carson is a warning that I ignore.
“You have the balls to touch her again?” I’m asking the question, but it’s through clenched teeth as my hands curl into fists at my sides.
“Your mama here knows we need each other. We just had a misunderstanding is all. We worked it out.”
My mother nods, echoing his words. “Misunderstanding, baby.”
I whirl on her, fury exploding behind my eyes in a bright patchwork of light. “Misunderstanding, my ass! You’d be dead right now if I hadn’t walked in!”
She takes a step back, her face going ashen. Her protruding cheekbones make her face look gaunt, the skin stretching tight. Then she gathers herself, sticks out her bony chest, and folds her thin arms across it.
“I need Joe.”
I stare at her, marveling. Those three words are all it takes to snap me back into the reality of my life. She’s never going to change. Naima’s hand smooths up my back, sending a peace salve coursing through my body. I close my eyes and breathe loudly through my nose.
She’s not gonna wake up. She’s not gonna change. She’ll never kick the booze, the drugs, or the men that bring the poison into her life.
It’s something Carson’s told me a million times. It’s the only way she knows how to live. And no matter how many times we offer to help her, to lift her up, to set her on her feet so she can live her life on her own terms, not some bastard’s who’ll beat her senseless, she never takes us up on it. She never stays sober, she never stands on her own.
I stare at her, sadness threatening to grab my heart in its fist and crush it.
But she’s my mom.
And all I ever wanted to do was help her.
“So, y’all gonna move out of our way so we can get a drink, or what?” Joe’s nasally voice is triumphant.
“Get. Out.” Carson means it, each word said with clear finality.
Mom gives a gulping sob, turning to me. “Baby, please. Just understand. I’m gonna stop drinking, I swear. I just need Joe—”
Gripping Naima’s hand in what’s probably too tight of a grip, I turn my back on Kara.
It’s not up to me to save her. I’ve tried.
Now? It’s her job to save herself.
Twenty
NAIMA
I’m not sure how long I’ve been holding him. An hour? Two?
But I know I don’t want to let him go.
My chest felt like it was being ripped in half, watching him interact with his mother. He wasn’t the tough, shaggy-haired, sharply dressed guy who stole my heart right out from under me just days ago.
He was this lost little boy who just needed his mom.
And she couldn’t step up and do the right thing.
Ace stirs, lifting his head from my lap and glancing around his condo’s living room. The place is completely unlike any home I’ve ever lived in, and yet I’m more comfortable here, more at home here, than I’ve been anywhere my whole life.
“You okay?” I ask him with quiet caution.
Back at The Corner, I was fully exposed to a side of him I’d only glimpsed before. His fury was complete, consuming, and dark.
It should have frightened me.
But I never took my hand off of him, and I could have sworn it was helping to keep him in control.
I won’t take credit for that, though. All the work that went into him holding onto his temper was his own.
I’m so proud of him for not hitting that guy in the face. Because, hell, even I wanted to.
But when he turned his back on his
