“Gavin—” she started again.
“When she was drunk or in one of her black rages, she beat me, told me I ruined her life. I was never sure if it was me she was punishing during those times or if…if in her twisted, sick mind, she thought I was the man who’d hurt her. And then, when she was sober, she’d beg for my forgiveness, always promising it was the last time, that she’d get better, swearing she loved me, telling me I was all she had.”
Erin stopped trying to turn around. She remained quiet, and if he wasn’t standing here with his guts ripped out, he might have been amused by the fact that he’d actually rendered the queen of talkers speechless.
“She never got better.”
“Oh God,” she breathed, the sound shaky, betraying how close she was to tears.
“I just wanted you to know that, so you’d understand when…you see me.”
Erin nodded but didn’t try to move. Not until he released his grip on her shoulders and took a step back. Even then, she remained as she was for a second, and he watched as she straightened her spine. He knew her well enough to know she was preparing herself, digging deep to find that strength he’d just told her he admired. Maybe never more so than in this moment.
When she turned around, she kept her eyes on his, and if she’d shed tears as he spoke, she’d gotten them under control now. He held his breath when her gaze lowered.
She didn’t say anything as she looked at his chest, at the scars, some hidden behind the tattoos, others still waiting to be concealed.
Erin started to circle him slowly, her eyes missing nothing as she looked at the long, jagged white scar on his arm, evidence of that final blow, the slice of the knife.
She stopped when she stood behind him.
His back was the worst, he knew it. When he was younger, he’d always turned away from his mother, the reaction sheer protective instinct, so his back had taken the brunt of the abuse—the cuts from broken liquor bottles, the cigarette burns. Bruises faded and went away. Cuts and burns left a lasting stain.
He’d always wondered if that had been his mother’s intent. If she’d wanted him to have visible proof of just exactly who he belonged to. After all, he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror and not think of her, every single time his gaze landed on the scars.
Gavin braced himself in case Erin reached out to touch him, holding himself still as stone. Oliver was the only one who’d ever touched his scars, and it was taking everything he had not to walk away from her, out of this room.
When she completed her circle, she stopped in front of him, her hands still by her side.
“Thank you for showing me. For trusting me,” she whispered.
He nodded, unable to speak.
The softness in her eyes turned to what he’d come to know as pure Moretti steel when she added, “And if I ever meet your mother, I’m ripping every fucking hair out of her scalp. And then I’m gonna get serious.”
Gavin wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say, but it wasn’t that, and he couldn’t hold back the loud bark of laughter. Erin didn’t share his mirth, her anger over his scars too new, too hot. He’d had a lifetime to look at them, so it was easier for him.
He reached out and grabbed her, pulled her into his arms for a hug, no longer worried about her touching him. When she wrapped her arms around his, her fingers brushing over the scars, he waited for the horror to sink in. It didn’t.
Instead, all he felt was her softness, her warmth, and a comfort he’d never experienced before. “Gotta admit. I’m sort of tempted to introduce you to her now,” he joked, shocking himself with his response.
Erin, like Oliver, always knew exactly how to soothe his hurts, to make him feel almost normal in the face of something that was so fucking abnormal. She lifted her head to look at him, even as they remained connected, skin to skin, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The compassion in her eyes warmed him all the way to the bone and stirred something in his heart he couldn’t recognize, couldn’t define at first.
Then he figured it out. Erin had done it. Broken through the last of his barriers. He couldn’t believe how fucking good it felt.
“Come on,” he said, clearing his throat in an attempt to hide the thickness in his voice. “Let’s grab clean shirts and finish this lasagna. I’m starving.”
An hour later, he sat at the kitchen table with Erin and Oliver, the three of them putting a serious dent in the homemade lasagna. After changing shirts, he and Erin had returned to the kitchen, and while things between them were as easy as always, there was also a new…layer…to their relationship. It was as if their friendship had deepened in those few minutes, pulling them even closer. Oliver was the only other person Gavin had ever let so far in, and a small part of him kept waiting for that moment when regret over showing her his back kicked in.
It hadn’t hit yet. Maybe it wouldn’t.
“How’s your Pop Pop doing?” Gavin asked.
Oliver shrugged. “Hanging in there. The man is stronger than me, that’s for damn sure. He showed me where they hung Grandma Sunday’s ornaments on the tree at Riley and Aaron’s house. It felt…weird.”
“Yeah. Christmas is going to be different this year.” Gavin’s first true Christmas had been spent with the Collins family the year he’d come to live with them. The entire family celebrated at the pub because no one’s house was big enough to hold them all. Gavin could recall feeling completely overwhelmed, hugging a wall near the back of the room
