Page 51 of Bourbon Truths
She encouraged me to lie down. I told myself to get up instead, to grab my clothes and get the fuck out of her place, but my body betrayed me and rested on one of her pillows. Lyla settled into my side and wrapped an arm around my waist. I moved my hand to her hair and ran my fingers through it.
A lump settled in my throat as I studied the cracks of her ceilings again and our breathing evened out. Why couldn’t I let this woman go?
“You’re not alone, Kace,” Lyla said, breaking the silence between us. “You’re not the only one with demons.”
This wasn’t the first time Lyla had mentioned something from her past. I knew there had to be something that happened in her life, that had her turning to the life she held now. A part of me wanted to know her story, wanted to help fix her problems, protect her and give her everything she needed, but how could I help her when I couldn’t help myself? She wanted a whole man, someone to stand by her side, to fight and walk through this dark world with her.
I wasn’t that man.
“You don’t have to talk,” Lyla said, rubbing my side. “You don’t even have to ask any questions. I just need you to know where I’m coming from. I wanted you to know you’re not alone, Kace.”
There was no way in hell our stories were even close to being similar, but it was hard to resist what she was offering. Even though I knew I had to distance myself, I still wanted to know about her.
Instead of answering her, I pulled her closer, savoring the way her breasts felt against me, the way her nipples were puckered even though I wasn’t trying to turn her on.
“I didn’t always live in poverty, scraping for every last cent,” she said. I tensed, wondering if I really wanted to hear this. “It was me and my dad my entire life. My mom wasn’t interested in being a mom, which was fine because I would rather have no mom than a mom who lived with me but never gave me an ounce of attention. My dad gave me all the attention I needed.”
I could feel her smile against my chest as she talked about him. It was endearing.
“He was the best man I ever knew. He worked hard, provided for me, and made it to every dance recital I had. He was the perfect father.”
“Sounds like it,” I responded, surprising myself since the lump in my throat grew. I didn’t understand what a close relationship with a father was like. Like my dad had said, I was a disappointment. He was probably laughing in his grave at me right now, watching me struggle with my day-to-day life. I knew in his eyes, I was a complete fuck-up, not worth the air I breathed.
Carefully dropping all thoughts of my father, I listened to Lyla continue her story. “After each recital, he would take me to get ice cream. We’d sit on a bench overlooking the Mississippi River and talk about our day. He would praise me for my pirouettes and tell me how pretty I was.”
I kissed the top of her head. “You talk as if he is no longer in your life.”
She gripped me tighter and sighed. “He’s not.” She took a deep breath. “He had a temper.”
“Did he fucking touch you?” I growled, instantly ready to snap.
“No!” she practically shouted. “He’d never do anything like that to me. I was his entire life, Kace. His temper was never directed at me. He loved me dearly.”
The tension in me eased. I didn’t think I would have been able to handle hearing she was abused by her father.
“How did he die?” I asked, hating how invested I was getting in her story.
“My dad used to work at the Domino Sugar Refinery.”
“In Chalmette?” I asked, referring to its location.
“Yup, he was a line supervisor.”
I was impressed. That refinery was one of the oldest and biggest in the country. It brought a lot of needed jobs to the city of New Orleans.
“He worked hard to get to where he was,” Lyla continued. “He was driven, determined to give me everything he thought I wanted when in fact all I wanted was him. He was my hero.”
“What happened?” I asked, my heart splintering for Lyla.
“When he first got a job there, he started with a bunch of his friends. It was my dad and three other guys who entered the system together. They were inseparable and were like uncles to me. When I would visit my dad, they had a little pink hard hat for me.”
Fuck my heart.
“My dance lessons got more expensive each year, and my dad insisted upon me taking them since I had talent and it was an after-school activity that kept me occupied while he was at work. Because expenses were high, he buckled down and worked harder, pushing his limits, pushing his friends’ limits.”
“He wanted to make more money. There is nothing wrong with that,” I said.
“There is when you have a trigger-happy temper that goes off at the slightest disturbance. I don’t really know the details, because no one would tell me, but I guess my dad got in an altercation with someone at work. It was quickly broken up, but it put a target on my dad’s back. Later that night, when he was walking to the dance studio to pick me up, he was murdered in the back of an alley, brutally beaten to death.”
