Page 60 of Take Me On (Pushing the Limits 4)
She knew because her mother had volunteered her to work the shelter’s kitchen one day as a punishment for stealing money out of her purse. I can’t begin to express the utter embarrassment and horror I felt the moment our eyes met over a tray of scalloped potatoes.
“Yes,” he admits.
“And you were going to tell me you knew when?”
“I’m telling you now.”
I bring my knees to my chest and tug the blanket to my face.
“What was it like?” he insists. “Staying there?”
“They separated us. Me, Mom and Maggie from Kaden and Dad. The three of us at the family shelter and Dad and Kaden had to go to the men’s.”
We had heard of family shelters and when we arrived, desperate for a place to stay, my mom broke down when they informed us men above the age of thirteen weren’t allowed to stay at the family shelter.
“But we’re a family,” my mom begged. Tears spilled down her face and Maggie sobbed with her arms wrapped tightly around my father’s leg.
“I wanted to puke, West. I wanted to find a bathroom and puke. I mean, we had just lost our house and we had nowhere to live and now we were being separated. I was terrified. It took everything I had not to grab on to my father and beg him to make it go away.”
The world became this tunnel-vision blur as my mom asked if an exception could be made and the person behind the counter kept telling her no.
Right as the tingling sensation in my head grew into a roaring, Dad grabbed me by my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “You’ve got to be strong on this one, Hays. Do you hear me? I need you. Your mother and Maggie need you. I need you to do tonight and any other night what I can’t.”
“You stayed strong, didn’t you?” West says into the darkness and I jump, feeling a bit crazy as I wonder if I said the last part aloud. “Because you could protect your mom and sister.”
“Yes.” Tears well up in my eyes. I didn’t cry then and I won’t cry now.
I inch closer to the wall, not wanting his pity, but he parallels my movements. West doesn’t touch me. Instead, his body heats my back. His hand hovers near my shoulder and, after a second, his fingers comb through my hair. The gentle pull, the tenderness of the motion almost causes the tears to cascade down my face.
“What happened?” he asks.
I swallow to clear my throat. “We were fine, but things were rough for Dad and Kaden. The population at the men’s shelter was more...unstable. I found it impossible to sleep at night without knowing if Dad and Kaden were safe. My mom cried all the time and Maggie was starting to have night terrors.
“The shelter wouldn’t let Kaden in a few times because he had bruises on his face from training. They thought he was violent, so Dad and Kaden slept in the car or at the gym. One night, at the shelter, some guy tried to steal their stuff and Kaden hit the guy. All of them got thrown out. Then outside the shelter, Dad and Kaden were held up by a man with a gun. The next morning my mother went to my uncle and begged for him to take us in and here we are.”
My uncle demanded our car and she gave it to him. The bastard took the last thing my parents owned. If that hadn’t worked, then we would have lived on the mats in the gym: waking between three and four in the morning to be gone before classes began and not returning until well after eleven at night. It would have been the same as living out of the car.
“You saw where my grandfather lives,” I say. “There’s barely enough room for him and until my mother begged, my uncle wouldn’t take us in...”
The memories burn brightly in my brain and I wish they would fade. “I know what it’s like to be scared. To wonder if anything will feel normal again. There’s this hopelessness, a sadness that permeates through your pores, when you have no idea what home is or what the word means. I may be under somebody’s roof, but it’s not a home. I just want a home.”
West edges closer and his musky scent envelops me like a welcome blanket. His lips press against my shoulder and I allow myself to melt into him.
Goose bumps rise on the back of my neck and I shouldn’t, but I angle my head so more of my neck is exposed. He kissed me. I should tell West to stop, that he’s crossed lines, but his lips against my skin created a feeling of togetherness, a closeness I’ve been longing for.
In quiet acceptance of my invitation, West skims his nose along the sensitive skin near my hairline. “What did home feel like?” he whispers into my ear.
“Warm,” I whisper back. West’s fingers roam along the end of my tank and when he discovers bare skin, he splays his palm across my stomach. His heat radiates into my bloodstream.
“What else?”
“Safe, protected.”
He pulls me into him, creating a shelter—one like I haven’t experienced in months. I feel small against him, fragile. Like he’s realized the secret I’ve hidden: that I’m breakable, if not already broken.
I’ve noticed his muscles before—his biceps, his abs—but there’s a difference between seeing them and being held in them. I release a breath, one I’ve been holding for six months, for a year, possibly forever.
“When I had a home, I never felt alone,” I whisper. His lips press against the hollow of my neck and my fingers find his. We lace our hands together and his leg rubs against mine. Every part of him connects with a part of me.
