Page 103 of On the Ropes
“I protected…” I swallowed past a throat tightening like a vise. “I protected someone who only became more awful as time went on. A homophobic racist who told her daughters she was too busy with her new family to spend time with them. That’s whose side I took as my dad was pretending not to cry while packing our lunch in the morning.”
Dean’s hand, cupping my cheek, was a steady, comforting pressure. “Tabitha, look at me.”
I reluctantly dragged my eyes back to his and was stunned at the compassion there.
“Your mother was an adult who should never have involved her child in her affair,” he said. “She forced you to share her guilt. You were eleven years old. And could never have known how bad your mom was going to get.”
“Her actions have affected all of our lives, Dean,” I said. “I’m not saying I was responsible for her cheating. I do feel responsible for all the rest of it. Because if I’d at least told my dad that very first day, I really believe so much of the worst parts of their divorce and her leaving would have been avoided. Not that she would have stayed. But…but mitigated, for sure. Alexis just told me how deeply our mother’s behavior has affected so many of her choices and reactions to things, even to this day, and the whole time she was telling me that I kept thinking I could have put a stop to this. And I didn’t.”
I didn’t realize I’d been crying until his fingers came away wet from my face. “You’ve never told them?”
I shook my head. “No, and I don’t…I’m not sure how to or if I will. Telling them now exposes me as a liar, like she was. The more I don’t tell them, the worse I feel. But I love my family more than anything in this world. I think, deep, deep down, I’m terrified they’ll never look at me the same way again. At least now I’m on the road a lot and we talk over video all the time and I stop home for quick visits. What if I lost all of their affection and trust?”
Hearing those words out loud dialed up my anxiety to an almost unbearable level. Since graduating from UCLA five years ago, I’d breezed past these fears by staying on the go and rarely entertained considering what I’d done. Whispering all of this to Dean was a confusing mix of lessening the weight while strengthening my worries.
“Tabitha.” Dean touched my chin lightly until I looked at him. “Do you… Are you punishing yourself for this?”
“What?” I asked. “No. Of course not.”
His face said otherwise. “You always leave this place you love. The people you love.”
“It’s distressing,” I managed. “I’ve only been home for two weeks, and it’s like I can hear her in my thoughts again. Making me feel bad for things that happened years ago. Every moment with my family is precious to me but, you know…” I trailed off, emotion constricting my chest. “It’s better, for me and for them, if I leave.”
Dean’s nostrils flared, a line forming between his eyebrows. “Is it better though?”
The unsaid sentiment hung in the air between us, mingling with the now bright morning light. Could you stay? If he wasn’t thinking it, I clearly was. But I must have taken too long to answer because the very real, very un-temporary hurt that flooded his features for one harsh second felt like taking a hit to the solar plexus. I fully understood, in that moment, how far I’d fucked this up—that avoiding our tricky reality while giving in solely to pleasure had been a surefire way to hurt us both.
And hadn’t that been my mother’s preferred method all along?
“Dean,” I said nervously, “we should probably—”
His body went rigid again, pulling away from me on the couch even as I wasn’t entirely sure how I planned on finishing that sentence. But I already wanted to snatch him back, snatch back the past two weeks. His phone started ringing, and I flinched at the piercing sound. Dean sat up with a ragged breath and grabbed his phone, scowling at whatever he saw on the screen. Then he stilled and swore under his breath.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Is today Thursday?”
I scratched my head. “Yeah, because tomorrow is Friday and that’s when I leave.”
His eyes darted up to mine, then dropped back to his phone. He silenced the ringer and dragged a hand down his face. “My agent scheduled a meeting this morning with the Game Time producer who wants to hire me. It’s…fuck, in thirty minutes, and I totally forgot about it.”
The sound of a truck parking on the street snagged my attention. But I shook my head and refocused on Dean, tugging on his underwear and raking a hand through his curls. “Wait, you mean for the boxing job in Vegas?”
He nodded as he tugged on his jeans and peeked out the curtains. I could hear voices now and the beep of a truck backing up.
“I thought, well, I guess I assumed you weren’t taking that,” I said cautiously. Why I felt that was safe to assume I had no idea—we’d only spoken about it that one morning in bed.
Dean cleared his throat. “I haven’t given Harry an answer yet.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.” I tucked my feet beneath me. It wasn’t like I had any claim to where Dean ended up or what job I thought was the best fit for him. This still hurt though.
His gaze slid to mine then behind me, and his jaw tightened. “I think there’s a developer looking at the vacant lot.”
“What?”
I joined him at the curtain, ducking under his arm. A few guys wearing construction gear were milling about on the sidewalk in front of a large black truck that read Oswald Properties. My stomach pitched.
“Do you know who they are?” I asked, dread filling me.
“Yeah.”
His phone started ringing again, and I thought he might break it between his fingers.
“Are they good news or bad news?”
He stepped back, away from me. “They’re bad fucking news.”
