Krit didn’t respond. He kept making Rock a bed on the floor beside my bed.
“You know that, right?” I asked again, needing Krit to acknowledge that this wasn’t something he should get used to.
When Krit dropped his pillow on the makeshift bed, he turned his gaze to me. “No, Trisha, I don’t know that. I think . . . I think you may be more important to him than football.” Then he walked over and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You’re special. The kind of girl a guy does crazy shit for.”
I started to say something, but Krit left my room before I could think of what to say.
Moments later Rock walked back in, wearing a pair of what looked like board shorts and a Sea Breeze Football T-shirt. His gaze landed on the spot Krit had made for him on the floor, and a small grin tugged at his lips. Then he turned his attention to me. “I think he likes me,” he quipped.
I didn’t smile. Not because my lip was hurt but because Rock didn’t understand the truth in his comment. I had to protect Krit. Letting him trust in Rock was a bad idea.
“He thinks you’re going to save us. I don’t need you to encourage that idea. He’s been let down too many times. I won’t let you do that to him too.”
Rock stared at me for a moment, and then he walked over to the bed. His finger traced the side of my head gently. “You’re worried about me letting him down. What about you?”
What about me? I was sure it would break my heart when Rock walked away from this. But I was tough. I could deal with it. My brother had emotional issues that I didn’t have. He lost it and became uncontrollable crazy when things were too much for him.
“I know you’ll leave. I don’t have any grand illusions. In real life there are no heroes.”
Rock didn’t reply at first. He continued to trace the side of my head and rub his thumb and forefinger over my ear in a caress that felt soothing. “One day, Trisha Corbin, you will call me your hero. And that day will be the most important moment in my life.”
Rock
She hadn’t woken up all night. Several times I had watched her chest to make sure she was breathing. Fandora hadn’t come home, and Krit had already stuck his head in here once this morning to check on her.
Lying on my back, I had both my hands tucked under my head as I watched her sleep. Three hours ago I had heard Dewayne and his dad come get my dad’s truck to take it back to the house. I had called Dewayne when I had gone out to my truck last night. I hadn’t wanted Trisha to hear me.
Dewayne’s dad had left me one of his work trucks he didn’t use every day. The keys were hidden under the backseat. He wanted me to have some way to get around in case we needed to get Trisha back to the doctor or needed to escape. I hated telling Dewayne the truth, but I knew he’d help me.
Trisha’s eyes began to flutter, and I was mesmerized. Slowly her one good eye opened. She focused on me and a smile touched her lips. It was a small smile. One that wouldn’t hurt her split lip. I sat up and reached for the salve the doctor had suggested for her lip. “Your need some more of this,” I told her as I stayed on my knees so I’d be at eye level with her.
“I can do it,” she replied in a sleepy voice.
“I know you can. But I can see it better.” It wasn’t the best excuse, but I wanted to do this.
She lay there as I applied the soothing cream over her battered lip.
Last night after I’d told her she’d call me her hero one day she hadn’t said anything else. The room had gone silent until the soft sounds of her sleeping met my ears. I’d watched her sleep and reassured myself she was okay. I had found her, and everything was going to be okay now.
No more letting her push me away. She could push all she wanted, but I wasn’t letting my damn ego and pride get in the way. Trisha wasn’t trying to make me prove anything to her. She wasn’t moved by jealousy. Those weren’t games she played.
If I wanted her, and I did, I would have to do this on her terms. She didn’t trust me. She was cautious and expected nothing from anyone. Being treated poorly was what she expected. So if I acted like a jackass, she accepted it as fate. All the stupid shit I’d done trying to get her to give in had only pushed her further away from me.
“Is Krit awake?” she asked.
“Yeah, he’s in the living room watching television,” I told her.
She frowned. “Fandora?”
“Not here. Never came home last night.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Do you have a way to get home?”
Here we go. She was now ready to kick me out. She was protecting Krit. I understood her now. “I have a truck that Dewayne left me. But I don’t need it. I’m not leaving.”
She didn’t say anything at first, so I stood up and started folding up the comforter and blanket I’d used last night.
“Fandora will come home today. She will expect you to be gone, so she’ll return,” she said as if she were warning me away from something I didn’t already know.
“It’s her trailer. I expect she’ll come back,” I agreed.
I put my bedding in the corner neatly.
“She won’t like you being here.”
She’d be pissed. I expected that. But I wasn’t scared of a crazy-ass evil bitch. “I’m sure she won’t. But she’ll have to get over it.” I didn’t wait for her to argue. “I got a Gatorade out of my truck last night and put it in the fridge. I’m going to go get that and let you take your pills. Then I’ll fix you something to eat. What sounds good? You want something soft?”
“Uh, yeah,” she replied, frowning at me.
“I’ll see what I can find. You like eggs?”
“Fandora doesn’t buy eggs. Toast and butter or cereal.”
She wasn’t arguing with me. I felt like I had won a prize.
“I’ll bring both. We will see which one works best.”
I left her in there before she could decide she needed to kick me out again.
Krit looked up at me when I walked into the living room. “She awake?” he asked.
“Yeah. She needs to eat. What’s her favorite?”
Krit shrugged. “She doesn’t have a favorite. We don’t have a large selection. She’s just happy when we get food. Lunch at school is the highlight of her day.”
The kid didn’t mean to say shit that sliced a f**king hole in my stomach, but goddamn, that was hard to swallow. Trisha liked the damn cafeteria food because she was hungry. Shit, that made me furious. What girl doesn’t have a favorite food?
Preston getting excited about Mrs. T’s cookies made a helluva lot more sense now. He always took some home to the boys and Daisy May now that she had teeth. He had this life too. But he had us. Trisha didn’t have anyone.
She hadn’t had anyone. She did now.
“We both like cereal. She won’t admit it, but sugar flakes are her favorite. They’re mine, too, but I lie and eat the cinnamon squares and leave the flakes for her. I know she likes them best.”
I was wrong. She had Krit.
Trisha
Present day . . .
Leaning against the door frame, I watched as Rock read a chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone with Daisy May. It was their nightly ritual. Daisy May had come a long way since she became ours, but her reading level was still lower than most of the kids in her class. Each night Rock read a chapter with her from the book that she had checked out from the library. It was helping her tremendously.
Tonight watching them together reminded me of the moment I’d realized Rock Taylor was my hero. I had fought him every step of the way, not wanting to trust anyone but my brother. I was afraid of being hurt or rejected.
Rock hadn’t given up on me, just like he wasn’t giving up on Daisy May. He believed in her, and I knew that was going to be enough to help her conquer this. When Rock Taylor believed in you, then you believed in yourself.
“Night, Daddy,” Daisy May said sleepily.
“Night, baby girl,” he replied as he put the book on the table beside her bed and stood up over her.
“Night, Mommy,” she said as she shifted her gaze over to me.
I walked into the room and stood beside Rock. “Good night, sweetheart. You read that whole last page all by yourself and didn’t miss a word. You’re going to be the top reader in your class one day,” I told her.
Daisy May grinned and looked from me to Rock. He nodded in agreement, and she beamed. All it took from Rock was a nod of encouragement to make her smile like she owned the world. He did that to girls.
I bent down over her and kissed her sweet little cheek. “I love you,” I whispered against her soft skin. Those were words she hadn’t heard enough in her short life. Rock and I had agreed to tell all three of our kids we loved them every morning and every night and every chance we got during the day.
“Love you too,” she said with a happiness in her voice that I cherished.
Rock dropped to his haunches so he was at eye level with her. “You’re my princess. Love you no matter what. Always.” It was something he had started saying to Daisy May a little over a year ago when she had broken a lamp by accident and burst into tears, afraid we wouldn’t love her anymore.
“Love you no matter what,” she repeated.
I walked out of the room and headed into the hallway to wait on Rock. It was time we went to check on our boys. They were getting their showers and finishing up their homework while Rock and Daisy May read.
Rock closed her door after making sure she had her night-light on.
His arm slid around my waist, and he pulled me against him. “You smell really good,” he said in a deep, husky voice as he ran his nose up the side of my exposed neck.
“Don’t start yet.” I winked at him as I pulled away. “We have to get the boys in bed first.”
Rock chuckled as his hand cupped my ass. “Then don’t look so damn sexy.”
I rolled my eyes at him. My hair was in a bun on the top of my head. I was wearing a pair of cutoff sweats and one of his old T-shirts, which I had also cut off so it didn’t hang to my knees. Nothing about my appearance was sexy. I even had the spaghetti sauce from dinner splashed on me from letting it overheat on the stove.
The bathroom door opened, and Jimmy walked out in his pajama pants and T-shirt. He was letting his hair grow. He wanted it like Preston’s. Right now it was damp and tucked behind his ears. Life with a teenager was supposed to be more difficult than this. Jimmy was thirteen now, but he never once gave us a moment’s trouble. It worried Rock. He was afraid Jimmy was being too good because he feared losing us.
“Ready for bed?” I asked him.
His smile, so much like his brother’s, tugged at his lips. “Yeah. I’m ready. But y’all didn’t have to wait on me. You could have put Brent to bed without me.”
“I tuck all my kids even. I’ll be doing it as long as you live under this roof,” Rock replied with a teasing tone. “Even when you’re eighteen.”
Jimmy knew Rock was teasing him and rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Yeah. Sure you will.”
Jimmy walked into the room he shared with Brent, who was now ten. Brent was already in bed, looking at the newest sports magazine he had gotten in the mail. The kid was obsessed with football. Which Rock loved. It was their connection. They talked football for hours.
His eyes lifted and he looked up at us. Of the three kids, he was the most serious and cautious. He trusted Preston, but it had taken months before he trusted us. This past year had been so much easier. He had started to believe that we wanted him and that we were a family. One he could feel safe in.
“You should read this. The draft predictions are ridiculous,” Brent said, tossing the magazine at Rock, who caught it.
“I’ll do that. We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” Rock replied, walking over to him. “You ready for the math test tomorrow?”
Brent nodded. “Yep. I’m gonna kill it.”
Rock bent down and kissed the top of his head. “That’s what I like to hear.”
Once Jimmy was in bed, I went to his side and ruffled his hair. Sometimes I felt like I was raising a good version of Preston. I remembered the wild child Preston was in high school, and Jimmy was nothing like that. But his facial expressions and mannerisms were so much like Preston’s. “Sleep tight,” I told him, and kissed his forehead. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said in a whisper. That was new too. He’d just been replying with his own “I love you” the past few months.
Once we had both boys tucked in, we cut the lights and closed the door.
Rock stood there with his hand on the doorknob once we were in the hallway. “That never gets old,” he said in a whisper.
He didn’t have to explain. I understood. Two years ago we were told that we could never have children. Having a family was something we both wanted. We wanted to create a world we ourselves had been cheated out of. We wanted to have a house full of love and safety to give to our kids—what we had always dreamed of having ourselves.
We had that now. We were not only able to have a family filled with all those things we had longed for, but we were able to give it to kids who had been living a life of hell much like the ones we had been raised in. They were here now, though, and they were ours. And never again would they suffer or fear or go hungry. We would love them always.
“We’re very blessed,” I agreed quietly.
Rock smiled at me. “Yeah, we are.”
Trisha
Eight years ago . . .
It was three days before Fandora came home. I had a doctor’s note for missing school, while Rock made Krit go every day while he stayed home with me. No matter how much I begged him to go to school, he just ignored me and acted like I hadn’t spoken. He was missing football practice, and he didn’t have an excuse for all the classes he was missing.