He takes his cell phone out of his pocket, laying it on the table, it reminds me of that day. I want to ask, it’s been driving me crazy wondering who he was talking to.
“What?” He adds more asparagus to his plate.
“Who were you talking to the other day? You smiled the minute you answered the phone.”
Tilting his head, he smiles. It’s the same smile he had when he answered, dimples showing deep, making my stomach twist. “My father’s widow, Catherine.”
I was not expecting that answer. “Really?”
“Yep, she didn’t hate or resent me. I met her when I was nine. She loved my father very much, and she was of the stupid mindset she failed him by not giving him a son. For some crazy reason she felt it excused my father for cheating on her and knocking up my mom. Only my father didn’t need a reason, he was just lazy and didn’t have a condom. He liked his women young, he didn’t marry Catherine until he was thirty, and she was only eighteen.
“Although he lived in Dallas, he liked to amble on down to Austin for a weekend of partying. One weekend he hooked up with a nineteen-year-old who had me when she was twenty. My mom wasn’t the first woman he was unfaithful with, nor was she the last. She was just one of the few who didn’t get paid to have an abortion because by forty my father ran out of his own money to spend.”
“You sound mad at him, yet in interviews you talk as if he’s a personal hero.” He doesn’t appear mad, more like he’s reconciled with who his father is.
“Because he was a shitty person, he wasn’t the best father, but as a ball player he was pretty damn good. He was an All-Star and led the league in RBIs for two years running. There’s no telling how long his career could have lasted if it hadn’t been for the Achilles tear from hell. He only had six years in the league. It took until I was thirty and thinking of retirement myself to understand why he was the way he was. Angry, resentful, a drunk full of self-pity. It didn’t excuse him, I just understood.
He shrugs, “Hell, maybe he wasn’t as bad of a father as I think. He instilled a love of the game that helped me get where I am today. At first, I was into it to gain some attention from him, his whole language was baseball, it was the only way he knew how to communicate. The hours we spent on Saturday and Wednesdays when he drove down to see me, while he trained me to hit, catch, and field, were my way of spending time with him. But they also began to mean more.”
“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t see my father with a drink in his hand. Considering my mother, I understand the all-day drinking. You said you never acquired a taste for alcohol...”
His sigh is loud in the room, “He always smelled like it, even when he wasn’t drinking. It was in his fucking sweat.”
My stomach flips seeing the storm in his eyes before he blinks, then it’s gone, his eyes a smooth sky blue as they meet mine. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. Don’t be sorry. Your mom sounds like she’s a treat. How close are you two?”
I laugh. Weird. I don’t know where it comes from, but I can’t stop. With a sigh, I wipe my tears. There’s no warning, one moment I’m wiping my tears and the next I’m in Chris’s arms, in his lap. His arms hold me tight as he presses a kiss to my temple. “What happened, sweetheart?”
Damn it, the tears start again. Swallowing i
sn’t easy around the lump in my throat. “My Christmas present this year was a vacation to Switzerland so I could undergo two rounds of liposuction. She and my father are so worried I’m such a fat ass I’ll never find a man and shoot out two point four—”
Savage, ferocious, primal, demanding my entire being, his kiss isn’t simply a kiss—it’s a replay of last night with our clothes on. When he raises his head, all I can do is lie in his arms. He runs a finger over my cheek as his eyes, bright blue like the sky in summer, study me. “Your mother and your father are fucking idiots. I’m sorry you ever had to hear them say horrible shit like that.
“I understand it’s going to take some time to get their narrative out of their head. It will be easier when you accept it’s their narrative, not yours. I’m going to try to be patient with you; however, you might remember it’s not something I’m great at. I’ll say it as many times as you need to me, but in return I need you to believe it, and let go of all the ugly, painful bullshit.
“You are a beautiful woman, from those stunning eyes of yours with the way they shift from golden brown to green with every thought, to that sweet, small nose of yours, to your perfectly shaped mouth. I adore your mouth, so wide and soft. I’m dying to see your hair wild and free, swirling around your face. I’m sure I’ve said it a dozen times, but know I mean every word: I find your body so appealing I’ve dreamed of you every fucking night since I met you. Oh yes, in my head I’ve fucked you in every way imaginable, but then I just held your soft curves against me, and my fantasies were nothing compared to real life.
“Those are just the half dozen ways you’re beautiful to look at. As hard as your body makes me, your smart, sassy mouth is what hooked me. Sugar, no other woman has done what you do to me. All of that and you’re nice and sweet, all the work you do for the legal clinic, the women love you and I know you think it’s no big deal, but it is. A woman isn’t beautiful because of her hair or her eyes or her body; she’s beautiful from the inside out, the way she thinks, the way she treats people, the kindness she gives to others for no other reason than it’s the right way to treat someone. Do you understand me?”
I nod; the depth of his sincerity shines from him. I’m stunned, almost like I’m looking into the sun. Yet I can’t look away, don’t even want to blink.
“If you understand me, then I’m going to need you to make what I said your new narrative. None of this fat-ass bullshit, no more thinking you aren’t good enough, no more listening to what other people think about you. Tell me, Amelia. Do you think you’re beautiful?” Now, I close my eyes. “Don’t think too hard, reflex, are you beautiful?”
“No.” I can’t meet his gaze as I whisper my answer.
His lips flutter over my ear. “You’re wrong, and I won’t stop telling you differently until you believe you are. But until then, if I hear you say ugly shit about yourself again, even repeating what someone said, I’ll make you regret even thinking it. It won’t be a hot, sexy spanking; it will be something you never want to happen again. Do you understand?”
The growl of his threat causes me to shiver in fear. My stomach tightens until it hurts. I nod. “Yes.”
“Good. Now tell me your mother got the fuck-you she deserved and I don’t have to worry about hurting someone.”
Gasping for air as one hand runs from my hip to the back of my neck and the other teases my breast through my blouse, I answer, “I left. I told her she didn’t have to worry about having a—um, daughter she wasn’t happy with because now she didn’t have a daughter anymore.”
The hand around my neck squeezes gently. “I’m relieved, for the both of us. Were you close?”
“No, never. She would call once a month and spend most of it picking me apart, then she would do it all over again the next month. I was a huge disappointment to my mother.