by Luis, Maria
The mental abuse she no doubt suffered.
The manipulative tactics and the destruction of her psyche.
Without even asking her, I know why she stayed. I know why she put up with it all, even as her ex-husband changed everything about her.
Topher.
My own mother walked out on me when I was five-years-old and never looked back.
Levi survived fourteen fucking years with this fool because her son needed her.
I’ve never met another person like her. No one else in the world is as good as she is, as pure and driven and loving and kind. And I’m one lucky asshole that she looks at me and sees someone worthy of standing by her side.
My ass comes off the seat. Tension like I haven’t felt in years, since that long-ago day in my childhood that put me on a path straight to hell, turns my blood cold. “Say it again.”
Suffocating in his own ego, Clarke doesn’t even have the wits about him to realize I’m walking a very tight rope that ends with my fist battering his face. He follows suit, straightening from the booth and getting in my face. “I fucked her, DaSilva. I fucked with her mind and I fucked with her body, and once Topher agrees to move back to Pittsburgh with me, I’ll fuck with her heart too, you—”
Crack!
Arm cocked back and rearing to go, I look from my balled fist to Clarke’s stunned expression to Levi standing just behind her ex-husband, her glass bottle shattered and spewing beer like a fountain of alcoholic debauchery all over his head.
I love her.
It’s certainly not the most appropriate time to realize it, considering she just bashed her ex-husband over the head with a bottle of Bud Light, but I’ve never done anything in my life by the books. Why start with the way I fall in love? Her blond hair is in disarray around her face and her skin glistens with beer. She takes my goddamn breath away.
Like the goddess of justice, she tosses the broken bottle to the ground. “That’s for thinking for one friggin’ second that you could ever manipulate our son into playing your stupid games.”
Clutching his head, Clarke stumbles out of the booth. “You crazy fucking bitch.”
“You’re right,” Levi hisses, her normally delicate features severe in her fury. “I am a crazy fucking bitch—I put up with you for far longer than I ever should have, no matter what you held over my head. You plucked me out of this town like I was your treat of the month and then you spent the next fourteen years ruining me.”
If she’s expecting Clarke to show any remorse, she doesn’t get it.
He only laughs harshly, like a lunatic, and tears a hand away from his skull to point a bloodied finger at her face. “Did you walk in too late to hear this part? I made you, Levi.” He wavers to the right, looking green in the face. “I dressed you up and stripped you down and you should be thanking me for all I’ve done for you.”
“You’re wrong.”
I glance over at the bar, expecting to see Shawn prepared to throw down the hatchet but he’s not behind the bar. Figures the longtime bartender would take his break the minute shit’s about to hit the fan.
Sauntering toward Levi on visibly weak legs, he taunts, “I made you, sweetheart. You were nothing before me.”
Fuck this.
Before he can advance any farther, I grab the neck of Clarke’s damp button-down shirt and pull—hard. With his balance already shot from the hit to his head, Levi’s ex-husband careens backward, arms pinwheeling almost comically. I step to the side when he topples to the floor.
How the mighty fall.
“I was someone, Rick,” Levi bursts, her face contorting with frustration. “I had dreams long before you showed up, and you know what? Let me say thank you.” She sweeps forward, her eyes flinty, the toes of her shoes practically stomping on her ex. “Thank you for being such an asshole. You opened the unlikeliest doors for me: I discovered that I love coaching. I learned what I want out of a relationship and what I don’t. And you gave me my most important mission in life: to make sure that your son turns out to be nothing like you. So, thank you—because you took a twenty-one-year-old woman and made her strong and invincible, and I. Love. Me.”
“Poor, little Aspen Levi,” Clarke mocks as he crawls onto his feet to stand, “trying to be brave. Do you remember what happened when you first told me no—”
I don’t have the time to stop it. One second I’m twisting at the waist with the intention of grabbing Clarke to shut him the hell up, and then Levi is doing it for me.
Thud!
Oh. Shit.
Clarke falls to his ass as Levi sucker punches her ex-husband in the gut. She’s fuming, blue eyes large and murderous in her face. Time for this to end. I’m reaching into the fray, intent on yanking Levi away before she does any lasting damage and we have a lawsuit on our hands, when I hear it:
“Oh shit, is that Rick ‘the Prick’ Clarke?”
I twist to stare at the newcomers, only to find Oliver standing not ten feet away with two buddies. He stares at me, holding onto a flailing Levi, and I stare at him. He turns to his friend, and says, “Hold my beer, Stuart.”
Stuart, the friend, narrows his eyes. “Are you hurt, Levi?”
Her biceps tense under my grip. “And you care why? You told me your wife was dead just to mess with me.”
Do they know each other? And what the hell—he pretended his wife was dead? I don’t have the chance to ask the question before the third dude exclaims, “Wait, she’s bleeding!”
“Fuck that dude,” Oliver growls at the same time Stuart snaps, “Hold our beers, Sam, no one fucks with a Levi but us,” before promptly thrusting his and Oliver’s beer bottles to the third guy.
And then . . . and then straight mayhem ensues.
Londoners storm the Golden Fleece, and if this was the eighteenth century and not the twenty-first, today’s festivities would result in someone being drawn and quartered out on the town square.
No one fucks with a Levi.
I manage to snag her T-shirt before she can launch herself forward all over again. With little finesse, I drag her back and into my chest.
“Dominic, let me go!”
“Not a chance, baby. I saved you a front-row seat.”
Chairs fly.
Clarke, red-faced and shaky on his feet, throws half-hearted swings at the Londoners out to defend one of their own.
There’s something almost poetic in the deliverance of sweet justice.
Hey, I might be a man in love but I’m still the same old Dominic DaSilva.
Sirens screech outside and then two officers jam through the front door. Over the heads of everyone brawling, including Shawn, I watch as the dark-haired officer re-holsters his gun and sighs. “Jesus Christ,” he calls out, “who the hell started this?”
All fingers point to Rick, who, in turn, jabs a finger in Levi’s direction.
“Goddammit,” the other officer grunts, “my wife’s gonna kill me if I show up late and miss Savannah Rose’s one-on-one dates this week.”
39
Aspen
The Mount Desert Island County Jail smells like roses and killed dreams.
The roses make sense: I spotted a vase when Officer Temler brought me in, my wrists cuffed.
The killed dreams make sense too. My holding cell is only ten feet away from the front desk, which means I hear every blistering second of Rick calling his lawyer to make bond. On his way out, he stops in front of my cell. His precious suit is drenched in beer, and there’s a cut on his temple from a Bud Light shard. I should regret hitting him over the head with a bottle. I should regret it—but I can’t. Because this man, who I once loved with everything that I was, turned me into a shadow of myself. He tore me down and used my own son to keep me in place, and a single bottle—which barely glanced his head, mind you—doesn’t come anywhere close to the number of betrayals he dropped at my feet in the last fifteen years.
“Have you come to gloat that you’re walking free?” I ask, never letting my gaze waver
from his familiar face. I let this man touch me. I let this man inside me. And yet he stands there like a stranger, the bars of my cell the physical divide that’s metaphorically separated us for years. When he remains quiet, I huff out a frustrated laugh. “I’m done, Rick. Done with you and your selfishness.”
“My lawyer asked if I wanted to pay your bond,” he finally mutters, looking uncomfortable as he tugs on his suit cuffs, “I said I would.”
I meet his gaze. “No.”
“You’d seriously rather sit in that cell? Are you kidding me, Levi?”
I pat the cot I’ve been camped out on since being led in here. “Let me phrase this differently for you: I don’t want to see you again. Not in London, not anywhere. If you have an issue, take it up with my lawyer. As for Topher, I suggest learning how to repair your relationship with your son. I’m not doing it for you anymore. You want him to think you’re honorable? You want him to love you?” I drop my elbows to my thighs. “Then show him you care. Or else one day you’ll wake up and realize that you’re alone and you’ll have no one to blame for that but yourself.”
His expression stiffens. But Rick doesn’t do vulnerability, and if my warning has any impact on him, he doesn’t say it. Instead, he only issues me his usual cold-hearted farewell: “See you when I see you, Levi.”
He strides off down the hallway, and I can’t help but snort “good riddance” under my breath.
I hope he’s sorry. I hope he gets on his private jet back to Pittsburgh and stays there forever. I’ve spent years sheltering Topher from the truth but, considering I’m drenched with booze and sitting in a jail cell, I think it’s safe to say I’ve reached the end of my rope.
If Topher decides to speak with his dad after this, I won’t stop him.
But I’m done. Finished. Finite.
Oh, my God, I’m in jail.
Unlike Rick, I wasn’t given the opportunity to make my one call, which seems a little unconstitutional if you ask me. I mean, I’ve seen enough NCIS episodes on TV to know that everyone deserves one call.
Right?
As the adrenaline coursing through my system eases, I can’t help but wonder how long I’ll be stuck behind bars. Eternity is a hell of a long time to pay penance for smashing a bottle of cheap beer over your ex-husband’s head.
I wrack my brain, trying to remember how long people serve for battery charges. NCIS is proving useless. All I know are formations for football drills, special teams tips, and random facts about US History that could bore an officer to death. Thank you, online college degree.
It’s not enough. I left Topher with my mom and the knitting club, so at least I know my baby boy will be cared for. But what about Harry—the police are still searching for his mom—and Timmy and Bobby? Hope dwindles like a melted candlewick. I still haven’t taken Meredith up on her offer to grab some wine.
The sound of footsteps jerks my head up, and I scramble off the narrow cot to wait by the caged door to plead my case. It better not be Rick again for round three.
“Hello!” Resigned to the fact that I’ve officially hit rock bottom at the ripe old age of thirty-seven, I rattle the bars. “Hey! Hey, Officer—please, I’m sorry. You have to understand how sorry I am.” The footsteps grow louder, nearer. “I need to make a phone call. Doesn’t everyone get one call? I need to—”
Like the son of Lucifer himself, Dominic saunters into the small hall outside my cell. Dressed in all black, he swirls a key around one finger, looking relaxed and amused and—Oh, my God, he is not whistling right now.
But he is, and he’s whistling a tune I know all too well.
Five Finger Death Punch’s Bad Company—the song I made his personal ringtone after the day Topher crashed my car into his truck.
The whistling stops, and then Dominic catches the keys mid-swing.
“You know,” he murmurs, voice low, “I never thought I’d find myself in lockup again after my last stint. But here we are—mind if I take a seat?” He points to a bench that looks like it’s seen better days.
Not that it stops him from sitting down anyway. The bench’s legs whine, protesting the onslaught of Dominic’s bulky weight, but he only pats the empty space beside him and tests its strength by shimmying his lower half, the same way he did up on The Monster to mess with me.
Slowly, succinctly, I force the words out of my mouth: “Are you here to save me?”
“Save you?” he echoes, straightening the bill of his black hat as he relaxes against the wall, his long legs sprawled out before him. He folds his hands over his flat stomach. “Nah, Coach, you save yourself every day. You don’t need me to play knight in shining armor. You’re a badass all on your own.”
Confused, I stare at him blankly. “Then why are you here?”
He swings those keys again, a taunting circle that catches my eye. “I’m gonna tell you a little story. That work for you?” The jangle of the keys stops when they hit his palm and he gestures to the bars. “Not that you can really go anywhere. It seems you’re at my disposal, baby.”
My eyes narrow on him as my fingers curl around the metal bars. “Dominic . . .”
“You know that I ended up behind bars because I robbed a corner store. What I didn’t tell you is that I did so at gunpoint. Yeah, I heard that gasp, Coach. It’s okay—we both already know I’m not up for a running at being America’s next sweetheart.”
He scrubs a hand along his jawline, and I track that move with my stomach twisting unpleasantly. I knew he’d been in trouble with the law in his youth—he’d told me himself and Google always comes through with a few strokes on the keyboard—but nowhere had I read . . . that about the gun.
Mouth dry, I edge out, “You never said how old you were.”
Dominic tilts his head slightly, those expressive dark eyes rooted to my face. “Eleven. Old enough to know better, young enough to think I wouldn’t get caught.” His hand falls to his thigh, the keys clattering like chimes blowing in the breeze. In here, behind these bars, it feels so very hard to breathe. “You take a kid who has nothing—has no one—and he’ll do just about anything to fit in. Don’t pretend you don’t see it with the kids you’ve coached over the last decade. Hope is a fragile thread, baby. You know that, too, don’t you? After living with a man like Clarke, hope is what kept you going.”
I lick my lips, wishing I had water to quench my suddenly parched throat. “Topher,” I rasp, “Topher is what kept me going.”
A small smile flits to his face, like my response is one that soothes him. “I had football.” He says it simply, without averting his gaze. “I had football and random people’s couches and a bike I stole from a junkyard to get me to and from practice. Until I ended up with Mr. and Mrs. Halloway after my last stint in juvie, I stole whatever gear I needed to play the game. Because football was my way out. Football was gonna save me, and that fragile thread of hope, Asp, it thickened. Strengthened.”
“But?” I whisper.
His gaze heats, the palm of his hand curling tightly around the keys. “But inside I was still that helpless little kid, abandoned by his mother in an apartment for twenty-seven days. Lonely. Starving. Unwanted.” His Adam’s apple bobs down the length of his throat. “I once read somewhere that a kid’s most formative years are from birth to twelve years old. Maybe that’s bullshit. Maybe it’s not. I don’t really know. All I know is that I’ve lived my life with hope in one hand and self-destruction in the other. I’ve traveled the world, I’ve played with the best athletes this country will ever see, and you know . . . you know the only thought I had when I came down wrong on my leg?”
I don’t need to ask him to elaborate about what he’s talking about.
Because I know the game of football inside and out.
Because the first time we met, I was watching that 2015 game at the Golden Fleece, and whispered, “Not even assholes deserve that.”
Aware that I’m clinging to the metal bars like I’m on the verge of attempting to crawl through the narrow
slats, I take a deep, stabilizing breath. Then, “Make me see.”
It’s what I told him when he sat down in my courtyard and bared a corner of his soul. Let me in, my hearts sings now. Trust me.
Jaw tight, Dominic confesses, “Let me die.”
I whimper, hands closing over my mouth because I can see the truth in his searing gaze. I hear it in the dark rumble of his voice, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Pressure builds behind my eyelids, but still Dominic doesn’t stop.
He gives me no reprieve.
“That fragile thread of hope was gone. I was tired. Fucking exhausted with being in my head and wondering why I could have everything at my fingertips—money, houses, cars, women—and none of it mattered. I rode a bike down Devil’s Road, half hoping I’d crash and burn. I climbed a mountain in China, wondering with every other step if the plank of wood beneath my feet would crumble and give out. But roaches”—he lets out a dark, caustic laugh—“they stick around. They survive, even when nothing else does. And then I met you.”
Peeling my eyes open, conscious of the tears slipping down my cheeks, I meet his gaze. His rugged features, once so impassive that his ambivalence drove me insane, are cracked wide open. He hides nothing from me: not the way his mouth trembles as he tries to smile or how his eyes glisten, his own tears ready to spill.
To the world, Dominic DaSilva is a bad-boy charmer, a smooth-voiced asshole, a football-playing legend.
To me, he is this man.
Open. Vulnerable. Trusting.
“And then I met you,” he rasps thickly, “a woman with sapphire eyes and the sweetest laugh that kept my ass on that bar stool when I knew better than to stay. Even when Topher banged up your car, you didn’t yell at him. I watched you bring snacks every day for the boys, even though every granola bar and carrot bag came out of your own pocket—but you couldn’t bear to see any of them go hungry. You showed everyone such love, and I . . . I wanted that, baby. I wanted to feel loved by you and you better believe that scared the shit out of me.”
