I answered and brought the phone to my ear, “Hello?”
“Ms. Bradbury? This is Principal Stevens at Hope Valley High School. I’m calling about Rhodes.”
And in the blink of an eye, that relief disappeared, and the day went from bad to worse. “What happened? Is he okay?”
“I’m afraid I’ll need you to come down to the office, Ms. Bradbury. Rhodes has been in a fight.”
* * *
It had been fifteen minutes since I got the call from the high school. Fourteen minutes since Marco took my keys and announced that he’d be driving me. And thirteen minutes since I’d said a single word, unable to speak past the rage threatening to boil over in my belly. Now we were sitting in the school office, waiting to be called in to see the principal like a couple of unruly teenagers.
“You didn’t have to come,” I said quietly, looking at Marco from the corner of my eye. I saw his jaw work from side to side and quickly continued before he could get the wrong idea. “I mean, you didn’t have to, but I’m glad you did. I… I’m don’t think I could do this without you.”
My honesty caught him off guard, and it took a few seconds for him to get over the shock of it. Once he did, his big hand landed on top of mine and gave it a squeeze. I held my breath and waited to see if he’d pull it away, and when he didn’t, I slowly flipped mine over so they were palm to palm and laced our fingers together. For the first time in two weeks, I felt like I’d been pieced back together, and I knew it was all because of this man.
There was no denying it anymore, not even to myself. I was in love with Marco. I needed him. And I could only pray that he’d give me a chance to explain and, hopefully, forgive me.
“Christ,” he grunted a couple minutes later, breaking the silence. “Feels like déjà vu, sitting in here. I half expect to go in there and have him tell me I’m suspended.”
My attempt to hold back my laughter resulted in a loud snort that made the pinched-face assistant behind the desk look up with a scowl before she announced, “Principal Stevens will see you now.”
And just like that, we were called in to face the music.
* * *
I’d kept my mouth shut the entire way home, stewing over that meeting. When I’d first walked in, Principal Stevens had been taken aback. It was obvious that when he’d called Ms. Bradbury earlier, he thought he was speaking with Rhodes’s mother. We’d gone in circles for several minutes; him insisting he needed to speak with a legal guardian, and me laughing sarcastically while informing him that if he could manage to locate one to please let me know where they were since I had no damn idea myself.
He finally relented—none too happily—and spoke with me about what Rhodes’s punishment would be for starting a fight on school property. A five-day suspension, effective immediately. I was so pissed off my hands were shaking as Marco drove us back to my house. The silence that filled his car was so thick with hostility that I thought I might choke on it.
All my attempts to keep my cool burned to ash as soon as we walked through the front door. The tension that had been brewing between me and my brother for the past two weeks finally came to a head, and I snapped, slamming my purse down on the kitchen counter before whirling around on Rhodes.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I shouted, bracing my hands on my hips. “Fighting in school? Have you lost your mind?”
Rhodes’s face held that same apathetic expression he’d been wearing for days now as he declared, “I’m not doing this in front of him.”
“Oh, yes you damn well are.” I seethed. “Marco sat through the same meeting I did, taking time out of his day to come down and handle your screwup, so you most certainly will do this, and you’ll do it right freaking now! Why did you get into a fight?”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, continuing to grunt his answers.
I felt like I was looking at a stranger. Sure, Rhodes could be a bit broody at times, but he wasn’t disrespectful, and he’d never been violent.
“Obviously it is! Rhodes, this isn’t you. You don’t go around punching kids, so something must have happened.” Lowering my voice, I took a step toward him and pleaded. “Something’s going on with you. Talk to me. Let me help.”
At that, my brother lost his cool completely. “You wanna know what my problem is?” he snapped, his voice rising with every word. “My problem’s him!” he shouted, jabbing his finger at Marco. I turned to take in Marco’s shell-shocked expression as Rhodes continued. “My problem is assholes like him coming into our lives and making promises they can’t keep!” He turned his attention from me and looked straight at Marco. “I told you, man. I told you she’d push you away, and you fucking promised you’d fight. But what did you do? First sign of trouble, you fucking bailed!”
I wanted to admonish him for his language, but at that very moment, I was too stunned by the anguish on my brother’s face to move, let alone speak.
Rhodes’s eyes rimmed red with emotion as he continued pouring out all the pain he’d been suffering through the past two weeks, and the sight of it brought tears to my own eyes. “You made her happy. For the first time in years, she was actually happy. Then you just took it all away. But not just from her. You took it from all of us!”
Moving to him, I reached out and tried to touch him, my throat raw as I croaked, “Rhodes, honey—”
“No!” he barked, taking a step back. “He needs to leave. He’s gonna do it anyway, so it needs to be now before the others get home. I can deal with it, but I don’t want them getting their hopes up that he’s coming back, because we both know he’s not.”
“Sweetheart, please,” I tried. “It’s not what you think. If you’d just listen—”
“I have been listening, Gypsy! That’s the problem! I’ve listened to you crying in your room every night for the past two weeks! You wanna know why I’ve been acting so different lately? That’s why! So yeah, when that stupid asshole at school made a bullshit comment about his dad stuffing dollar bills in my sister’s G-string, I lost control and punched him. And you know what? I’d do it again, because the little shit deserved it!”
By the time Rhodes finished, his chest was rising and falling with each wild, ragged breath he pulled in. Everything he’d just let out, every single word, was like a million tiny cuts to my skin that left me bleeding out. I’d never in my life felt the pain I was feeling right then, knowing just how much Rhodes was dealing with. I wanted to take it away. I wanted to take all of it away. Unfortunately, I was the one who’d caused it. And I had to try and make it right by giving him the truth.
“It wasn’t his fault,” I whispered, the tears I’d been holding back finally breaking free and pouring down my cheeks. “Rhodes, honey, you can’t blame Marco for any of this. It’s all on me. I was the one who pushed him away.”
“And he let you!”
A sob wrenched from my chest. “Please, sweetie, you have to listen to me.”
He shook his head violently. “No. I don’t need to listen to anything. I already know the truth.”
Then he turned and stomped down the hall, slamming his bedroom door behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marco
There had only been one other time in my life that I’d felt the kind of debilitating, agonizing pain I felt at that very moment. Fifteen years ago, I’d had my heart ripped out of my chest in the worst possible way. I thought there’d never come a time when I’d experience that kind of torment again, but as I watched Rhodes storm away after flaying me wide open, I knew I’d been wrong.
“Oh my god,” Gypsy breathed, covering her mouth with both hands as she sobbed. “This is all my fault. Oh god. Marco, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did this.”
Unable to stand the distance between us, I grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into me, wrapping her in an embrace as I fought to swallow down the lump in my throat.
Burying her face in my chest, she continued to cry while clutching me as tight as she could.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she kept repeating over and over. “You must hate me. I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you did.”
“Stop,” I replied, my voice sounding like gravel as I pressed a kiss to her head. “I don’t hate you, girasol. I’m pissed off, but I could never hate you.”
“That’s good to know,” she said on a sniffle, lifting her face so she could look at me. “Because I’m in love with you, and loving you while you hated me would make this moment suck even more than it already does.”
Lowering my forehead to hers, I squeezed my eyes closed and held on to her even tighter as those words flowed through me like a balm to the burn I was feeling in my chest. “Yeah, it would,” I teased. “Guess it’s lucky for both of us, then, huh?”
She let out a watery laugh, brushing at her damp cheeks with the back of her hand. “I have to fix this,” she stated a few seconds later, glancing back toward Rhodes’s bedroom. “I can’t let him think those things about you.”
Hesitating for a moment, I studied those gorgeous honey-brown eyes before speaking. “You trust me?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.
“All right. Then I want you to let me be the one to go talk to him. There are some things he needs to hear, and they have to come from me.”
“I—” she started to argue, then stopped abruptly. “Okay.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, I leaned forward and brushed a kiss against her lips, not realizing until just then how much I’d missed being able to hold her and kiss her whenever I wanted.
“After that, you and I need to talk, Gypsy.”
“I know,” she said with a sheepish nod.
“Let me take care of Rhodes. Then I’ll take care of you, yeah?”
The smile she graced me with right then shot rays of warmth throughout my whole body, fighting back the last of the chill that had seeped into my bones over the past couple of weeks. “Yeah, sweetie.”
That was the first endearment I’d ever gotten from her, and while I wanted to pick her up and carry her into her bedroom to show her just how much I loved hearing it, there was something else I needed to do first.
Rhodes was lying on his back in the middle of his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The sight of him like that felt like a knife had just been plunged into my gut. This kid had a piece of my heart in a way I knew I’d never want it back and seeing him hurt killed.
His eyes were the only thing that moved my way when I entered his room. “Go away,” he bit out.
Instead of doing what he wanted, I sat on the side of his bed and issued my own command. “Sit up. We gotta talk.”
In spite of how much he might have hated me just then, he did as I said, throwing his legs over the side of the mattress to sit beside me. It was a testament to what an amazing job Gypsy had done raising these kids that he didn’t have it in him to be outright disrespectful, no matter what he was feeling.
“There are a few things I want to clear up with you, the first being I never broke my promise to you, Rhodes.” His head shot my way, and his lips parted to issue an argument, but I cut him off. “Your sister needed time. And to be honest, so did I. But I never intended to stay gone. Whether she and I were able to work it out or not, I care too much about you to do something like that. I was always going to come back, Rhodes. Always.”
I caught the glassiness forming in his eyes before he turned away, looking at the floor as he ground his jaw side to side.
“Another thing I want you to know is that I love you. I’m in love with Gypsy. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. And you come with her. I want that too. Not just because I want her any way I can get her, but because I love you, Holly, Sunny, Ray, Lee—I love all of you. You kids each have a separate piece of my heart that’s yours alone no matter what. And that’s forever. You understand?”
He nodded as his throat bobbed with a heavy swallow.
“Good. Now, the last thing I want you to know is that I’m here. If you’re ever pissed at me about something and want to let me have it, I’m here. If you need to talk about something that’s bothering you, I’m here. No matter what the issue, no matter the reason, I’m here, Rhodes. You call me, and I swear to you, I’ll drop everything to let you tear me a new one if that’s what you need. Your brothers and sisters will all get the same thing, but you’re turning into a man, which means the time I get with you is shorter, and I want everything you’re willing to give me until that day comes when you won’t need me anymore.”
I watched as he clenched his eyes closed, a lone tear breaking past his lids and falling to the floor.
As hard as it was for me to do, I placed my hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Then I stood up and started for the door.
I stopped with my hand on the knob when he said my name. Looking over my shoulder, I met his gaze and held my breath as he said, “Just so you know, I love you too.”
It was my turn to fight back the tears as I nodded. “Good.”
I waited until he lay back down and propped his hands behind his head before opening the door and stepping through.
* * *
Gypsy
I spent the time Marco was in with Rhodes rehearsing everything I needed to say to him, but when he stepped into the hallway, everything I’d come up with flew out the window.
He started toward me, and I could see the determination in his gaze as he grew closer. Holding my hands up to stop him, I took a step back and started speaking at a rapid pace.
“I’ve been thinking over everything I need to say, and there’s a lot. But I can’t do that if you touch me, because you have this way of scrambling my brain. So I need you to just stay there. Please. It’s the only way I’ll be able to get it all out.”
His lips tugged up with humor as he slowly lowered himself into the recliner all the way across the living room. “All right,” he said on a chuckle. “This far enough, or do you need me to go to the other end of the house?”
“You’re hilarious,” I deadpanned, earning myself that cocky smile of his I loved so damn much.
“I’m listening, baby. But you need to know, nothing you tell me right now is gonna change the way I feel about you.”
“I know,” I said with a nod, finally feeling the truth in his words. I’d been a fool for way too long when it came to this man. He’d never been anything but honest and open. He never made me feel like I was less than him or undeserving of a man as incredible as he was. All those insecurities were in my head, and it was time I let them go, so I proceeded to open up and give him all of me. “I believe you. But I need to say it anyway so you’ll understand why it’s a strong possibility that I’ll screw up a lot more before I get the hang of this.”
He waited patiently, giving me the time I needed to get my thoughts in order.
“When I was a teenager, I fell in love with a boy. He made all these promises about taking me away from my parents and giving me and my family a better life. It wasn’t the broken promises that hurt. It was the fact that he’d been seeing my best friend behind my back the entire time. I wasn’t good enough for him, but she was, so while he was lying to me, he was making real plans with her. That betrayal hurt worse than any of the others, because I thought of that girl as a sister. She was my family. They both broke my heart in such a way that it never healed right, but I hadn’t given up. I wanted something for myself, so I tried again. But when he’d stolen everything he could from me, he moved on to Rhodes, taking what little I had to give him.”
“Shit. Gypsy—”
“I met someone else a while later, but that ended when he put me in the hospital for two days.”
Marco’s entire body locked tight, and I saw him visibly struggling to keep his seat.
“All my life I’ve been told I’m not good enough. My parents started it, and then everyone else I let in made me feel the same. Eventually, if you hear something enough, you can’t help but start to believe it.”
His hands clenched and un
clenched over and over, but he didn’t say a word.
“I knew you were different the moment you walked through my door carrying those grocery bags. I knew then that you were someone who actually deserved my heart, and I realized I was in love with you after the concert in DC. If I’m being honest, I’ve loved you a lot longer than that, but that’s when it really hit me. That was when I knew. And it scared the hell out of me,” I said on a whisper, two tears falling down my cheeks as I forced myself to finish. “I knew the moment you walked away from me that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, and I’m so sorry it took me so long to try and make it right. But if you’re willing to forgive me, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to let go of the past. I think....” I cleared my throat and pulled in a fortifying breath. “I think, with your help, I might actually be able to do that.”
His voice coming out in a harsh rumble as he said, “Gypsy, I’m trying to give you what you need, but I really need to hold you right now, baby.”
I didn’t make him wait, because I needed to be held just as badly. I moved quickly across the living room and let him pull me into his lap. Snuggling deep into him, I let his warmth envelope me. Being in his arms right then, I felt safer and more secure than I ever had in my life. I thought I’d been safe behind that wall I’d built around my heart, but it was nothing compared to Marco’s embrace.
“Thank you for giving that to me,” he said quietly several minutes later. “I already forgave you, baby. That’s why I’m here right now. And I’m not going anywhere ever again.” I burrowed deeper into him, absorbing his strength and letting it knit itself into my bones. “I hate that you were hurt like that, hermosa, but I can’t deny that I’m glad all those assholes were too fucking stupid to realize they were holding a treasure in their hands, ’cause I never would’ve had the chance to give you and your family the great life you deserve. And I swear, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, Gypsy. I’m going to give you a great life.”
Wrong Side of the Tracks: a Hope Valley novel Page 18
