Tate dropped his eyes to his hands. “I stopped being surprised by the things they did a long time ago.” Tate began twisting his fingers around each other. “Who was it?”
I blew out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “My wife.”
I was surprised when Tate didn’t look at me. He barely even acknowledged that he’d heard me. The only change in his tense frame was that his fingers had stopped moving. “When?” he finally asked.
“September, 2005.”
“What was her name?”
More pain bloomed in my chest. I rarely said her name out loud and I always felt a searing pain on the few occasions that I did. “Revay,” I managed to whisper.
Tate fell silent. Most people always apologized to me when they learned I’d lost my wife, but Tate said nothing. It was strangely comforting. Like he knew that telling me he was sorry would solve nothing, would do nothing to even make a dent in the agony that consumed me.
“Did they ever say anything about her? About that time?” I forced myself to ask.
Tate didn’t need to ask who I was talking about. “I don’t remember. I learned a long time ago not to ask questions.”
“How old were you then?”
“Thirteen.”
“What about your mom? Was she around?”
Tate was quiet for a moment before saying, “No, she wasn’t.”
“So your parents were divorced?”
Tate shrugged. “No idea.”
I figured the conversation was over when Tate turned his head to look out the window. But to my surprise, he started talking again.
“I don’t remember her, but I used to dream about this woman when I was little. It was always the same dream. She had this really bright, long red hair and she was wearing some kind of uniform…a nurse maybe. It was just her and me and Denny sitting around this small table, holding hands, and she was saying grace. That’s it…that’s all I ever see.” Tate glanced down at his hands again. “That was how I picked Tate.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When I left home, I knew I needed a new name. She used to always call me Tate in the dream.”
I wanted to ask him what his real name was, but I held back because I could see by the way he’d started twisting his hands again, that he was already tense. He cast a look over his shoulder at Matty who was still asleep. Then I felt his eyes on me and I could tell he wanted to say something.
“What?” I asked, keeping my voice low and gentle.
“I wish I’d been stronger back then,” he said quietly. “Maybe she’d still be alive if I’d said something…anything.”
I tensed at that because I knew who the she he was referring to was, but when I shot Tate a glance, he was once again looking out the window. I fought the urge to reach my hand over to grab one of his so he would stop clenching them together. But my body refused to listen to my brain and before I knew it, my palm was settling over his warm skin. He stilled instantly and I heard the slightest intake of breath. Electricity fired through my blood when I once again felt his eyes on me.
I’d intended to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but I got lost in the sensation that was coursing through my body and what it meant. My brain could deny it all it wanted, but the fact that my dick was even now swelling with need was proof that it wasn’t some fluke.
I wanted Tate.
Badly.
And I had no idea what that meant.
Chapter Six
Tate
I wasn’t able to take a deep breath until Hawke removed his hand from mine. The contact had been brief, seconds only, but my whole body felt like it was on fire. Desire wasn’t an entirely new feeling for me, but I’d never felt it to this extreme.
Growing up in a small, rural town in Eastern Texas hadn’t exactly provided a lot of options for a teenage kid with a homophobic father and brother to explore his sexuality, but I’d lucked out when I’d discovered that a classmate I’d been tutoring in English Lit, Reggie Kimball, was hiding the same secret I was. Reggie had been two years older than me and had already fooled around with a couple other guys when he’d cornered me in the gym’s locker room at school one day and kissed me.
He’d never allowed me to call him my boyfriend, even when it was just us, but I’d let him take my virginity just the same. The sex hadn’t been at all what I’d expected, but I’d never protested when he’d asked if he could fuck me. Because even though I’d never found pleasure in the act, I’d lived for what came after…those few minutes when Reggie would be lying on top of me, his length buried deep inside of me, his breath against my neck, his heavy body covering mine like a blanket. In those moments I became someone else – we both did. And I was safe…and free. There was no doublewide trailer to go home to, no bruises to try and hide, no fear that one day the heavy fists wouldn’t stop. But it would only last as long as it took for Reggie to recover, pull free of me and slap me on my ass and tell me I was the best fuck he’d ever had.