Sebring

“Nothin’ to be sorry for, Liv,” he replied. “I didn’t feel it. I didn’t live that. I was just the asshole kid they made and had to put up with while I figured out they all went through hell to give me safe and normal while all that time I was feelin’ left out they had that bond from the struggle.”

He’d shared that too. How he’d been a jerk to his whole family. To friends. Even to Anya when she and Knight were starting out.

“It’s very wise for anyone to figure that out, Sebring,” I told him. “No one likes feeling left out and you were too young to get that what they shared was not something you’d want to be a part of. They were just your family and you didn’t fit. It hurts not to fit, most especially with family. So of course that’s all you’d feel until you were mature enough to sort that out.”

“I took it too far and it lasted too long,” he muttered, gaze to his fingers twirling my hair.

“Yes, you took it too far but that’s only unforgiveable if it genuinely lasted too long. You’re the man you are now. They know that. You’re in each other’s lives. So it obviously didn’t last too long.”

He looked to me and the warmth making his blue eyes liquid felt like it settled in my soul.

“What’s that about wise?” he asked softly.

That settled in my soul too.

His voice still soft and now gentle, he asked, “You know how it feels not to fit, don’t you, baby?”

We were doing what Nick said we’d do. Taking it easy. Taking our time. Figuring it out. Not pushing it. Just living it. Getting used to each other.

Giving me that, since we started again, this was the first time he took things someplace heavy.

We needed to share. We needed to figure it out.

Even so, when he asked questions like that, I knew he already got me.

I shrugged to indicate he was right. “Ever the pessimist, I sensed a long time ago that wouldn’t happen and gave up wanting it.”

That tendril of my hair wrapped around his finger, he stroked my jaw with it, his tone still gentle but now also careful. “That scar your dad’s way of tryin’ to make you fit?”

He’d given me what he’d given me, something nobody knew about the Sebrings. In giving it, he’d been thorough, honest, and quite a bit of it wasn’t pretty.

In-depth detail like that of their lives and histories would be all over if it was there to be had. It was detail that gave insight about why Knight did what he did. It explained the history the brothers shared. None of it put him or his brother in jeopardy but any information could be used in a variety of ways.

But this information, bottom line, wasn’t anybody’s business.

Nick had given it to me. Open and frank, he’d just given it to me, handing me parts of him that in our world could be twisted into weapons that could be used to hurt him, Knight, Anya, his family.

He’d given it to me.

Trusted me.

And that meant everything.

“I ran away with Tommy,” I declared.

Emotion instantly blazed in Nick’s eyes that I read and maybe my reaction wasn’t healthy.

But I loved it.

Because it was jealousy.

That said, I also had to assuage it.

“It’s over now. Long done. Long dead. But back then, we were in love. We went to Mexico. We were going to run a Jet Ski business and make babies. We were stupid and young and hopeful which made us more stupid. Dad found us. Dragged us back. Taught his lesson.”

My eyes drifted away from his as my words kept coming.

“He told Georgia it was about the money we supposedly stole. But we hadn’t stolen anything. Some of it was mine, some of it was Tommy’s. I think Dad told her that so she’d not question what he was doing. The lesson he was teaching. But he taught it and not just to me. To Tommy. But he also taught it to Georgia. She might be in denial but she learned it. It wasn’t about the money Tommy and I took with us. It was about me and even Tom.”

I looked back to Nick, and lost in my story, I kept telling it. But even looking right at him, I barely saw him.

“My father owned us and we were not free to do what we wished or be with who we wished. We were not family. Tom was not a soldier who disobeyed orders and had to be punished. We were tools who needed to be available to him for whenever he wished to use us. Minions. Slaves. We did as told and nothing else. And Georgia’s three years older than me. She saw men and even had some who were steady before that happened with me and Tommy. Not after. She learned the same as me.”

Still stroking my jaw, Nick held my eyes but he didn’t say anything.

So I asked, “You know what’s strange?”

“Everything about that is strange,” Nick noted quietly.

He probably wasn’t wrong but I didn’t know that life.

I didn’t share that verbally, but I knew Nick still got me when he asked, “But what do you think’s strange, Livvie?”

“He doesn’t give a shit about me,” I told him. “I haven’t seen him in weeks. He doesn’t care. He hasn’t phoned. Asked me to report in. Sent an email. Requested I meet him for lunch. Asked me to come over for dinner. It’s just about control. He’s perfectly fine knowing I’m where he wants me to be doing what he wants me to be doing. But that’s it. He’s nothing to me for reasons that are obvious. But I’m nothing to him too. And that doesn’t make sense for the simple fact I’m his child. It seriously doesn’t make sense for the not-simple fact that he taught me the lesson he taught me.”