Elena helped me bring the pies inside and told me what Ty had already said earlier on in the day; that I should have got them from the store but I couldn’t do that, I had to impress her in some way. I knew they were only pies, but they were really good pies.
I’d perfected my mom’s recipes over the years, every time we would have a baking or cooking lesson, I would write every little thing down in my special notebook. I’d used the recipes so many times that I now knew them all off the top of my head. Telling Monty to sit, I followed Elena into the kitchen, the smell of the food pulling me in.
“Need any help?” I asked.
“Ah, hon, that’s kind but you don’t have to.” She waved me away, trying to manage several pots on the stove at once while simultaneously trying to chop vegetables.
“Here,” I said, stepping forward. “Let me do that.” Taking the knife out of her hand, I started to chop them.
We worked well together and in the matter of ten minutes, everything was under control.
The sound of boots coming through the door had my heart beating out of my chest. This was it. This was where his dad would hate me and then Ty wouldn’t want-
“Well! Kay?” Trevor’s deep voice boomed through the house as he got closer to the kitchen. “Jesus H. Christ! What is that thing?” I heard from the doorway.
Monty’s bark sounded through to the kitchen and I stumbled forward, knowing that no one would be able to get him to stop but me.
“Monty!” I shouted, coming into the living room. “Heel.”
He sat back down, not moving his eyes from Trevor.
“Sorry,” I said, looking over to him. My eyes widened at what I saw. He was a mixture of Ty and Charlie but with a smattering of gray hair.
“Hi?” I whispered, seeing Eli standing behind him holding Ty’s hand. My eyes connected with Ty’s, looking for reassurance.
“Well?” Trevor smirked and stepped closer, “Am I gonna get a hug?” He opened his arms wide and Ty’s nod of encouragement had me stepping forward.
I wasn’t used to all of this touching. It was so foreign to me but I was slowly starting to like it. His arms wrapped around me, enveloping me in his fatherly hug. He was tall, not as tall as Ty and Charlie, but still tall which meant he towered over me.
“So nice to meet ya.” He stepped back and looked down at Eli. “Got a great boy there,” he said, nodding to him.
“Thanks,” I whispered. Clearing my throat, I replied. “so do you.”
“Yeah, he’s alright I suppose.” He chuckled and slapped Ty on the back. “Now! Where is my food, woman? I’m wasting away here!” Leaving with a wink, he headed into the kitchen.
“Wasn’t so bad, huh?” Ty moved forward, wrapping his arms around me while Eli leaned on Monty where he was now lying down, his eyes drooping closed.
I looked around properly now, not having the chance to when I first came in. The walls were lined with pictures of Ty and Charlie. In the middle of the main wall sat a picture, bigger than the rest and the only one in a different frame. It was clear that this one meant the most to Elena and Trevor.
A woman was stood in the center with Charlie behind her, his hands on her clearly pregnant stomach and Ty stood next to them in his forces uniform.
“That’s a lovely picture,” I said, pointing over to it.
Ty smiled and turned to see which picture I was pointing to. His face dropped when he realized which picture. Clearing his throat, he said, “Dinner done yet?”
Frowning at him, I turned to Eli. “Sweetie, go and see if Elena and Trevor need any help.”
“Okay, mama.” He stood up and went running into the kitchen.
“Ty?” His eyes were still focused on the picture. “Ty?”
“Huh?” He pulled back, looking at me with wide eyes. “What?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said, trying to shrug me off. But I wouldn’t let him, he’d promised not to do that.
“Ty…don’t keep things from me.”
“Really?” He chuckled. “You keep things from me. You still haven’t opened up about Max.” His eyes blazed with a mixture of sadness and anger.
“Ty-”
“No, forget it.” He huffed, scrubbing his hands up and down his face. “Shit! I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I mumbled. Not wanting to admit how much he’d hit home with what he had said.
He was right, I still hadn’t told him about Max. It wasn’t like I wasn’t ready, because I was. It was finding the right time to broach the subject, getting into that head space took so much energy, energy that I didn’t want to waste. But I knew I had to at some stage.
“Ty-”
“Just forget it,” he said cutting me off a second time, trying to walk past me. Grabbing onto his arm to stop him, I moved closer. He wasn’t going to do that, not to me, he needed to listen to what I was saying.
He looked down at his arm and then back up to my eyes.
“I’m trying to tell you that I’m ready.”
“You’re ready?” he asked wide eyed.
“Yeah.” I let go of his arm, stepping closer to him. “I’m ready to talk about Max, but you need to tell me too.”
“Tell you what?” He frowned, putting his arms around my waist and interlocking his hands.
“About that woman in the picture,” I said, tilting my head to the picture.
“It’s not my story to tell, sweetheart.” Searching his eyes, I could see that he was telling the truth. I knew just from seeing the picture that it was Charlie’s story, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t tell me parts of it.
“I don’t want to know the full story, just who she is.”
“Okay.” He leaned down, bringing his lips to mine and kissing them softly. “Tonight?” he asked when he pulled back.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Tonight.”
Nodding, he pulled me in for a hug. I breathed him in and rested my head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. Pulling back, he let his arm drop over my shoulders and steered me into the kitchen.
“Now that we’ve sorted that…” He tilted his head down. “Time for ma’s food. Man, I love eating here.”
“Hey!” I elbowed him in the ribs, giving him a mock stare. “I cook for you all the time.”
“Ahh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it like that.” He chuckled.
Pulling away, I huffed and smirked when my back was to him.
“Don’t be like that,” he groaned.
Huffing, I swayed my hips that little bit more, aware that he was watching. Purely by coincidence, of course.
Walking out of Eli’s room, I stood at the top of the stairs preparing myself for what I was about to do. I was afraid that bringing all of this up wouldn’t destroy all of the progress I’d made. I was hoping that it would make me stronger but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Things had to get worse before they got better though, right?
Taking a deep breath, I pulled my shoulders back and walked down the stairs.
Ty was sat on the edge of the coffee table waiting for me, his arms resting on his thighs. I took him all in, the way his back was tense and his hands clenched into fists. He was always so composed, I could see that he was dreading this as much as me.
The step I was on creaked and he lifted his head, I gasped at the intensity in his eyes. I stopped on the step that I was on, not wanting to go any further.
“Ty?” I whispered.
He closed his eyes, his chest moving up and down as he took a deep breath. I could see that he was trying to get himself under control but I was freaking out over here.
A lump formed in my throat and it was all too intense, just too much. “I…I…” I gripped my hands as hard as I could, my knuckles turning white.
My eyes widened when he stood up all of a sudden, walking straight to me. I didn’t have time to ask what he was doing before he wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up, my legs going around him automatically.
Burrowing my face into his neck, I clutched my arms around his shoulders as he took us upstairs and straight into his room. Feeling him sit down, I lifted my face out of his neck and pulled back slightly.
He cupped my face, keeping his eyes planted on mine. “I’m here,” he said, his voice rough but soft at the same time. “He can’t get to you anymore, sweetheart.”
“I know,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I had to do this. I’d built it up into this big moment and I didn’t even know where to start. “I don’t know where to start,” I confessed.
He nodded and looked away. “When did it first start?” I knew that he knew the answer to this question but I answered him anyway. It was a starting point and that’s what I needed.
“When I was pregnant.”
“Okay,” he gritted out. “What would he do?”
Closing my eyes, I told him. I told him everything that he would do.
How he liked to control me, tell me what to do and what to wear. The names that he would call me and that was all before he had started to use his fists.
“The first time he hit you?” he ground out, staring into my eyes.
“He slapped me for not having his dinner on the table when he came in from work.”
“Son of a bitch,” he swore. I felt him tense underneath me and I made to move off him but he grabbed my legs and held me in place. “Keep going.”
“It wasn’t too bad at first, he only did it every now and again. But…”
“It got worse?” he asked. I could feel his fingers tapping that beat on my legs, a sign that he was trying to stay calm.
“Yeah.” I looked down. “I was so alone, Ty.” I sniffled. “I had no one, not until I came here.”
“Sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Then when I came to work here, something changed.” I said, looking out of the window and into the woods. “I don’t know whether it was me, him or both of us.”
“You became stronger.” Ty’s voice echoed around me as I thought about what had actually made me change.
“It was fine for a while, he’d be nice and want to spend time together. He even took me out that one time,” I reminded him.
“I remember.” He smirked. “That was the hottest cleaning closet I’d ever been in.”
“Ty!” I snorted.
“What? You looked fuckin’ hot and those lips...” He looked down at my lips. My tongue came out on impulse as I licked them, I watched as his eyes flared.
His hands moved around to my butt and he pulled me closer. “Stop!” I giggled, shuffling on his lap. My butt was going dead.
“Okay, Okay,” he said, bringing his hands up in the air. “What happened that day?”
“What day?” I frowned.
“Fuckin’ hell, Kay, the day that you came here looking like you’d gone ten rounds in the ring.”
“Oh.” My teeth sank into my bottom lip, scared to go back there. Not that it was hard, I dreamed about that day most nights. If it wasn’t that day, then you could guarantee Max was in my dreams in some way or another, he was never far away.
“Well, erm…you remember Eli was ill that day?” He nodded his head at me. “You brought us back to the apartment and I still had my vest and belt with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Well I hid them when you went-”
“You hid them?” he asked, frowning.
“Yeah, he didn’t know,” I said, biting my lip.
I didn’t want to admit this to Ty, it was just another secret that was being exposed and I felt vulnerable. But at the same time, I could feel a weight being lifted off my shoulders.
“Didn’t know what?”
“That…I was working here.” I mumbled.
“Wait.” He pulled back. “Why didn’t he know that you were working here?”
“He said that my place was at home, looking after Eli and cleaning the apartment.” I swallowed, taking a deep breath. “But with Eli at preschool, I needed something, Ty. I couldn’t stay in that apartment on my own all day. It was driving me crazy.”
“Sweetheart.” He held my hands in his, squeezing gently. “I understand.”
Those two words meant so much more than he would ever know. His eyes shone with the truth and showed me that he really did understand.
“You do?” I whispered.
“Yeah.” He came forward, planting a soft kiss on my lips. “So what happened then?”
I cleared my throat and looked down at my lap, trying to get up the courage to tell him what had happened that day.
“I set my vest and belt out on the bed before I left to take Eli. I’d put them there so I wouldn’t forget them, but I did. I didn’t realize until I’d dropped Eli off. That’s when-”
“You called me,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah. By the time I got back to the apartment, he was there…sat in the kitchen with…with…” I sobbed, not being able to say anymore.
Squeezing my eyes tight, I tried to get rid of the images that were flashing in my mind. I didn’t want to go back there and I didn’t think I could tell Ty what had happened. Not after this part. It was too painful.
I could almost feel every single punch and kick that he gave me that day. Wincing, my hand went to my leg and rubbed over the spot where my scar was.
“Sweetheart? It’s okay, you don’t need to say anymore.”
Nodding, I opened my eyes. Glad that I could see his beautiful brown eyes, instead of evil green ones.
I blew out a deep breath, and let my head drop to his chest. I was so grateful that I had Ty now, that both me and Eli were safe.