18
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
I KEPT MY eyes closed as I leaned into Ace’s hand and said the words I’d been dreading for months.
“I’d come home from school early that day,” I said. “It was the day before Thanksgiving and we only had to attend a half-day, so I planned to drop off my book bag at home—or at least the place we’d been staying for a few weeks at that point—and then go to my friend Bobby’s house for the night. I hated being around when my mom had visitors, so I snuck off as much as I could. She was usually wasted, high off whatever drug she’d been paid with the night before. I expected her to be asleep, but that day she was awake and sitting in the living room on the ratty orange couch I knew better than to get near. I’ll never forget it…she had a cigarette in one hand, and a face full of thick makeup, but her red lipstick was smeared a little on one side, like she’d already been up to her tricks that afternoon. And when she patted the seat next to her, I didn’t move, but then she narrowed her eyes, and I knew what that meant. I’d gone through a growth spurt, but I was still only thirteen, and not only did she have a few inches on me, she had nails that could break through skin. So I sat on that ratty, dirty couch and kept my hands in my lap. She didn’t ask me how my day was, which was nothing new, but she did give me the biggest smile I’d ever seen from her and told me she had a surprise for me. ‘A good surprise?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Dylan,’ she said, ‘a wonderful surprise. That face of yours is going to break hearts. And wallets.’”
My throat had gone dry, like I was still breathing in the fumes from her cheap cigarette, so I paused to take a long swig from one of the water bottles Ace had pulled out of the basket. He was still watching me with careful eyes, but there was something strong behind them, some emotion I couldn’t quite place, but I didn’t have time to think about what it could be. I needed to just get this out already.
“Well, like any kid, I heard the words ‘wonderful surprise’ and thought maybe my luck was changing. And it was changing, all right. But wonderful in my language didn’t mean quite the same thing in my mother’s world. She told me then that I’d been freeloading my way through life and it was time to earn my keep. That I could fetch more money in an hour than she could in a night. So it was time for me to get to work, and I’d be starting now.” I swallowed hard and said, “I remember that sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized what she meant. I can still feel the way her nails dug into my leg when the man that’d been waiting in the bedroom walked out into the living room. I tried to bolt, but she held me down, and when I’d almost gotten free, she used my shirt as an ashtray. The pain from that burn gave the man enough time to pull me up by my wrists, and then he hauled me—she let him haul me—into the bedroom. There was just a mattress on the floor, and he threw me on it before kicking the door shut. His breath smelled like rotten eggs, and he kept trying to pin me down, but I fought…I fought so hard. I could hear my mom beating against the door for me to shut up, but the guy had locked it, so I was stuck there, tears running down my face as I tried to get away.”
“Please tell me you got away,” Ace whispered, and when I met his gaze, I didn’t even think he’d realized he’d said that out loud.
“There was a moment when I thought he’d get the best of me and I’d let him. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t physically fight against him any longer. So I stopped moving, stopped fighting. And you know what he did? He got up. He unzipped his pants. He took them off. And it was then that something inside me snapped. Some kind of fire ignited in my body, and I knew I was going to get away. No matter what it took, no matter if I died trying to get away…I was not living one more second in that place, and I was not letting the drug addict pedophile on top of me win. So when he got back down on the mattress, I let him lie on top of me. And when he moved in just the right position, I reached down between his legs and I crushed him in my fist as hard as I could. His eyes rolled in the back of his head and he screamed out in pain, and that only made me squeeze harder. I would’ve ripped it off, but that wasn’t the end game. I needed to get away, so I let go, and when he curled into a ball on the mattress, I ran for the window. And once I was outside, I kept on running. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore, and when I figured I was far enough away I could stop and catch my breath, I realized I’d stopped outside of a police station. I hadn’t ever thought of going to the police before. I thought maybe I’d be able to crash at a friend’s house, but when I saw the station that night, I was running again. Up those stairs, through the front door, and into a small white room, where I told the officers my story.”
“Jesus Christ, Dylan,” Ace said, his hand going to the back of my neck. “I had no idea.”
“Why would you?” I asked, and then blinked, trying to bring him into focus. It wasn’t until a tear fell down my face that I realized the reason I couldn’t see him clearly. I was crying. I brought a hand up to swipe at the wetness on my cheek, but Ace got in first, brushing it away with his thumb. “I’ve spent every second of my life since that day making sure no one would ever know where I came from. I bounced around from foster home to foster home for a while, and at the time I thought I was lucky to be given a roof over my head for nothing more than the check the government would give them. Until the day my caseworker came to pick me up from the latest stopover. She told me that they’d found somewhere permanent. A family who was looking to adopt in the future, and she wanted me to go with her to meet them.”
“Sunshine and Ziggy?” Ace asked, and I bit down on my lower lip and nodded.
“You can imagine my first impression of them.” I gave a rueful smile, and when Ace returned it, the weight that’d begun to suffocate me seemed to ease. “I told my caseworker she was out of her mind. There was no way I was going to live with some high as a kite hippie types, I think were my exact words, and I remember her pulling me aside and telling me that she’d worked with Sunshine for years and there was no one who would be more open and understanding than the two of them. I thought she was out of her mind, but who was I to argue with her? She was the professional, right?”
I reached up to touch Ace’s jaw line, and when my hand shook he took a hold of it and brought the pads to his lips to kiss them.
“Then what?” he asked.
“Then I moved in with the strangest, most unconventional family imaginable, and they turned out to be exactly what I needed.” I shut my eyes and tilted my face up to the sun, letting the warmth of it dry my tears as I remembered those first years living with Ziggy, Sunshine, and Lennon, and a smile split my lips. “Those first few months were…odd, to say the least. Not only was I adjusting to living with a new family, but this family was much different to any that I’d ever been a part of. My own had been a piss poor example and all the stops in between had been relatively normal. But then along comes Sunshine, a woman who could brighten up the darkest day, and they made me fall in love with them.”
I brought my attention back to Ace, and the acceptance and warmth in his eyes made me reach for him and loop my arms around his neck. His hands lay gently around my waist as I wriggled closer. “It wasn’t easy. Sunshine and Ziggy helped me through years of counseling, and always encouraged me to be open with how I was feeling. As you’ve seen firsthand, they’re sharers by nature, givers, and they helped me through the worst years of my life. They also taught me to take control of my life and the situations I put myself in. They’re the best people I’ve ever met,” I whispered, licking my lips and feeling more exposed than ever before. “Until you.”
Ace pressed a soft kiss to my lips, and then shut his eyes as he took in a deep breath. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was thinking about everything I’d just told him. Hell, half the time I didn’t even know what to think, and I’d lived it. But when those blue eyes reopened, the expression there stunned me. It was fierce, possessive, and so full of love and pride that I didn’t dare speak for fear it would vanish.
“Dylan, I…” he started, and then brought both of his hands up to cradle my face. “I have never met anyone like you. You’re brave, and kind, and I’m not sure what I did to deserve getting to call you my own.”
I swallowed around the lump that had lodged in my throat, and tried to calm my thumping heart, but there was no way. Not with Ace looking at me with such devotion.
“And I want that. More than anything else. I want every part of you. All of the good, the bad, and, yes, even the ugly. That’s what makes you so unbelievably beautiful. The fight. That survival instinct that has driven you to be the best you can be despite the odds. You are so much more than a stunning face, Dylan. You’re the man I’ve fallen in love with.”
I brought my hands to the back of his head and crushed my lips to his with all of the passion and love that was dying to burst free. Ace kept his hands on either side of my face as his lips parted, and when I sank my tongue inside to taste him, I couldn’t remember ever feeling safer and more at home than I was there in this man’s arms.
“Ace,” I said, and when I raised my head I let my gaze rove over his familiar features. I brought my fingers around to trace the angles and planes of his cheekbone and jaw, until I reached his lips. Then I traced a line around them, enjoying the fullness of them, before taking his chin between my thumb and forefinger so I could lean forward and whisper against his mouth, “I love you too.”