Chapter 14
Vaughn
I walk Rayne to her car and lean in to give her a kiss before she drives away. I’d be lying to myself if I said this woman hasn’t already changed me more than I ever thought I would or could change. When I get back to my apartment, I head straight to my room to put on clean clothes. The rumpled sheets make my cock twitch when I think about her hands clutching the material.
When she called me, I didn’t know what to expect when she arrived; I had no clue what she wanted to say. I didn’t have any expectations at all, actually. The battle of allowing a woman into my life who’s still hung up on another man weighs heavy. Last night, as I couldn’t sleep, I thought about how things would have been different if my mother had given a shit, even a little bit. I don’t know who my dad is, and I never met him. For all I know, he could be dead. He is to me, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
Part of the reason I always tried to seek my mom’s attention was because I watched her give it all to someone else. Listened to her blame me for any and everything. If she had tossed me a goddamned sliver of a bone, things would have been different.
I’ve realized we’re not so different, Rayne and me. The past still hangs onto us, making it hard to move sometimes because it’s so crippling. But in the bad, there’s good. There has to be good at the end of it all. And she’s my good.
She’s everything I want, and now that I have her, nothing and nobody will take her away from me. I’m willing to accept the tragedies of her past, and I know she’s willing to accept me for who I am now. The real question is will I ever decide to tell her who I truly was back then. And when she finds out, will she still want to be with a man responsible for his stepfather’s death?
* * *
Since I was running late because of a certain brunette, when I arrive at my shop, my client is waiting outside the front door. “Sorry.” I apologize as I unlock the door and shut the alarm off. “Have a seat. I’ll be ready for you in about five minutes.”
“No problem, man.”
I rush to the back, get everything set up, and then head back up to grab him. After he fills out the paperwork, I prep his arm and begin work on the tribal design he picked out. I’m finished in almost two hours, and then my next client comes in, and I knock out the butterfly she wants on her lower back.
My day passes by in a blur, and I only realize how late it is when Rayne texts me.
Rayne: I know you said you’re busy today, so I didn’t want to bother you. I’m leaving now to run errands . . . Do you want to come over for dinner?
Me: Ur never a bother. That sounds good. 7?
Rayne: Perfect. <3
Because I don’t have a vagina, I leave out an emoji when I reply.
Me: Cool. C-ya later
I’ve just finished the outline of a portrait on the chest of a guy who lost his father recently. Whenever I do a portrait, it always hits me in the gut, because I don’t have anybody in my life whose face I’d want on my skin. Not until Rayne, that is.
The alarm beeps, and I look up into the monitor to see Rayne’s dad. “Shit,” I say under my breath. “Hey, man. You okay to take a break for a minute?”
“Yeah, I’ll just go burn one real fast.”
“Cool.” I point at the door outside my room. “That takes you to the back. I’ll unlock it.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, I’ll meet you back here.”
On the way to the front of my shop, I flick the deadbolt so my client can go in the alley.
“Ron.” I greet Rayne’s father. He stands from the chair and hesitates before holding his hand out for me to take.
After we shake hands, I lean on the counter and cross my arms, waiting for him to say whatever he came to say.
“Let me first apologize for what I said the other day. I don’t know you, and it wasn’t fair of me to project my hostility toward you.”
“Appreciate it.”
He nods and looks around. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.”
“Rayne is my only daughter.” His mouth turns down, and he redirects his attention to me. “When she was with Bryan, she was a happy girl. He disappeared, and I questioned if she was even going to survive without him.”
Not really liking hearing how happy my girl was with another guy, I grunt but wait for him to continue. Never having been one to go home and meet Daddy, I assume this is like a rite of passage. He continues his lecture, and I continue to pretend to give a shit.
“Her hope that maybe he was coming home one day was the only time she’d smile. She was depressed and barely even functioned. Then one day, I made an off-handed comment out of frustration about how excited I was for the day he would come back so I could have my daughter back.” He drops his head and shuffles his feet before looking at me again. “That was the first time I saw the light come back to her eyes. From that point on, I did what I thought was the right thing. I said shit just to see that light continue to brighten. I kept the façade going that he was maybe still alive. I kept the hope going because it was the only thing I could do to make her halfway . . . normal again.”
For the first time in my life, I’m watching a grown man’s eyes fill with tears. It’s surreal. This is what love looks like. What it is to feel compassion for your child. Hmm.
“If I’m being honest, when Margaret and I came back from the cruise, I could tell something had changed with Rayne. She was . . . different. The sadness that always floated around her was gone, but in its place was frustration. The two are very different things, and when she gets frustrated, well, let’s just say she’s a spitfire.”
I laugh at that, being on the receiving end myself. “Yeah, can’t argue with you there.”
“It was good to see again. But then she didn’t show up for work. I thought she was just sick, so when we went to her apartment and found you two, I reacted on pure instinct. And when she was sitting with you on the couch, and I saw my little girl truly happy, I mean really fucking happy, for the first time in two years, and I wasn’t the one to do that . . . I said some mean things. It’s a shitty excuse, but I wasn’t prepared, and I acted poorly.”
“I’m back, Vaughn,” my client says, and I turn around to acknowledge him. “Be there in a minute.”
“Look”—I give Ron my attention again—“I appreciate you coming here, and I get it. I’m sorry if it took you off guard, but that’s as much of an apology as you’re gonna get from me because what’s going on between Rayne and me is our business.”
“Fair enough.” He begins to back away. “But Vaughn?”
“Yeah?”
“It doesn’t matter that she’s already been shattered; she can still break.”
“Your daughter hasn’t been shattered, sir. She wasn’t waiting for him to come back; she was waiting for me show up. And now that I’m here, no way in hell am I going to allow anything bad to get close enough to even breathe the same air as her.”
With those parting words, I head back without a second glance and finish my tattoo. My schedule goes as planned for the rest of the day, and before I go to her place, I stop by the grocery store to grab some flowers. I have no clue where else to go for flowers. I only know every time I come here, I walk past them. There are so many I don’t know which ones to choose. Am I supposed to get one color or is a bunch of different colors better? The same flower or a variety?
“Fuck it.” I’ve really gotta stop talking to myself out loud. I grab four different packages of flowers and head to the checkout.
I’m not one to get nervous, but as I’m walking to her door, my palms are sweaty. I balance the bundles of flowers in one hand and knock with the other. A second later, I hear multiple voices and a man I’ve never seen before opens the door.
“Hi, you must be Vaughn.”
“Who are you?” Fuck pleasantries.
“Come in, and I’ll explain.”
I look past him, and when I get inside, I drop the flowers on her kitchen table. “Rayne.” I say her name when I see her on the couch sitting next to a woman who I’ve also never seen before.
She looks up, and before she even says anything, I figure out who these people are. I just don’t know why they’re here. There are some possibilities brewing, but I really fucking hope I’m wrong. I stop at the end of the couch and squat down in front of her. “You okay?”
Her eyes tell a story her mouth won’t say, and as much as I don’t want to, I know I have to let her know I’m here, no matter what. I know this is what she needs. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“They found him,” she cries. Her shoulders shake, and tears flow out of her eyes like an overflowing river. The woman who I’m assuming is Bryan’s mother pulls Rayne into her arms.
My gut sinks, and I find it hard to stand but somehow gather up the strength to do just that. I can’t very well walk out of here with my head held high if I’m crawling. She doesn’t even notice me leave, and Bryan’s dad claps me on the shoulder as I reach the door.
I shrug it off. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry, son. I do—”
“I’m not your fucking son.”
I slam the door behind me and almost trip over my own feet reaching my vehicle. I don’t want to go home. That’s where I’ll see the sheets I left crumpled on the bed from her being on them today. Where I’ll still smell her sweet scent. Fuck!
Before I realize where I’m going, I end up down in the valley in front of my childhood home again. This time, the blinds are still open, and a man walks by. My mom is right behind him, and just before they go out of view, he turns and kisses her. Figures. She replaced my stepdad but can’t even speak to her own son.
I don’t know why the fuck I came down here. I told myself she was dead to me. But this solidifies it. She has her life, shitty as it may be, and I need to move on with mine. Just like I thought I was already doing.
If I wasn’t so pissed off right now, I’d laugh at the irony. But nothing’s funny about this. Nothing’s funny about any of this.