Something to Believe In (The Renegade Saints Book 4) (13 page)

“You travel with a magnetic bumper sticker?”

“Ever heard of Carrot Top?”

My brows knitted together. “Uh, yeah.”

“I’m like a way cooler version of him. I’ve always got props, love.”

“You know what you are?” I asked.

“A fuckin’ weirdo?” he guessed.

I waved his comment off. “Nope,” I answered. “You’re a really great man.”

His eyes widened as he stared down at me.

“Not sure I’d go quite that far—”

“You don’t have to, I did. Take the compliment, Tyson. It isn’t going away.”

His smile almost seemed shy. “Thank you.”

I could see praise made him uncomfortable, which was interesting considering what he did for a living. People genuflected in front of him constantly. He could’ve acted like it was par for the course or like it was somehow his due, but he didn’t.

It was just another reason I thought he was a good guy.

W
hen we got back to the hotel, I took Daisy up to my suite. She had no way of knowing quite how monumental that was. A very small handful of people were ever allowed in my rooms because, as a general rule, it made me really fucking uncomfortable. Having her there did give me some anxiety, but it wasn’t debilitating. I fuckin knew she wasn’t a threat, but I’d spent years doing things a certain way which meant my behaviors were firmly entrenched. I knew it was past time for me to start changing.

“So,” I asked casually, “do you mind chilling here and watching some TV while I take this makeup off? Afterward we can order some dinner.”

“Of course not,” she assured me. “It’d be nice to see your face again instead of Grandpa Ty anyway.”

I gestured to my ridiculous getup. “You’re telling me all this didn’t do it for you?”

She made a hmm sound and tapped her index finger against her chin as if she was considering it.

“Well, the Members Only jacket is pretty hot, but you lost me with the big chunky shoes.”

I loved that she had a sense of humor. I’d spent a lot of time with chicks who didn’t get jokes. The more time I spent with Daisy, the more I realized what I’d been missing. Namely, her.

Getting off the makeup and plastic shit the makeup crew used to get my disguise on point was a bitch, so I was in the bathroom a lot longer than I’d have liked. When I opened the door from the bedroom to the open area of the suite, I saw Daisy standing in front of the window talking on her cell phone. I could tell from her stiff body language the conversation wasn’t giving her a warm fuzzy feeling, which raised my antenna. I got the answer pretty quickly.

“No, Mom,” she said with a heavy sounding sigh, “I don’t think I need a real job, since I already
have
one.”

I was surprised, even though I probably shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t like parental issues weren’t common. Unsure of whether or not I should walk out and alert her to my presence, I stood in the doorway and watched her in silence.

“I’m far from homeless, Mom. I’m on the road in safe and sound hotels every night.”

“I’d hardly say I think I’m Peter Pan.”

She was rubbing at her forehead when she turned and saw me watching her. She grimaced and mouthed
sorry
.

I shook my head and waved her off as I crossed the room to her. She looked sad and alone, which bothered me. Stepping behind her, I laid my hands on her shoulders and began rubbing gently. She relaxed against me, which made me smile.

“No, they can’t reschedule dates around your vacation plans.”

“Of course I’m sorry I won’t see you when I’m in New York. But the shows are when they are. It’s not like you had planned to do this trip. You could’ve waited to go until after I was there.”

“No, I’m not calling you selfish,” she sighed.

It went on and on like that for another few minutes before she took a deep breath and blurted, “I’ve got to go, Mom. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

When she ended the call, she set the phone on the windowsill. “Sorry,” she sighed. “My mother is a force of nature.”

“Sounded like it,” I agreed. There wasn’t much point in arguing it. From my one-sided take on the conversation, her mom sounded like an asshole.

“I love her,” she said softly, “but I don’t really like her, I guess. She’s very… cold.”

I continued massaging; interested in what Daisy would reveal the more we talked. It felt good, having her open up to me.

“Was she always cold?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not this bad. She had a really hard time being married to my father and it made her bitter.”

“They divorced?”

Her shoulders tensed up. “No,” she murmured.

Seconds passed before she spoke again.

“My dad was mentally ill and he took his own life. Dealing with him—it changed her. I get it, I do. But I also resent it. The rest of us didn’t zip up our emotions and detach the way she did. We needed her and she just… couldn’t. I’m not sure it would’ve changed anything, but I’ll always wonder.”

“You say we. I guess you have some siblings?”

She let out a gloomy sound and stepped away. “You really don’t want my whole sad story,” she said with a brittle sounding laugh. “How about we decide what we want for dinner?”

I followed along behind her as she went to the desk and grabbed the room service menu. When she sat on the couch, I sat beside her. Taking the menu from her, I set it down on the coffee table.

Putting my hand under her chin, I turned her toward me. “You’re wrong,” I told her. “I do want to hear your story. Clearly talking to her upset you. I’m here, Dais, and I have a pretty awesome shoulder if you need to cry on it.”

“You really don’t have to. Don’t worry about it.”

“I know I don’t have to. I
want
to,” I assured her. “If it upsets you, I’m going to worry about it. Better we just talk about it like normal people than bottle it up. I can tell you from experience it doesn’t work.”

I damn near couldn’t believe those words were coming out of my mouth. I’d spent a long fucking time pushing everything below the surface, trying to box it up so it never affected me. In therapy one of the first things I learned was that ignoring it had only allowed it to fester and grow. Funny how that works, isn’t it? The more you run from something, the more ground it gains.

“Are you sure?”

The look on her face told me she expected me to change my mind.

“I’m positive.”

Sighing, she picked at the knee to her leggings.

“I don’t know how to start,” she said after a few seconds.

“The beginning is normally the best.”

That got a small smile from her.

“My dad was from the tiny town I spent half of my childhood in,” she began. “The best way I can describe Harmony is that it’s an icicle frozen in time. I mean that in a good way. Old-fashioned values, love thy neighbor, everyone pulling for each other. It’s close-knit. Everyone knows each other. We’re there for births, christenings, weddings, anniversaries, sickness, death—it’s just how things are done. For some people, it’s like a warm blanket. It’s the steady in a stormy world. For my dad, it was a lead blanket.”

I had the feeling that for her, it had been the former instead of the latter.

“Instead of staying and working on the family farm like he was expected to, he ran off to Jersey City and got a job in construction. He met my mom and according to all accounts, the attraction was immediate. Her dad owned the company my dad worked for, so when my parents got married a few months later, Dad got a raise and a promotion. My parents had my brother, Dusty, the following year.”

The way her eyes filled up made my stomach clench. I had the strong sense that Dusty either wasn’t in good condition or wasn’t around at all.

“Two years later, they had my sister, Violet.”

She smiled when she said Violet’s name, which told me they were close.

“Three years later, they had me. Two years after I was born my mom’s father died and my dad took over the business. Construction was up and down, and money got tight. We had to move from our place on the Upper West Side to Brooklyn, and my dad was devastated. I don’t remember much of that time other than fights and yelling. My mom was, surprisingly, supportive. But my dad couldn’t be reasoned with. He went on and on about being a failure and would spend hours in his recliner crying about how awful life was. I think he started drinking not long after I was born and it went downhill fast. My mom would send the three of us kids to my grandfather’s all summer, out in the country. I thought it was so we could have a vacation,” she said with a dry laugh. “Turns out either my dad was in rehab or being committed to mental health facilities.”

She trailed off, seemingly lost in a memory. After a few seconds, she shook her head.

“He’d gotten into hardcore drugs and it just spiraled, to the point where he was hearing voices and hallucinating. I remember him locking the three of us in the bathroom and barricading the door shut because he said we were aliens. Another time, he locked us out on the patio in the rain and wouldn’t let us in because he said we were trying to rob him. It was the final straw for my mom, because she knew we weren’t safe with him alone. She needed help taking care of him, and no matter how many different doctors he saw, no one would commit him for longer than thirty days. That was great, but once he was out, he never stuck with the medication. She had no choice but to take my grandfather up on his offer for us all to move in with him.”

My heart was like a brick of ice as she spoke. I’d never have expected her to have felt terror as a child, but she had. As fucking awful as it was to listen to her, it made me feel less alone.

“We moved in the year I graduated elementary school. It never got any better with him, not really. He hated being in Harmony, he hated having kids, he hated being married, basically he just
hated
everything. He was in and out of hospitals, saw half a dozen more doctors, tried at least a dozen more medication regimens, and nothing ever changed. One day…”

She swallowed hard and looked away as she rubbed at her eyes. Hearing her sniffle, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“It’s okay, Dais. I’m here.”

She nodded as she leaned into me. I wasn’t sure she would finish, and I wasn’t about to push her.

“He got this crazy notion in his head that when Dusty was born, part of his soul was stolen. Dusty was a junior, Dad’s name was Dustin,” she explained. “So my dad was convinced his good stuff was in my brother. He started hitting him and terrorizing him, and nothing would make him stop. My grandfather was done with him by then. He wouldn’t get help anymore and he just went more and more off the rails. Violet and I were scared shitless and Dusty was depressed because my dad kept saying how much he hated him. My mom and my grandfather sat my dad down and told him he had to leave because they were done. He didn’t put up a fight, and told them they were shit for choosing the kid who took everything from him. Three mornings later, Dad pulled up to the end of the driveway where Dusty was waiting for the bus. Dad turned off the engine and then shot himself.”

She stopped as her lower lip quivered and she took a few deep breaths.

“You don’t have to keep going,” I told her. “I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Ty. It’s just a really sad fucking story. I’ve come this far—if you want to hear the rest, I’ll finish.”

“I want to hear it,” I answered honestly, “but I fuckin’ hate seeing you upset.”

“I’m okay. It’s almost over anyway,” she murmured.

I had to admit, I was curious.

“About a year later, my mom moved Dusty and me back to New York City with her. Three months after that, she married my stepfather, James. Violet got to stay in Harmony to finish high school, but my mom insisted she needed to get Dusty and me out of there so we didn’t go crazy, too. She was so focused on us being crazy that it was actually making us nuts. It was a terrible choice, moving us out there. My grandfather had been so great with us, and Dusty had been doing better. But setting a depressed kid loose in New York City took away all of the progress he’d made. By the time he was in high school Dusty was drinking, smoking pot and, later, doing meth. My mom was intolerant and angry about the whole thing. She would yell and scream about him being a disappointment and how he was just like our dad. She was just exhausted by then, I think. If she knew… I like to think she’d have been different.”