The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) (5 page)

As they served themselves, Nyxie put only a small amount of food on her plate. She knew she had trouble swallowing if she felt stressed, and despite his mother’s apology, anxiety permeated her mood. After placing a single enchilada on her plate, she used the hot pad to slide the casserole dish to Declan. He scooped up two for his plate and put another one on hers. After putting a spoonful of cornbread salad on her plate, she passed the bowl. She caught Dorothea’s expression as Declan doubled the amount on her plate. Before she said anything, Nyxie popped up out of her chair. “Does anyone need salsa?” she asked.

“On enchiladas?” his mother asked, as if it was unheard of to put hot sauce on them. When Declan and his father answered no, Nyxie lowered herself back into her chair. She stared down at the plate for a few moments before she felt Declan’s foot tap hers; she glanced over at him. Frowning at her, he pointedly looked at her untouched food and wagged the utensil in his grip at her. With a sigh, she picked up her fork and began eating.

She had only taken three bites when she set down her fork. “Coach Stryker, you asked me to explain the other day about the flip-flops. They really were my only shoes.”

“So you said. But why didn’t you drop the class? You had P.E. as a freshman. It wasn’t required for you to take it the next year.”

Nyxie took a steeling breath, opened her mouth but hesitated. She squared her shoulders and put her hands in her lap.

“You don’t have to explain, baby,” Declan said before she could speak.

“I know,” she said. “I just don’t want your father to think I was doing it intentionally to make him mad.” She turned back to Roy. “My mother disappeared the spring of my eighth grade year. She supported the family. Within a couple of months, both our electricity and water were shut off. I took P.E. so I could shower. Even after everything that happened my sophomore year, I signed up for P.E. my junior year too.”

“I remember your name being on my attendance sheet, but you never came to class.”

“I never came out of the locker room. I already knew I was quitting school at the end of the month, so I saw no point in having you yell at me for two weeks.”

Roy stared at her. “If that’s true, why didn’t you just say something? Even if you didn’t want to tell me, why didn’t you tell the counselor or one of the female coaches?”

When she hesitated again, Declan covered her hand with his. Her eyes filled with tears. “Because I was ashamed. I still am. You don’t have to like me. I can stay home when Declan visits you. I just don’t want you to think I’m the kind of person who would intentionally set out to aggravate a teacher.”

When no one said anything, Nyxie picked up her fork and took a bite. She chewed slowly but could hardly swallow it past the big lump in her throat.

“So,” Dorothea said, trying to break the awkward silence. “Have you gotten a chance to finish your education?”

“Not yet,” Nyxie said and turned to Declan. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I have been watching the classes online, and I found out Tech is offering tests on Saturday. I thought if I took the tests first, I could concentrate my efforts on the subjects I failed. I’m pretty sure I can pass the reading, writing and social studies cold. Math and science are going to be my downfall.”

With a smile at her, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

Dorothea spotted her mother’s rings on Nyxie’s hand and gasped. “Why are you wearing my mother’s rings? You have no right. Take them off!”

Nyxie immediately reached to do what she was told, but Declan stopped her.

“Mom, we got married yesterday. She has every right to wear them.”

“Are you nuts?” Roy yelled, making Nyxie shudder and press back into her chair, as if her mind flashed back to gym class when he was belittling her in front of her whole class.

“How could you marry her?” Dorothea cried. “She’s trash. Do you know how your dad got his job? Her sister got the old coach fired.” She turned to Nyxie. “That’s right. I started asking around about you. Her sister slept with the whole football team, then tried to kill herself when everyone found out.”

“That’s not what happened,” Declan shouted before Nyxie could even try to defend Melinda. “They lured her sister to that party and kept feeding her alcohol until she passed out. Those boys raped her and took photos. She slit her wrists in biology class when she found out about the pictures.”

Nyxie’s head jerked around to Declan as an unheard gasp escaped her body. Her eyes were wide and her body leaned away from him, as if she could escape his words if she sat further away.

Roy slammed his hand on the table. “If she told you that, she’s a liar.”

“She didn’t tell me anything, Coach. I saw the pictures. Rowdy Timmins showed them to me. His brother Clete brought her to the party. I saw every one of those disgusting photos. Three players raped her and the rest took pictures with their dicks in her mouth. She was passed out in every shot. After Melinda tried to kill herself, the previous coach got wind of what really happened. The coach wouldn’t drop it and the next year he cut the three boys who raped her. When the administrators wanted their star players put back on the team, he refused and they fired him. No football coach from around here would take the job, because they knew the administrators wouldn’t stand behind him.”

“That was her sister?” Roy asked, making Declan realize his father knew some of the circumstances behind the other coach’s termination.

Nyxie suddenly bolted into the powder room in the hallway. A moment later, the sounds of retching filled the air.

“Fuck.”

Declan glowered at his parents as he rose from the table.

“I’m going to put her to bed and when I come back down here, we are going to have this out once and for all. If you can’t accept Nyxie, you are out of my life.”

He made his way to the washroom just as she came out. Her face was pale and blotchy, and vomiting had made her eyes red with spiky, wet eyelashes. As they passed the dining room, he put his arm around her and tried to shield her from his parents, but she pulled away and moved to face them.

She placed the wedding ring set on the table next to his mother. “I told him he didn’t have to give me the rings. They’re obviously precious to you. I don’t love him for his money—frankly, that much money scares me, just like the prospect of losing those rings. Declan is the best friend I’ve ever had—even in high school when I didn’t know it, he was my best friend. I can’t deny him anything he asks of me. Someday he’s going to realize I’m not good enough for him, and he’ll divorce me, but even then, I will love him with all my heart. I don’t give a flying fuck if either of you like me, I was just hoping we could get along for Declan’s sake.”

He stepped between them and ushered her away, before his parents could hurl any more accusations at her.

Nyxie felt a bit foolish being helped up the stairs. She wasn’t sick. “That was true?” she asked as they entered his bedroom.

“Was what true?” he asked.

As she kicked off her pink ballet flats, he stepped behind her and unzipped her dress before pulling it over her head.

“What you said about Melinda?”

He looked at her wide-eyed. “Of course. You didn’t know?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head as he disappeared into the closet. She took the dress into the bathroom, and dropped it down the laundry chute. When her hands were free, she unfastened her bra and placed it in the chute also. She brushed her teeth, suspending the conversation until she finished, and emerged from the bathroom to find Declan turning down the bed while he waited for her.

“All of the sudden, the kids were yelling at me that my sister was a slut and she had slept with the whole football team. I knew she went with Clete to that party. They’d been hanging around together for a couple of months. Melinda is not like me. She wanted the kids at school to like her, so she was excited to go to the party. I believed the rumors ‘cause I thought, if sleeping with the football team would make her popular, she would have done it. I guess because she couldn’t remember what happened, she never contradicted them—maybe she didn’t even know herself. I guess someone told her about the pictures; maybe she saw them, I don’t know. In biology class, they were dissecting something. She took that scalpel and cut her wrists. She spent about a week in the psych ward. When she came home, she refused to go back to school. She called some guy she met at the hospital. He drove out to Chimera Flats and got her. I hardly saw her again after that.”

She assumed the t-shirt on the bed was for her and pulled it over her head.

“Jesus.”

“Now that I know the truth, I feel sick over what had happened to her. I never even doubted those horrible stories.”

He reached for her face, gently cupping it. “A week ago, you would’ve flinched if I did that.” He kissed her gently. “I’m sorry I just blurted it out like that. I would have said something before, if I had realized you had never heard the truth.”

“You didn’t know.”

Chapter 5

“I don’t even know what to say to you,” Declan said, returning to his parents in the dining room. Their plates were nearly empty but their wine glasses had been refilled. “You won’t even give her a chance.”

If people had treated Nyxie this way her whole life, it was no wonder she wavered between timid and smart aleck. Had no one ever cut her a bit of slack?

Declan noticed his grandmother’s rings were no longer on the table. “Taking the rings doesn’t make us any less married.”

“Well, at least she can’t pawn them now,” his mother said and pursed her lips to form unflattering lines.

Declan stared at his mother, refusing to take the bait. “And I thought Coach was going to be the problem.”

“I don’t know how you can stand her. She’s so…weak,” she said, her lip curling up with disgust. Dorothea had had to be strong in the Marines. She took pride in the fact she had the toughness and fortitude to excel, and judged most women on the standards set for her by the Corps.

Declan bore a strong desire to reveal his sexual proclivity to his mother—just to shock her and to explain his attraction to Nyxie, but he also knew that would only weaken her in his mother’s eyes.

“Her strengths rest in her ability to love unconditionally and to sacrifice for those she loves. That’s something you’ve never done.” Declan ran his hands through his hair. “God, I had hoped by some miracle, she would feel from you the parental love she never got from her own parents. Stupid me.”

“Declan….”

“No, Major, I have heard enough. We wanted to have a second ceremony so you could see your only child get married, but I see now there is no point in it. Frankly, why should this milestone in my life be different from any other? You missed my first steps, my first words and my first day of school.”

“We were serving our country.”

“Don’t think as an American that I don’t appreciate your service to our country. But how many times were you stationed stateside and never asked me to come live with you?”

His mother’s lips pursed in a way that showed him he had hit on her parental guilt, making him instantly contrite. He had never set out to hurt either of his parents, but rarely could he get together with them without lashing out over the same thing. He didn’t know why he couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t as if he could change them or change what happened.

“We didn’t want to disrupt your life.”

“It wouldn’t have been a disruption over the summer or during holidays. You only wanted to be my parents when it was convenient for you.”

“For God’s sake, Declan, how many times are we going to have this same argument?”

Declan slowly blew his breath out of his mouth as he shook his head. “Until you acknowledge the pain you caused me. Maybe that’s why I can relate to Nyxie the way I do. Neither of us feels our parents loved us.”

Declan heard his mother’s small gasp and knew that arrow had hit its mark. On one level, he knew what he said had never been true. He knew they loved him. But there had always been that little voice in the back of his head that didn’t understand how time after time, they could choose their jobs over their only child. A part of him also knew that he had been much better off with his grandparents. Grams and Gramps loved him with every fiber of their being. They spoiled Declan and treated him as if the world revolved around him. He was bathed in their love, as if he had brought sunshine into their otherwise humdrum waning years. As an adult, he wondered if they were trying to compensate, so he didn’t feel the loss of not having his parents around, or if raising him truly fill their world with joy. He was always the center of attention wherever they went. Their retiree friends fussed over him as if he were
their
surrogate grandchild. He felt grateful for the time he spent with them.

“That’s what you think?”

“Yes, Major.” He could see the hurt in his mother’s eyes and hated that he had put it there. “No. I don’t fucking know. I think most of the time, you do what you do, because you think it’s expected of you, not because you genuinely want to.”

“Declan,” Roy interrupted. “You’re being too hard on your mother. We did what we thought was best. Do you even listen to yourself? You rant and rave over being left with your grandparents and then you get mad over us taking you away from them. Make up your mind.”

Declan shrugged. “You’re right. I guess I should just feel as indifferent about it as you do.”

“We are not indifferent,” she said. “We have tried and tried, but you just push us away. After a while, we just got tired of the rejection.”

“I was making an effort today,” he pointed out. “We invited you over here to tell you our news; we had hoped we could make plans to have a nice ceremony that you could attend, but all you did was lash out and hurt Nyxie. I’m sorry she’s not the person you think I should have married. What was it you always said to the team, Coach? ‘Get on board the bus or get the fuck out-of-the-way.’”

“You are being unreasonable, Declan, honey,” Dorothea said. “You expect me to open my arms to someone with whom I have only spent a few minutes. You’ve only been dating her a couple of weeks. How do you expect us to react? You don’t even know her. How can we help but be alarmed?”

“I know her,” Roy said shaking his head. “I remember her very well. She always had a smart-ass comment.”

Declan leaned back in his chair. “She still does. It’s a defense mechanism. What did you expect her to do when you were tearing her a new one over not having sneakers?”

“You weren’t there….”

“No, but I saw the way you went after her on the practice field. This isn’t the army, Coach. You are twice her size. Do you get off on bullying kids, or just her?”

“Don’t exaggerate, Declan,” Dorothea said. “Your dad is tough, not mean.”

Declan made a scoffing sound. She hadn’t seen the way Coach bowed up on Nyxie the day they went to Chimera Flats, or how she kept retreating as he continued stepping up to her. He knew his father persisted in intimidating the kids under his tutelage, if Jonah Travis’s concerns about being late the day he hit Cody with his pickup, were any indication. Had the kid not been so worried about being late to football camp, he might not have been speeding through the neighborhood.

“Whatever. Look, I’m already married to Nyxie. No amount of arguing is going to change that. It would be nice if you would be happy for us.”

“It’s not too late. Remember that actress that married the country singer? She got an annulment after a couple of months,” his mother said.

Declan sighed. “I haven’t made a mistake that needs rectifying.”

“Even
she
knows it’s not going to last….”

“Nyxie has no self-esteem, Major. She doesn’t think she deserves happiness. Knowing her, she’s probably afraid to be happy.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. No one’s afraid to be happy—no one thinks they don’t deserve happiness,” Coach said. “Son, I know with how hard you’ve worked in school, you haven’t really had time for a real girlfriend before. I’m sure she’s brought a lot of, uh, experience to the table, but don’t confuse lust and sex, for love.”

Declan laughed long enough to make Roy chuckle tentatively, as if he thought he had made an unintentional joke. “I am not some innocent schoolboy seduced by her wicked ways. It’s quite the opposite if you really must know.”

Dorothea pushed away from the table and picked up her plate and Roy’s, and took them into the kitchen, as if it would somehow end the conversation. Declan followed with the plates from his side of the table, frowning at how little Nyxie had eaten. Roy grabbed the pan of enchiladas and the salad, and they cleaned up with the familiarity of a family who had done it together a thousand times before.

“So, I guess there’s no reason to have a second ceremony,” Declan said as he walked them to the door.

“We’ll come, but I’m not going to pretend to be happy.”

Declan kissed her cheek, a gesture he rarely displayed. “Any chance you would organize it for us? I don’t have time and Nyxie is already overwhelmed with Cody. It doesn’t need to be fancy and I’ll pay for everything.”

Dorothea reluctantly nodded, earning a second kiss on the cheek and a firm hug.

“Nyxie gets her kids back in the next ten days. Do you want to babysit the girls while she sits in the hospital with Cody?” He laughed at the exasperation in her expression. “I’m just kidding, Mom. We’ll hire someone, unless you actually want to.”

“I really don’t have the time. I have a wedding to plan.”

Declan walked his parents out and stood on the sidewalk until they pulled away. Now that he had a few minutes, he went to the back alley and turned on the water to his second unit, using the oversized wrench he had used to turn it off, lit the pilot light to her water heater, and turned down the thermostat on his. He chuckled that he didn’t even get a chance to ask his dad for assistance. Roy loved to show Declan how to do things like that. Sometimes he actually learned little tricks from him.