This Is a Dark Ride (19 page)

“Because I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to see how horrible I was. You always looked at me like I was special, Brody. I’m not.”

“It’s okay,” Angel said gently.

Sam hugged himself and rocked back and forth, cursing under his breath as he cried.

It hurt to watch Sam cry. To see that giant of a man sobbing like a child, it just didn’t seem right. “Tell us,” Brody said.

“I don’t want to.”

“You need to!”

“Stop it!” Angel moved between them, pressing against Brody’s chest with her palm. “He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.” She rested her other hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“He
does
have to talk about it,” Brody said. “It’s not good to keep things locked inside.”

Angel shot him an angry look. “He
doesn’t
have to talk about anything. There are things that have happened to all of us—in all our lives—that are
ours
. They are our moments, our memories, our pain, and if Sam doesn’t want to share it, that’s
his
choice, not yours.”

“I just want to help him. Don’t you get it, Sam? I want you to be happy.”

“I lied to you, okay, Brody? All this time I lied to you. I didn’t meet RJ the year I graduated. I met him a few years before that.”

Bile rose in Brody’s throat. Sam had told Brody once that RJ was ten years older than he was. It had been bad enough thinking Sam had been a senior in high school when he met RJ; now to think he’d been even younger than that was disturbing.

“That’s all right.” Brody tried to sound reassuring. Poor Sam, it wasn’t his fault the guy had targeted him. From the way Sam was crying, it definitely was not okay.

“Listen, it’s in the past,” Brody said, trying to soften his tone. “I made a lot of mistakes in the past. We all have. No one here is going to hold something against you that happened when you were a kid. Nothing was your fault, Sam. It was that piece of shit RJ’s fault.”

“He was like you…at first,” Sam said.

Brody immediately felt defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He liked women sometimes.”

Brody shrugged. “So you were jealous?”

“No. I wasn’t jealous. I saw what an asshole he was. How callous and uncaring he was with these girls, and I realized he treated me exactly the same way.”

“I wasn’t ever like that! I was never intentionally uncaring with you. Back when I didn’t want to care about you, I still did!”

“I didn’t say that. I never even thought it. I just want to forget about RJ!”

Angel shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. Just because we want to forget something doesn’t mean we can.”

“I don’t see why you’re all upset anyway,” Brody said. Really, what was the big deal? So RJ was an asshole. That hardly seemed worth dwelling on years later. “I mean, he was shitty to you, shitty to women. Okay. Lots of people are assholes.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Sam said. “Something happened…something bad.”

“What did he do to you, Sam?” Angel asked.

“It wasn’t me. It was this girl. I don’t know what her name was.” Sam clenched his fist. “She had a pretty smile, and her eyes were sad.” Sam looked up at Angel. “You remind me of her.”

“What happened to her?” Brody asked slowly.

Angel’s hand rested on Sam’s cheek. “Did he hurt her?”

Sam nodded slowly. “He did. I didn’t know he was going to… I mean, I guess I knew, in a way. He liked to do things that hurt them, but it never was
that
bad. I didn’t do anything to her. He wanted me to hurt her too. He wanted me to hit her, but I wouldn’t.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Not Sam. It was hard to imagine Sam even being with a person like that. Sam’s rage, his anger when he’d been boxing; now Brody knew where it had come from.

Sam twisted his large hands together. “I didn’t know what to do after that happened. I couldn’t go home. I didn’t want to face my mom. I didn’t want to tell her that she was right. I didn’t want her to know…” He looked at Brody with tears shining in his eyes. “I don’t think my mom was ever mad because I told her I was gay. She was mad because she felt like RJ took advantage of me. I know he was a lot older than I was, but my mom couldn’t look at me and see anything but a little kid. I wasn’t a kid, and I was in love with him. I didn’t care if he was older than me. I thought he loved me too. I trusted him.”

“How old were you when you first started seeing him?” Brody asked.

“Fifteen, I think.”

“That fucking bastard,” Brody said. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before? Why?”

“What difference would it have made if I told you? What could you have done? What could anyone have done? That night…he just kept hitting her. She was dead before I really knew what was going on. There wasn’t anything that anyone could do to change that!”

“I’ll tell you what I would have done,” Brody said. “I’d have beat that son of a bitch to death with my bare hands!” He hoped his anger would mask his shock. All this time and Sam never told him.

“Really? I don’t think that’s what you’d have done, Brody. I think you would have gotten high and kept getting high, just hoping you could get high enough to forget it ever happened.”

Brody couldn’t think of anything to say, mostly because what Sam had just said was probably true. It wasn’t easy to face the fact that Sam knew what a piece of shit he was.

“You’d have taken the easy way out!” Sam said, and then his voice dropped to a choked whisper. “That’s what I did too. Except I took the fucking coward’s way out.”

Sam clenched his hand into a fist. “I didn’t even have the balls to run away! I stayed there, with him, living in his house, knowing what he’d done. I stayed there, and I let him fuck me. I let him use me. How fucked-up is that? I didn’t even have the courage to leave him!

“He came and saw me box one night right after I left. He warned me, told me if I ever told anyone about that girl, he’d do the same thing to my mom as he did to her. I believed him, because he never liked my mother. He always said she was the one who ruined our relationship. That wasn’t true, but I knew RJ hated her. I saw how vicious he was with that girl. The thought of him doing that to my mom—I figured it would just be better to try and forget it all.” Sam shook his head. “I never tried to call Mom. I was afraid she wouldn’t talk to me, but I think I was even more afraid that I’d slip up and tell her the truth.”

Angel caressed Sam’s shoulder, and the serene expression on her face masked whatever it was she must certainly be feeling right now. Knowing Sam had been with the same kind of person, the same kind of asshole who’d hurt her.

Brody put his arm around Sam’s back. “You should have caved RJ’s fucking skull in, Samson.”

Sam closed his eyes. “You know, when I started boxing, every guy I fought—every single one—I’d look at them and see RJ’s face. When I hit them, it felt good. I never did drugs, Brody, but I always thought I could understand what you felt, ’cause hitting some guy in the ring just felt so damn good. I didn’t want it to stop. But, that night I hurt that guy…it was like any other time. I just saw RJ’s face, and I punched him and punched him. I didn’t hear the bell ring. I didn’t hear all the people yelling. I didn’t hear anything but my heart beating. Then I looked down at what I’d done. He wasn’t RJ. He was just some poor guy trying to make a living. He wasn’t even doing it for some stupid reason, like I was. He was just trying to be a…a
somebody
.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Isn’t that what we all want? Just to fucking be
somebody
.”

Sam jumped up and raised his arm. Muscles rippled beneath his skin, and he balled his hand up. There was a crunching sound that echoed through the apartment when that big fist hit the wall.

Sam’s hand crashed through the old, brittle plaster. Tiny white pieces rained down to the floor like snowflakes.

“He’s crippled, you know? That guy I beat up on the last night I fought. Try going through life with a dead girl and a man you took everything from on your conscience. It’s not easy. It’s not easy being a fucking nobody!”

Brody stood and wrapped his arm around Sam, his palm flat on that broad chest. Beneath his hand he felt the beating of Sam’s heavy heart. How could Brody have not seen it? How could he have spent so many years with Sam and not seen how wounded he was inside?

“I’m sorry,” Brody whispered, though he knew the words meant nothing. They were mere words. They offered no magic comfort and didn’t ease pain. He knew that all too well.

“You were just boxing. That’s all you were doing. And you certainly didn’t kill that girl,” Angel said.

“No, but I don’t know if I could’ve stopped it because I didn’t even try! It was just too late. Too late! I should have done something the minute he hit her in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault!” Brody pressed his hand harder against Sam’s chest, wishing he could reach inside of him and yank out the pain. “You are somebody, Sam!”

Sam turned and looked at him, his face blank. “Who? Who am I, Brody? I have a shit job, a shit car, and a shit life. I have nothing. I am nothing!”

“You have me. You have Angel. As for what you are…you are my love. The one man I love with all my heart.” He glanced over at Angel and nodded. “And I’m willing to bet you’re somebody pretty important to her too.”

She moved beside Sam and put her hand on his arm. Despite the fact that Sam was more than twice her size, there was something about the way she held his arm that made her seem like she was trying to shield him.

“I always felt like I was a nobody,” Angel said. “Until you…and Brody. I don’t feel that way anymore. I love you, Sam.”

“You’re better off with Brody. I’ve always been nothing. Weak. Powerless,” Sam said.

“That’s not true.”

“Why’d you keep all that in you, Sam?” Brody felt weak and powerless himself. “Why?”

“I wanted you to love me. I didn’t figure you could if you knew the truth.”

“I do love you. I have loved you. I wasn’t very good at showing it, but it’s always been there. It ain’t right. Carrying all that pain around.” Brody looked at Angel, realizing she’d done the same damn thing. All three of them were guilty of it, and where had it gotten them? “We all have to stop this. We can’t keep living this way. How about this? How about if it’s not my pain or your pain or her pain? How about if it’s ours? How about since we’re all on this ride together, we all shoulder some of this shit?”

Sam nodded. “I’ll tell you something, though. I’ll kill him, I swear. I’ll kill him if I ever get the chance. I won’t let what he did go unpunished.”

“It won’t change anything,” Angel said. “Killing someone won’t change what has already happened. I thought a lot about how much I wanted to kill that Bobby guy…before that, my stepdad. It won’t make it better. Everything that already happened will still be there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “I hate RJ. He deserves what he’ll get. As much as you mean to me…and to Brody. That girl had to have mattered to somebody like that. He shouldn’t just get away with what he’s done!”

The intensity in Sam’s eyes was frightening.

Angel didn’t speak. She stared at Sam with wide, solemn eyes.

Brody kissed her cheek and pressed his lips to her ear. “Tell him it’s okay. Please? Sam probably won’t ever see RJ again. Let him get rid of this guilt. There’s no reason he needs to feel this way.”

Angel looked over at Brody and nodded. She turned back to Sam and cupped her hand on his chin. “You’re right,” Angel finally said. “He deserves it.”

Tears streamed down Sam’s face. Brody’s chest seemed crushed, and it was hard to breathe. He felt Sam’s guilt and pain in his own heart.

“I love you, Angel. I’m so sorry for what happened to you,” Sam said.

Angel hugged Sam, crying softly herself. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I love you, both of you. Sam, you have such a beautiful heart. The things other people have done…they aren’t your fault.”

“And the same is true for you,” Sam said. “I don’t care what you did. I don’t care.”

It was Brody who opened a condom, and then gently rolled it over Sam’s cock. It was beyond the act of giving him permission. This was what was meant to be.

Sam’s arms wrapped tight around the girl. He clutched her in a hug that lifted her from her feet. Her bare breasts flattened against Sam’s broad chest.

“I love you, Sam.” Her fingers twisted in Sam’s dark hair.

Sam’s hands, beneath her soft ass, cupped her cheeks. Sam’s rough, tanned hands against Angel’s pale skin. Sam with a woman. His woman,
their
woman. Angel was trying to make Sam forget the pain he was feeling, just as Sam and Brody wanted to do for her.

Sam’s eyes caught and held Brody’s. “I love you both. I need you both,” Sam said. Brody watched his lovers, enjoying the reverent look on Sam’s face as he laid Angel down on the bed. She stretched her arms out to Sam and parted her legs.

Sam wasn’t crippled and he wasn’t dead. What could be more life affirming than sex? Let him live. Let him enjoy life. There were so few moments in any of their lives that could truly be savored.
Happiness is fleeting. Grab it and hold on as long as possible.

Sam filled her in a single thrust. Angel hooked her ankles at his lower back. Brody had never seen anything more beautiful than the two of them together—the ones that he loved. Neither seemed worried that Brody was missing something, and he was not. Right now his life felt more complete than it ever had.

It took only a few minutes before she came, burying her face against Sam’s chest. Her heels dug into his ass, and she trembled and made sobbing sounds beneath him. Her cries were muffled against Sam’s skin, and Brody drew a shuddering breath as he rolled on a condom and slicked his own cock with a handful of cold lube.

Brody caressed Sam’s sweat-slick skin. The muscles in his ass clenched tight, and Brody gave Sam a sharp pinch on the cheek.

Sam struggled to his knees, his cock still inside of Angel. Her legs slipped down as Sam raised his ass higher.

“I’m gonna fuck you, Sam.” Brody moved closer to him, the tip of his cock brushing against Sam’s skin. The contact sent a zing through Brody’s entire body.