His eyes narrowed at her tone. “What the hell does that mean?
“I don’t know,” she said flatly. “You tell me.”
“How would I know?”
Roxie tried to shift underneath him. “I don’t want to get into this.”
“I do.” Billy braced himself over her on both arms. They were eye-to-eye, face-to-face, and most importantly, still intimately connected. She felt the tension that snapped through his body and heard the way his breaths changed.
The other shoe was dropping, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Those words are your fallback. It’s how you justify everything.”
His forehead wrinkled. “Like what?”
“Like when that kid stole my money.”
His eyes widened. “Jesus. Are we going all the way back to that? Roxie, he pulled a knife on you.”
“You want something more recent? How about when you came back to town and found out that Loud Louie had died?”
“What the— He had cancer. He’d been suffering.”
Her jaw set. “It’s also what you said when we found out I wasn’t pregnant.”
Heaviness settled over the room, the kind that made it hard to breathe.
Billy’s fingers curled, straining the sheet.
“You were happy about that,” she whispered.
While she’d been devastated.
“I hate those words,” she said, swallowing hard. “They’re what you say whenever you turn on me.”
“Turn on you?” he growled.
This time when she pushed at him, he backed away. Their bodies, still warm and lax from shared pleasure, stiffened and disconnected. Roxie pulled the sheet over herself and moved until her back was pressed against the headboard. Watching him defiantly, she wrapped her arms around her bent knees.
Billy’s hands fisted. “I’ve had your back since Day One. You’re the one who gave up on us. You’re the one who walked away from what we had.”
What they’d had…
Life had been crazy back then. They’d been trying to figure out how to live in the real world. They hadn’t had much, but they’d had the building blocks. They’d had each other, an apartment, and an old Ford that Billy had fixed up. He’d had his job at The Ruckus. A baby hadn’t been in the plans, but once the idea had set in, Roxie had gotten excited about it. The possibility that she’d finally have a real family, someone to belong to, had been a dream come true.
Until it hadn’t.
“You didn’t want a baby then; I’m just making sure we don’t have any ‘accidents’ now.”
“Bullshit.”
The curse cracked across the room like a rifle shot. Roxie’s head snapped back, but Billy’s gaze was fierce.
“This has nothing to do with biology. I know you’re on the Pill. I saw it in your medicine cabinet. You just don’t want to let me close.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Tomato, to-mah-to.”
“Because you’re scared.”
The blunt words were like a jab, and she forced herself not to flinch.
“You don’t think I’d make a good mother,” she accused.
And that burned. She remembered her mom, faint as the memory was. She remembered her long, dark hair and her lavender perfume. Most importantly, she remembered the feelings associated with that memory.
She’d make a great mother.
“God damn it, Roxie. I’ve never said that.” Climbing off the bed, Billy found his jeans. He pulled them on and planted his hands on his hips. “I think you’d make a kick-ass mom, a real mama bear.”
“Then why was it ‘for the best’?”
“We’ve been through this. Because we couldn’t care for a baby. The two of us, Roxie, not just you.” The words exploded from his lips, and he raked both hands through his hair. His abs were cinched up tight, and his eyes had gone dark green. He paced the room one time and then turned back to her. “We were teenagers fresh out of the system. We were barely getting by.”
“We’d been out for two years.”
“You were just graduating from high school.”
“Billy, we weren’t some big-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears kids. We had to grow up faster than that.”
“Did we? I raced every goon that looked at me funny, and how many times did Charlie catch you shooting street craps? That’s why it was for the best you just let that money go. You won it in an illegal game!”
He jabbed a finger in her direction. “You can’t get everything you want. Sometimes life kicks you in the ass, but then you find out why you needed to go down a different path.”
“You think I don’t know I can’t have everything? My ass is sore from all that kicking, but I expected you to be with me, Billy. It’s called being supportive. I trusted you.”
“And I trusted you,” he snapped. “You like to pretend you’re so tough, that you can go it alone. If anyone takes one step wrong with you, you hold them off. No second chances. I deserved better than that.”
She pounded her fist against the mattress. “We could have done it.”
“They wouldn’t have let us!” He paced another lap around the room. “You know they would have been watching us. There was more than one Albert Fenton who wasn’t happy with how we gamed the system. One slip and the authorities would have said we were unfit.”
His voice was quiet, but whip sharp. It cut through Roxie’s hurt and anger, startling her. They’d had arguments about this before, but he’d never said that.
He stopped and wrapped his arms around his middle. The leather cuff and the tattoo made him look dangerous, but for once, his wide shoulders seemed scrunched in. “We never would have been able to fight them, and the last thing I’d ever do would be to let a kid of mine grow up the way I did. I stand by my word. It was for the best.”
Roxie’s shoulder blades dug into the headboard.
“I don’t ever want kids. Especially with someone who won’t let me close in the most important way.” His green eyes burned. “And I’m not talking about sex. I never turned on you. You’re the one who shut me out as I was looking you in the face.”
He swore and reached down to sweep up the rest of his clothes. “Every time I’ve managed to crack that door open, you eventually slam it again. So yeah, it’s probably for the best that we split up, too. This time, I think it’s going to take.”
In two steps, he was out the door.
He was gone so fast, Roxie didn’t have time to react. His words had been like blows and, for a moment, she was dazed. They’d argued many times in the past, sometimes about kids and sometimes not.
But they’d never gotten that deep.
“Billy?” she called shakily.
He didn’t respond.
She heard his muffled footsteps cross her living room and the door to her apartment open before slamming shut. It was the sound of his footsteps on the staircase, though, that prompted her out of her paralysis.
“Billy!”
She sprang from the bed, ripping the sheet right off it. Flying out of the room, she barely avoided her favorite red chair as she rushed to the door.
His footsteps were out of hearing range now. Her breaths were too loud in her throat for her to hear anything.
She skidded out into the hallway, barely remembering to cover herself. When she rushed down the stairs, the sheet billowed behind her, making her look like a haunted woman in white. Coming to a stop on the second floor landing, she pounded on the rental unit’s door.
“Billy? Open the door.” She knocked harder, pounding until her pinkie finger felt numb. “We’re not done.”
A door opened, but it wasn’t the one she was expecting.
“What’s all this racket?”
She spun around. The grouchy old man in 2A glowered at her, but then his caterpillar eyebrows jumped.
“So that billboard wasn’t touched up,” he muttered, his old voice cracking.
She followed his stare down to her chest. Her impromptu toga had slipped, baring her breast. The old pervert.
She tugged the sheet higher and turned her back on him. Switching to her other hand, she began pounding. “Billy!”
“He’s not there,” 2A bellowed. “He just came down this staircase like a team of Clydesdales. There are other people in this building, you know. We deserve some peace and quiet.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Roxie muttered, already moving along. If he wanted peace and quiet, he shouldn’t live next to a bar that stayed open until two in the morning.
She hadn’t made it three steps when his croaky voice stopped her again.
“You won’t find him down there either,” 2A said, thumping his cane. “He tore out of here in that truck of his like a bat out of hell. I couldn’t hear my TV program because of it.”
Billy had left?
Left, left?
She took the remaining stairs two at a time. The sheet clung to her legs, trying to trip her. The first floor lobby area was empty as she rushed across it, 300-count polyester whooshing all around her.
She hit the door going practically full speed and lurched out onto the sidewalk.
The truck was gone. The parking spot on the curb was empty.
A cry left her lips as her chest squeezed. Oh, God. What was happening?
Down the street, two guys walking into The Ruckus whistled at her. Feeling pain rifling through her, she slowly lifted her head. She turned on them like a vengeful banshee, hair whipping in the wind and let out a shriek. Their eyes popped and both muscle-bound bikers hurried into the bar.
Roxie’s fingers curled, balling the sheet right over her heart.
Where had he gone? Was he just blowing off steam?
“When I leave this time, I won’t be back.”
His words echoed in her ears, spurring her into motion again. Ignoring 2A’s concerns about quiet, she raced back up the stairs, feet pounding. She grabbed the keys Charlie had given her in case she needed to show the empty apartment. She opened the second floor rental, her hands shaking, and slapped at the light switch.
She quickly scanned the apartment. There were furniture and kitchen appliances. It was a furnished unit, but she was looking for anything personal. Anything of Billy’s. She searched the living room before moving on to the bathroom and then the bedroom.
His duffel bag was nowhere to be found.
She bit her lip.
He couldn’t leave now. She’d known he eventually would, but not now. They couldn’t leave things this way.
Feeling panicked, she wandered back to the nondescript living room. It held nothing of his, but why would it? He’d been ready for this. He’d been ready to hit that door.
There was nothing left to show he’d ever been here.
Except…
She went still when she saw something on the floor beside the sofa. She took a step in that direction, her knees feeling wobbly. She knelt down, the sheet pooling in a white puddle against the carpeting.
“My boots.”
Her favorite ones. The ones she’d thought she’d ruined.
She gathered up the black leather stompers. Holding them carefully, she turned them this way and that. A sound left the back of her throat. They were polished and flawless. She ran her thumb over the heel. She couldn’t tell it had ever been broken.
He’d fixed it.
She took a shuddering breath and hugged the boots to her chest as she stood. It took a moment before she was able to move again. When she made her way back up to her apartment, she was on autopilot. Once inside, she sank onto her own sofa.
His words kept playing through her head. Painful words. Honest words. He’d stood by what he’d said. There’d been no apology.
But there had been a ring of truth, one she couldn’t ignore. Had she been the one who’d turned on him?
She stroked the boots she was still holding like a lifeline.
How was she supposed to process this? What was she supposed to do?
The bass line of the music playing at The Ruckus infused the room, thumping unendingly. Her thoughts swirled, refusing to straighten out and move in a straight line. She tried to pluck out pieces that made sense, but they were like scraps of paper in the wind. Every time she thought she had one, it would switch directions and move out of her grasp.
When the phone rang unexpectedly, it blended with all the other noise in her head. Once she recognized the sound, she stood so quickly the boots fell onto the floor. She hurried to the bedroom to search through her clothes. Her hands were clumsy as she pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jeans.
“Billy?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It’s Maxie.”
Roxie’s shoulders drooped. The momentary burst of energy disappeared, and she clutched the back of the counter stool.
“Is this a bad time?” her sister asked.
Roxie looked around the room. She didn’t have a clue what time it was. The room was darker than it had been, but the energy of The Ruckus gave her no clues. Was the night just getting started? Was it closing time? It was another of those thoughts that flitted away. “It’s fine. What’s up?”
The moment the question was out, she had the vague cognition that maybe she should be worried. Late night calls were rarely good.
“I don’t know.” There was the sound of a teakettle whistling in the background. “I just felt a really strong need to call you.”
Roxie moved back to the sofa and sank onto it. The triplet radar was running on full power.
That teakettle kept whistling. “Is something wrong? Are you okay?”
A lie jumped to her lips, ready to go, only the words got stuck. It was what she always did, bucked up and pretended things didn’t affect her. Pushed them away. Lexie had called her on her tough girl act, and now so had Billy. She was feeling anything but invincible tonight. She needed to talk to her sister, but she didn’t even know where to start. “I’ve had a really bad day.”
“Oh, honey. What happened?”
The empathy made her throat thicken. “The billboard was taken down.”
The teakettle choked off. “Our billboard? No!”
Her sister’s disappointment didn’t have nearly the panic that hers had, but the sadness was there. Roxie cuddled up in a tighter ball on the sofa. She hadn’t realized how invested she’d gotten in that stupid thing. “And there are no leads on our parents.”
She tried to push away the nagging feeling that the two were connected. The gut instinct. Billy was right. The billboard had been lucky—she wasn’t going to let go of that—but it wasn’t magical.
There was the sound of a chair sliding. Maxie must be in her kitchen. Roxie loved that homey kitchen with the herb garden in the window that overlooked the big backyard.
“That’s okay,” her sister said. “None of us has made much progress on the search. I hope you didn’t feel like we put it all on your shoulders.”
Funny, but that’s where all the weight seemed to be bearing. Roxie rolled her shoulders but the tension wouldn’t go away. She wasn’t the patient type. Once they’d made the decision to look for the rest of their family, she’d wanted results.
“It’s been years,” Maxie said softly. “It could take a while.”
It could take forever. Roxie grabbed a throw pillow and squeezed it to her chest. She didn’t know if she could bear that.
“Billy left.”
The words just came out without any plan or forethought.
Maxie paused. “Because he had to get back to work?”
“We had a big fight tonight.” Although right now, it didn’t seem as much a fight as the two of them being brutally honest with each other.
“Oh, Roxie.”
Roxie wanted to wave it off—that damn self-preservation instinct again—but her hand was clenched too tightly in the pillow. “It was due. Overdue really. We managed to be around each other much longer this time.”
“No. You two aren’t meant to be apart. You belong together.”
Roxie’s stomach clenched. She’d thought that way once—and she’d slipped into that mindset too many times over the past week—but she knew better. She knew how her story with Billy went. Her life had looped around time and time again, and their ending was always the same. A psychic had even confirmed it.
This was the last loop, though. This time, he wouldn’t be coming back.
Tears pooled in her eyes. “We’re both too messed up and damaged.”
“Well, who isn’t?”
Roxie blinked. “What?”
It wasn’t the response she’d expected.
There was the tinkle of a ceramic cup on the other end of the line. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. You had a tough time of it, and my heart bleeds over that, but we were all affected by our past. Lexie is constantly trying to please others, and I’m terrified to step outside my comfort zone. We’re messed up, too. The split affected us all, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve love.”
Roxie went still. The verbal swat on the behind by her shy sister made the swirling thoughts in her head stop.
“You might have actually come out of it the best,” Maxie continued. “You’re so strong. You know what you want, and you go out and get it.”
Come out of it the best… For the best…
The words hit close to home, and Roxie’s fingers dug into the pillow. They’d all been affected by what had happened to them, but she wouldn’t have traded places with her sisters if they’d offered.
Her breaths came a bit more rapidly in her chest. Was that the reason she’d been the one left behind? Because she was the one who’d been able to take being scared and alone? The castoff? She was an identical triplet who’d been made a loner, but if one of them had to grow up in foster care, she was glad it was her.
Glad.
The insight was messed up, and it made her lightheaded.
Her sisters had needed their second families—and she’d needed Billy.
Oh, God. She rubbed a hand over her face, and her gaze landed on the boots on the floor in front of her. She still needed him. “What am I going to do?”
“Go find him.”
So much pain and frustration had filled that bedroom. “I don’t want to hurt him anymore.”
She’d never wanted to hurt him.
“I’d bet my flower shop that he doesn’t want to hurt you, either.”
It was for the best. Billy’s words stung, but had they been too close to the truth, too?
“Go after him, Roxie. That’s what you told me to do when I almost lost Zac.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Maxie let out an unladylike snort. “Since when would that stop you?”
Never.
“I have faith in you,” her sister insisted. “You can make things right.”
But he’d made it so damn clear he was done.
Roxie leaned her head back against the sofa. She couldn’t destroy her sweet sister’s belief in happily-ever-afters. “I’m glad you called, Maximum.”
“I love you, Rox.”
The tightness in Roxie’s throat nearly choked her. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to let people in. “I love you, too.”
When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking. Those floating scraps of paper were coming together and the picture they formed was uncomfortably clear.
She wasn’t unlovable. She had Maxie and Lexie. They were three parts of a whole, but there were others who were close to her. Like Skeeter and Charlie. And Billy.
Looking back, there’d been others who’d tried. The Hamiltons had been nice. They’d fostered her for over a year, but she’d been so guarded and untrusting. And then there was Mrs. Fisher in tenth grade. She’d always been willing to lend an ear.
But she’d pushed them all away before they could push her.
Roxie looked around the apartment, dark but for the moonlight starting to come through the window. Look at what she’d done with her life. She had her own place and her own business. Friends. She’d pulled herself up by her bootstraps, broken as they might be.
She’d had to fight for it all tooth and nail, but that made it all the more precious to her. She’d told herself that she’d wanted answers about her childhood, but deep down she admitted she wanted more than that. She’d wanted acceptance. She’d wanted love.
She’d had it all along.
Oh, damn.
A ragged breath hit her and she waved her hands in front of her face to fight the sting in her eyes. She’d been so busy trying to protect herself, she’d pushed away what she wanted most. Why did she always have to do things the hard way?
Well, why not? She was good at it.
She was a fighter.
And, this time, she was going to have to fight for him.
She flipped back her hair, blinked her eyes dry, and rubbed her hands against her thighs. Okay, she had to do something. She couldn’t leave things the way they were.
Billy did deserve better.
So did she.
She let out a puff of air and focused. She had to find him. They had to talk.
But where had he gone?
Would he even listen to her?
She picked up her boots from where they’d fallen so carelessly onto the floor. Standing them upright on the coffee table, she ran her fingers over what had once been a broken heel. She didn’t know if their relationship could even be saved, but she had to try.
It was her turn to play the fixer.