Footsteps of the Past (Second Chances #2) - Felice Stevens Page 0,10

high. “Don’t think because I love you more than life that you’re allowed to steal my scones. There will be a price to pay.”

The twinkle that had been missing reappeared, and joy spread through Chess, until the image of André kissing another man intruded, jarring. There has to be an explanation for those pictures.…

Later. He would ask André later. Instead he said, “Oh, yeah? Only if you can catch me.”

André pulled him close, kissing him with hungry intensity. “No matter where you’d run, I’d find you. You’re mine.”

“And you’re mine, right?”

Dammit. He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but they sat between them, more like a challenge than a sigh of love.

André cocked his head. “Of course. Why? Are you doubting me?”

The hours of sleep hadn’t erased the strain in André’s face, and Chess had no desire to throw out an accusation without more research on his own. He’d been so shocked by the photos, he’d clicked out of them and hadn’t looked since.

“N-no. I guess I was feeling a little needy, and I wanted to hear it from your lips.”

The lines smoothed on André’s face, and he brushed Chess’s cheek with his knuckles. “Everything I am is yours. Every part of me, especially my heart.”

Chess melted at those romantic words. They were the balm he needed to put his fear to rest.

“I love you too.”

André left their bed, and in a minute, Chess heard the shower running.

Unfounded accusations had once ripped his life apart. He wouldn’t allow that to happen to them. Awash in memories, he held on to the pillow.

His father had been a long-haul trucker, away more than he was home. When he was little, his mother had spent all her time with him, playing games and reading books to him, but once he was old enough to come home from school by himself, she’d gotten a job as a waitress in the diner a few blocks from home. He used to go there after school, sit in a booth and drink his milkshake and do his homework, all the time ignoring the men flirting with her and her flirting back. Occasionally she’d get him a babysitter on the weekends. She stayed out later and later, and a few times didn’t come home until morning, when he’d see her through the window, coming out of a stranger’s car, in the clothes she’d left in the night before. She’d trudge up the stairs and close the door to her bedroom, and when he passed by, he’d hear her weeping.

By the time he turned twelve, he’d stopped going to the diner and would go directly home after school, where he’d find empty vodka bottles in the trash. The times she didn’t go out, she’d sit and drink the night away. He’d try to get her to stop, but she’d cry, “Leave me alone. It makes me feel good.”

His father came home less and less, the days dwindling to only once or twice every three or four months. When he did appear, Chess would sit behind his closed door and listen to the arguments explode between them. It wasn’t his fault, but he thought it might be, because he’d hear them talk about how expensive it was to raise a child. Maybe if he wasn’t there, things would be better. He thought about running away but had no place to go.

Eventually, during one of the more vitriolic arguments, Chess discovered his parents weren’t even married.

“You’ve been cheating on me for years, probably from the beginning. I don’t even know if the kid is mine. From what I’m hearing, you’ve been screwing everyone.”

“You don’t think I know you get other women when you’re away? What am I supposed to do?”

“Be a goddamn mother.”

“I will be when you decide to be a father. My mother said you were no good, and I shoulda listened to her.”

Chess sat at the top of the stairs and watched his father’s snarling face turn red. “Now I see why you tried so hard to get me to marry you, but I’m not stupid. Why would I tie myself down to someone like you?”

Chess scrambled away from the bitter words they flung at each other, and he threw himself on his bed, crying into his pillow.

Not long after, his mother injured herself in a fall on the stairs to their house. She was so drunk, Chess had to help her stand and get her to the hospital. She couldn’t work and lost her job. During