Locked (PresLocke Series Book 2) (21 page)

“Dylan? Did I do something—”

“No,” he interrupted, again shaking his head. Eyes downcast. “You’re perfect.”

Okay…
The way he said the word had my concern growing tenfold, because it certainly wasn’t said in the same complimentary tone from minutes ago.
 

“
This
is perfect. All of it…and I joke about it, but Ace,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine across the vast space that now seemed to gape between us, “my life is not perfect. Far from it. Hell, my name isn’t even Dylan
Prescott
. I don’t even say it out loud anymore. I choose not to acknowledge it. But those reporters, the people digging into every aspect of your life…they’re going to work that out, sooner rather than later. And there’s things you need to know. About me. About my past.”

“And I want to know those things,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten about what you started to tell me in Vegas. But I’d never push you to open up. If you’re ready to tell me, I’m ready to hear you.”

“Thank you.”

Trying to ease the anxiety I could see building in the tense cords of his neck and shoulders, I held up the wine and said, “Need a bit more?”
 

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

As I refilled Dylan’s glass, he looked over my shoulder, staring out across the calm, quiet ocean. I’d wondered for a while what he’d wanted to tell me that day we’d lounged on the bed at Syn, but I knew whatever it was, it wasn’t something that would be easy for him to talk about. But I wanted to know this man, know every part of him and all the secrets he kept hidden from the rest of the world. I wanted to be the one he shared himself with.
 

“It’s easy…” Dylan said, fingering the lip of the glass. “It’s easy to forget myself when I’m off doing things I only ever dreamed of when I was younger. Back then, I started with smaller dreams. I wanted a mom
and
a dad. Ones who cared enough to make sure I did my homework and tucked me in every night. I wanted to live in the same house for more than a week at a time. I wanted to eat something other than stale cereal and fast food scraps my mom’s ‘boyfriends’ left behind.” He bit down on his lip before continuing. “But most of all, I wanted to feel safe. I never felt safe until I met Sunshine and Ziggy. And even when they came into my life, I spent a long time waiting for the ball to drop, waiting for them to give me back, or turn into the kind of people my mom had associated with for years.”

I stayed silent, not daring to breathe a word that would have him clamming up. I wanted to know what his mom had done, and why he’d never known his father.
 

As though he’d read my mind, he said, “My mom was…very well known in San Francisco. Not in the political or entertainment circles; not because of any amazing contributions to charity. She was an underground gutter rat, a prostitute turned madam that hustled men, women, sex, and drugs.”

My eyes must’ve widened to saucers, because Dylan let out a humorless chuckle.
 

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have guessed that, huh?” he said.
 

I shook my head. “No. No, I can’t say the thought would’ve crossed my mind.”

“Good.”

As I watched him down the rest of his wine, I wondered how long it had taken him to shed the layers of his past, what had led to him being placed in foster care, and how he’d emerged not only alive, but seemingly thriving. There was also something else he’d hinted at that I was curious about.
 

“Before…you said you never knew your father,” I said, and Dylan nodded. “But did you know who he was?”

“I’m sure good ole Mom could’ve narrowed down the list to about twenty-five potential sperm donors, but finding out who knocked her up was never high on her priority list. Hell, I’m surprised she had me at all, but my guess is she wanted someone to join the family business.”

My gut tightened as his last words lingered. “Join?”

The grim line of Dylan’s lips made it abundantly clear how uncomfortable he was talking about this, and though I didn’t want to push him, I had this inexplicable need to know what had happened to him, no matter how hard it was to hear.

Dylan’s eyes had taken on a faraway look, as if he was no longer even sitting there with me, and before I knew I was going to do it, I leaned over and took his hand in mine. When he looked in my direction, I squeezed his fingers and, without words, invited him to lean on me.

As Dylan silently got to his feet, I made sure to keep his fingers locked in mine. He stepped over the food that had been separating us, and when he stopped in front of my crossed legs, I tilted my head up to see the sun shining around him, and felt breathless at the picture he made.
 

“Come here,” I whispered, and gently tugged on his hand, urging him down to my lap. He lowered himself until he was seated and facing me, his legs on either side of my waist, and his ass nestled on my crossed legs with our hands still entwined between us. “Nothing you tell me is going to change the way I feel about you.”

“That’s easy to say—”

I tipped his face up so he was looking me directly in the eye then, and told him with more sincerity than I ever remembered feeling, “It’s easy to mean when it’s you who I’m talking about.”

“Ace…” he said, and leaned his forehead to mine, closing his eyes.

I wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him as close to me as I could get him. Hoping to make him feel that sense of safety he’d spoken about only moments ago. “Tell me, Dylan. I want to know you. The good, the bad, and the—”

“Ugly?” he said. “If only that had been the case. You know what’s crazy?”

Trying to keep up, I just went with it, letting Dylan lead this conversation where he needed it to go. Letting him tell me however he wanted to tell me.

“No. What’s crazy?”

“That I use my looks to get paid. In a way, I’m no different—”

“Hey,” I said, leaning back a little to get his attention. “Don’t you dare compare what you do to what you just told me she did.”

“Right, but you don’t understand. This face, the face that’s getting me contracts with more zeroes than I could ever imagine seeing on a paycheck, is the exact same face she was trying to cash in on.”
 

As a shuddering breath racked Dylan’s body, he lowered his eyes from mine, and as much as I’d urged him to tell me about his past, I was terrified of what he was about to reveal. Not because of others knowing, but because I wasn’t sure I could stand to hear how someone had hurt this man.

“For years my mother—Brenda—would use me as—” Dylan bit off his words and cringed, and I ran a soothing hand up his back, needing the contact with him to calm my shaking hands.
 

So Brenda was his mom, and that had been who Sunshine was referring to that day in the desert.
“She’d use me as bait, I guess, is what police ended up calling it. She worked out I was a somewhat…powerful lure to certain men, and that they would be willing to pay big bucks to be able to stroke a pretty boy’s face. To touch his hair. To have him in the room while they—” Dylan coughed, and it sounded as though he was close to choking on the words he was forcing out of his mouth. His jaw bunched and ticked as he ground his molars together, and when he finally had himself under control, he started to talk again. “She never let them go further than that. Her one act of kindness to me, I suppose, until the final night…”

“Dylan, you don’t have to—” I started, guessing where this was going. Hating that he had to tell this story at all. But he shook his head, determined now, it seemed, to get this the fuck out and over with.

“No, let me finish. You need to know. To hear it from me, instead of reading it in some magazine.”

I brought my hand up to stroke it over his cheek, and when he shut his eyes and nuzzled into it, my heart ached for the boy he once was. But that wasn’t all I felt there on the bow of the boat under the afternoon sun. At that exact, heartbreaking moment, my chest swelled with pride for the demons this man had battled, and I knew without a shred of doubt that I loved Dylan Prescott more than anyone else on this earth.

18

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

I KEPT MY eyes closed as I leaned into Ace’s hand and said the words I’d been dreading for months.
 

“I’d come home from school early that day,” I said. “It was the day before Thanksgiving and we only had to attend a half-day, so I planned to drop off my book bag at home—or at least the place we’d been staying for a few weeks at that point—and then go to my friend Bobby’s house for the night. I hated being around when my mom had visitors, so I snuck off as much as I could. She was usually wasted, high off whatever drug she’d been paid with the night before. I expected her to be asleep, but that day she was awake and sitting in the living room on the ratty orange couch I knew better than to get near. I’ll never forget it…she had a cigarette in one hand, and a face full of thick makeup, but her red lipstick was smeared a little on one side, like she’d already been up to her tricks that afternoon. And when she patted the seat next to her, I didn’t move, but then she narrowed her eyes, and I knew what that meant. I’d gone through a growth spurt, but I was still only thirteen, and not only did she have a few inches on me, she had nails that could break through skin. So I sat on that ratty, dirty couch and kept my hands in my lap. She didn’t ask me how my day was, which was nothing new, but she did give me the biggest smile I’d ever seen from her and told me she had a surprise for me. ‘A good surprise?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Dylan,’ she said, ‘a wonderful surprise. That face of yours is going to break hearts. And wallets.’”

My throat had gone dry, like I was still breathing in the fumes from her cheap cigarette, so I paused to take a long swig from one of the water bottles Ace had pulled out of the basket. He was still watching me with careful eyes, but there was something strong behind them, some emotion I couldn’t quite place, but I didn’t have time to think about what it could be. I needed to just get this out already.

“Well, like any kid, I heard the words ‘wonderful surprise’ and thought maybe my luck was changing. And it was changing, all right. But
wonderful
in my language didn’t mean quite the same thing in my mother’s world. She told me then that I’d been freeloading my way through life and it was time to earn my keep. That I could fetch more money in an hour than she could in a night. So it was time for me to get to work, and I’d be starting now.” I swallowed hard and said, “I remember that sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized what she meant. I can still feel the way her nails dug into my leg when the man that’d been waiting in the bedroom walked out into the living room. I tried to bolt, but she held me down, and when I’d almost gotten free, she used my shirt as an ashtray. The pain from that burn gave the man enough time to pull me up by my wrists, and then he hauled me—she
let
him haul me—into the bedroom. There was just a mattress on the floor, and he threw me on it before kicking the door shut. His breath smelled like rotten eggs, and he kept trying to pin me down, but I fought…I fought so hard. I could hear my mom beating against the door for me to shut up, but the guy had locked it, so I was stuck there, tears running down my face as I tried to get away.”

“Please tell me you got away,” Ace whispered, and when I met his gaze, I didn’t even think he’d realized he’d said that out loud.
 

“There was a moment when I thought he’d get the best of me and I’d let him. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t physically fight against him any longer. So I stopped moving, stopped fighting. And you know what he did? He got up. He unzipped his pants. He took them off. And it was then that something inside me snapped. Some kind of fire ignited in my body, and I knew I was going to get away. No matter what it took, no matter if I died trying to get away…I was not living one more second in that place, and I was
not
letting the drug addict pedophile on top of me win. So when he got back down on the mattress, I let him lie on top of me. And when he moved in just the right position, I reached down between his legs and I crushed him in my fist as hard as I could. His eyes rolled in the back of his head and he screamed out in pain, and that only made me squeeze harder. I would’ve ripped it off, but that wasn’t the end game. I needed to get away, so I let go, and when he curled into a ball on the mattress, I ran for the window. And once I was outside, I kept on running. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore, and when I figured I was far enough away I could stop and catch my breath, I realized I’d stopped outside of a police station. I hadn’t ever thought of going to the police before. I thought maybe I’d be able to crash at a friend’s house, but when I saw the station that night, I was running again. Up those stairs, through the front door, and into a small white room, where I told the officers my story.”

“Jesus Christ, Dylan,” Ace said, his hand going to the back of my neck. “I had no idea.”

“Why would you?” I asked, and then blinked, trying to bring him into focus. It wasn’t until a tear fell down my face that I realized the reason I couldn’t see him clearly. I was crying. I brought a hand up to swipe at the wetness on my cheek, but Ace got in first, brushing it away with his thumb. “I’ve spent every second of my life
since
that day making sure no one would ever know where I came from. I bounced around from foster home to foster home for a while, and at the time I thought I was lucky to be given a roof over my head for nothing more than the check the government would give them. Until the day my caseworker came to pick me up from the latest stopover. She told me that they’d found somewhere permanent. A family who was looking to adopt in the future, and she wanted me to go with her to meet them.”

“Sunshine and Ziggy?” Ace asked, and I bit down on my lower lip and nodded.

“You can imagine my first impression of them.” I gave a rueful smile, and when Ace returned it, the weight that’d begun to suffocate me seemed to ease. “I told my caseworker she was out of her mind. There was no way I was going to live with some
high as a kite
hippie types, I think were my exact words, and I remember her pulling me aside and telling me that she’d worked with Sunshine for years and there was no one who would be more open and understanding than the two of them. I thought she was out of her mind, but who was I to argue with her? She was the professional, right?”