Like Oliver, she’d grown up in a huge family, loved by her parents and sisters, adored and doted on by her aunts and uncles and grandparents, and never lonely, thanks to countless cousins to play with.
For the majority of Gavin’s childhood, it had just been him and…that woman. Even now, Erin was kicking her own ass for walking away this afternoon. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Cecilia Hawke off. Countless horrible words had fought their way to the surface, but one look at Gavin’s face had kept her silent.
Those words weren’t hers to say.
They were his.
Oliver placed a comforting hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “It’s fine, man. I told you. It’s okay.”
Gavin and Oliver had spent the entire afternoon together and it was obvious they’d done a lot of talking. She was glad they’d managed to come to some sort of understanding, even though she was sorry she hadn’t been there.
Gavin looked at her and she could tell he was worried she would hold a grudge.
“I’m not mad, Gavin. Jesus. On top of the news your mom was out, you lost everything you owned to a fire and had sex with a girl for the first time. I think I can cut you some slack.” And then, because she desperately wanted to see him smile, she added, “This time,” with a raised eyebrow that told him he wouldn’t always get an easy bye.
He gave her something better than a genuine smile. He actually laughed, and the tightness in her chest loosened for the first time since meeting Cecilia.
“I’ve never told you anything good about her,” Gavin said quietly.
Erin wanted to say there wasn’t enough good the woman could do to make up for the scars, but she bit her tongue, aware that her anger wouldn’t help Gavin. “So tell us something good,” she said instead.
Gavin thought for a moment, then said, “We didn’t have a lot of money. When she was working, it was usually as a waitress, and she put in long hours, trying to make ends meet with her tip money. She was rarely home when I got out of school, so I spent a lot of time at the park playing basketball, until it was time to go home and make dinner for us. I didn’t have my own ball, so I always had to wait for someone to invite me to play with them. On my eleventh birthday, she surprised me with a basketball, even though I knew we couldn’t afford it.” Gavin smiled. “I loved that ball. Even slept with it.”
Oliver grinned. “That’s cool.”
“Yeah.” Gavin’s face sobered, and it was clear to Erin they were missing part of the story.
She tilted her head, studying his face.
Gavin ran his hand over his jaw and grimaced. “Probably should have come up with another example.”
Oliver’s expression darkened. “What did she do to the ball?”
“Woke up one night to her…” Gavin swallowed heavily. “Putting a cigarette out on my back. I jumped out of bed and crossed the room to get away from her. I was getting bigger and faster, so she couldn’t hold me down like she had when I was little. My ball was…” He fell silent.
“She popped the ball,” Erin said, shaking her head.
Gavin nodded. “Fuck. What I was trying to explain—even though I did a shit job—was my mom wasn’t always cruel. There were a lot more days when she was sober and lucid than when she was drunk and…” He lifted one shoulder as if he didn’t want to say the word. Finally, he forced it out. “Crazy.”
“Cruel,” Erin amended.
Gavin didn’t respond to her correction. “I’m tired,” he said.
“Tired of what?” Oliver asked.
Gavin shrugged. “Just tired. Spent most of my childhood fighting to stay with my mom, trying to get away from the foster homes and back to her because I love—loved—her.”
Erin heard the question in his voice when he tried to change the word love to past tense.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy too,” he admitted.
Oliver shook his head. “You’re not crazy.” He placed his hand on Gavin’s back and led him to the couch. The three of them sank down together, she and Oliver flanking Gavin. “Your feelings are yours, Gavin. You can love your mother, you can hate her, you can feel nothing. There’s no right or wrong, bro.”
“I think that’s my problem. I don’t know how I feel about her.”
“That’s okay too.” Erin lifted Gavin’s arm and dropped it around her shoulders so she could snuggle closer to him, wrapping her arms around his middle. Even though they were sitting hip to hip to hip, Gavin looked like a man adrift alone in the middle of the ocean.
“Actually, I think what I feel the most is guilty.”
Oliver frowned. “What the hell about?”
“She looked…sad today. I mean, she’s living in a halfway house after being locked away nine years. It’s gotta be tough for her, trying to figure out how to start her life again and I’m the only family she has.”
Erin lifted her head from Gavin’s shoulder. If there was one thing Erin loved most about Gavin, it was his giving nature. She knew all about the elderly lady from his childhood that he’d started doing chores for. Just like she’d watched him fix countless things in pretty much every Collins family member’s house. Hell, he’d tackled no less than twenty projects in her apartment over the last year. If he saw someone in need, Gavin didn’t hesitate to help.
But she could see now that incredible character trait was working against him.
“Your mom isn’t your responsibility,” she said, even as she knew the words wouldn’t land.
“That’s just it. She is. She always has been. I told you. She worked long hours, trying to support us. So I took care of the other things.”
“Like?” Oliver prodded.
“I cleaned the apartment, cooked our meals, shopped for food. I even learned how to forge her signature on her checks and took over paying the bills. She’s crap with money. When we didn’t have enough,” he swallowed heavily, “I stole it. I just don’t know how she’s going to be able to—”
“Stop,” Oliver said. “Stop right there.” Oliver squeezed Gavin’s thigh. “She’s an adult and she’ll learn. Shit, she should have learned all that stuff before now instead of foisting it off on a kid.”
Gavin sighed. “I didn’t mind doing it.”
“That’s not the point,” Oliver countered. “Why are you tired, Gavin?”
Gavin closed his eyes wearily. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Oliver persisted.
Gavin turned his head toward Oliver, his gaze narrowed. “You gonna make me spew a bunch more bullshit psychobabble.”
Oliver chuckled. “I like it when you try to use some of Mom and Dad’s big words. It’s cute.” He placed a quick kiss on Gavin’s cheek, and Erin giggled softly.
“Asshole,” Gavin muttered, though there was no anger behind the word. Only amusement.
“Gavin,” Erin started. “You spent your whole childhood taking care of your mom, shouldering too many burdens because…” She hesitated when she realized she’d backed herself into a corner.
Gavin let her off the hook, saying the hard words for her. “Because I thought if I took care of her, if I fed her and kept the house clean, took all the stress out of her life, she wouldn’t go back to that dark place, she wouldn’t drink. She wouldn’t…hurt me.”