“God.” I wiggled closer, pressing the length of my body against his. At once, a lot of Nick started to make sense. “I’m sorry. I know those two words are lame, but I’m so sorry.”
“Those words aren’t lame. They mean something.” He turned his head toward me. “There’s something else . . . and you’re probably going to think it’s weird.”
“Doubtful,” I promised.
“No. It’s pretty weird. Reece is one of a handful of people who know, and I know damn well he hasn’t even told Roxy. I don’t even know why I’m about to tell you this.”
Curiosity had a hold on me. I couldn’t understand what could be so weird that Reece would know and keep it to himself, even from Roxy. “Okay,” I said, searching out his gaze in the semidarkness. “Even if I think it’s weird, it doesn’t mean I’m going to kick you out of the bed.”
He shook his head. “Well, I hope not. It would be awkward considering we’re both naked.”
I smiled despite the conversation. “Tell me.”
He tugged on my hand a little. “You don’t know a lot about Calla, do you?”
My little old ears perked right up. I wasn’t a detective, but my mind immediately raced to what Roxy had said about Nick’s behavior around her and what I’d witnessed. “Not really. I just knew that she hung out with Teresa when I was at Shepherd.”
“But you’ve . . . you’ve noticed the scar on her face, right?”
I started to frown. “Yeah?”
Nick drew in another breath. “She got that scar in a fire. Windows blew out or something. Hit her in the face. She was one of the kids who lived in the house my dad had worked on. It was her brothers that died. And that’s not all. Her parents originally owned Mona’s.”
Seconds passed and I had no idea what to say. Shock roared through me. “Calla doesn’t know that?”
“No. And it probably wouldn’t have ever crossed her mind. My father’s last name was Novak, but when he died, my mother ended up taking back her maiden name—Blanco. And I’ve never told her. How in the fuck would I tell her? You know? When she first walked into the bar, my heart just about stopped. You see, no one ever expected her to come back here. After the fire, her father left and her mom ended up handling the bar herself, but she went downhill—got messed up on drugs and became a shit mother. She couldn’t deal with losing her little boys,” he said, staring at the ceiling once more. “I ended up running into Mona—that’s her mom—a few years ago. She knew who I was. Said I looked like my father. It was one of those rare moments when she wasn’t on something. Anyway, I was starting to take care of my grandfather, just out of college, and Mona knew what was going on with Job. She offered me a job. It was weird. I didn’t need the money. Not really. Job had more than enough to care for me to be able to care of him, but it was . . . a break. You know?”
“To get away? I get it.”
He nodded. “So I started working at Mona’s, before Jax came around, and then when he got there, he kind of took over. The whole situation around Mona and the bar is a mess, but I think in a way, working there for her, I was kind of . . .”
“Atoning for what had happened?” When he didn’t speak, I squeezed his hand. “Nick, you know none of what happened was your fault, right? And it sounds like even though your dad was legally responsible, he . . . he was a victim in this, too.”
“It took me a long time to realize that,” he said after a couple of moments. “I don’t even know why I had my head twisted up in that. I guess just young and dumb. Anyway, like I said, I didn’t expect to see Calla.”
“Do you think you’re ever going to tell her?”
“I don’t know. Probably would’ve made sense if I’d done it when she first showed up. Now it just seems weird.”
“It’s not weird,” I told him, and when he turned his head toward me, I didn’t have to see him to know there was a dubious look on his face. “Okay. It’s a little weird, but I understand why you haven’t. I don’t know her well, but she doesn’t seem like someone who’d hold something against you that you had nothing to do with.”
“But how hard for her could it be to realize she’s working alongside the son of the man who was basically responsible for her life being ripped apart? That can’t be easy.” His voice was quiet. “I just . . . I don’t want to mess up her life.”
Oh gosh, that hurt to hear, and there was something about those words that made me think of what he’d said earlier about being in a relationship before. Was that why he was so against relationships? Because somehow he didn’t think he deserved it because of his father and the house fire? Seemed like such a leap, but the fact that Nick had felt that working at Mona’s was atonement for something his father did worried me.
“You were in a serious relationship once, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I took a deep breath. “What happened?”
“It was a girl I was seeing in college. We were serious, and for a while, I thought . . . it would be for the long haul.”
An irrational surge of jealousy lit me up. The intensity surprised me, and I sort of wanted to smack myself. How could I be jealous of a girl who was no longer in the picture? Wait. Oh my God. What if he was still in love with her? My stomach dropped.
“Anyway,” he continued, oblivious to my internal freak-out, “when my grandfather got sick and all that started happening, things got stressed between us. I don’t think she could deal with everything I had to do. At first I didn’t get to see her a lot, dealing with him. We grew apart, and then it was just over one day. It sucked, but hell, if she couldn’t handle my grandfather being sick and me taking care of him, what would she have done if I had gotten sick?”