My eyes snapped to hers, and she stared at my nostrils flaring. She meant it.
“Can I show you something?” I asked her because if she was hell bent on thinking I would be enough, then she needed to know this before she made up her mind.
“Put this on, C. It’s cold up here.” Wes pulled his hoodie from behind my seat and handed it to me. When he asked if he could show me something, the top of Mount Soledad was not what I expected.
“Hop on.” Wes patted the hood of his precious car. Was he crazy? Before I had a chance to make sure he really wanted my rear end on it, he scooped me up in his arms and set me down on it.
“You okay? Need a blanket or anything?” he asked zipping his jacket up. I only smiled. How could he think I didn’t deserve him?
“What are you smiling about?” he asked looking over himself.
“Come sit with me.” I patted the warm spot on the hood next to me. “Tell me what we’re doing up here.”
He slid up next to me, but not as close as I would have liked. I fought the need to touch him and gave him the space he seemed to need. When I chased him out of the shop tonight, I had no idea how things would go. All I knew was something in the tattoo he’d just done hit him deep. I saw it in the way my cool and confident Wes fumbled with his machine, and I saw it in his wide, panicked eyes.
When he ran, the only thing on my mind was that I needed to follow. On my way out of the shop, Blue said something to me I thought about the entire drive up the mountain. He told me that Wes had been waiting a long time for me and that finding me had him scared shitless.
“See that hospital over there?” Wes pointed inland. I nodded. “That’s where I was born, to two people who never should have had children.” I wanted to turn to Wes for this, but I felt like keeping my attention away from him would make him more comfortable, so I stared at the hospital.
“What happened with your dad?” I asked the question I’d always been curious about. For as long as I knew Wes, I’d never heard anything about his dad.
“When I was three, my dad was arrested for dealing.”
“Drugs?” I said louder than I intended and whipped my head to him.
“Drugs.” He nodded and kept his eyes trained on the hospital. “Not too far from that is where I lived with my mom up until she was arrested for possession. Of drugs.” His eyes met mine briefly in the smallest smirk I’d ever seen on Wes’ face. “I don’t remember much from that age, but I guess she used heavily and left me with the neighbor most of the time. She tried to get the county to leave me with her the day they took me away, but since she wasn’t a legal guardian, they couldn’t.”
“They took you away? From where?” I asked unable to take my eyes off of him.
“From my mom. She was declared unfit, and I was removed from the home and placed in foster care.”
I tried to catch the audible gasp I let out with my hands, but I’d missed. “Foster care? For how long?”
“Forever.”
“What?” I didn’t understand because when I met him, he was living with his mom. “But your mom?”
“Brenda isn’t my mom. My mom is somewhere out there.” He held his hand out into the clear night sky. “Probably high as a kite. Brenda was the last of my foster parents. I lived with her until I aged out at eighteen.”
I had so many questions. This was so much to hear, and I didn’t know where to begin. Wes took over the silence and continued talking.
“That was the first home I remember.” Wes pointed to an area closer to the coast. “The O’Donnels. They were an older couple, more like grandparents. They took real good care of me, though. I remember them asking me questions all the time. Questions about my favorite things to do, how my day was, if I was making any new friends, what did I want from the grocery store. It was nice.”
“The next house, right down there, wasn’t so nice. Miss Cindy had too many of us. She had two vans just to drive us around town, one she drove and one her daughter drove. I had a place to sleep, but I tucked myself in. I was always fed, but no one cared if I ate it or not. There were a lot of other kids to play with, but no one to talk to.”
“There’s an older neighborhood hidden in that patch of trees.” Wes pointed back toward the hospital again. “The couple I lived with there shouldn’t have ever been approved as foster parents.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him. His eyes met mine again. His brows furrowed and then turned downward at the corners.
“Dusty and Lena just weren’t very nice to me,” he said softly.
“What did they do to you?” I asked, feeling the warmth of anger in my chest.
“Enough that I was removed,” he said then pulled his eyes from mine. I crossed my arms over my stomach and pinched my eyes closed. I held back my tears, wanting to be strong for Wes.
“The next house I was at was great,” he said with a smile in his voice. “It was a Christian couple who had two kids my age. They were really kind. They sent me to a therapist who helped me get through a lot of the stuff I’d been dealing with. Actually, I contacted him when I turned eighteen and still visit him every so often.
“That was the family who really showed me how a family should be. And yours,” he said touching me for the first time when he reached out to pull my hands from where they were wrapped tightly around my stomach.
“The last house I lived in was Brenda’s. She wasn’t awful but not great, either. She was just…there. I’m most thankful for being sent to her though because that’s how I met Blue, August, and you.” He pulled my hand to his mouth and gave it a soft kiss.
There was no hiding the tears that I felt cascading down my face. Simply put, I was heartbroken. Wes had been in foster care nearly his whole life. I had no idea. No idea.
“Does anyone besides Blue know?” I asked him sniffling and gripping his hand in mine. I didn’t want him to pull it away just yet.
He nodded his head. “Ridge, his mom. Ridge’s social worker is the same one I had. He’s still considered in foster care, but his parents have been going through the process of adopting him.”
“That’s great.” I smiled, happy for Ridge but aching for Wes. Why wasn’t he adopted? As if hearing my question, he answered for me.
“My dad never gave up his rights to me. He convinced the system that he was trying to get his shit together for me over and over again. That’s why I could never be adopted. The Christian family, the Davison’s, they wanted to.” He took a slow deep breath then let go of my hand and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper.
Carefully and so gently, he pulled it apart one soft fold at a time. He held the paper out to me, and it wobbled in the space between us. It wasn’t windy out.
I took the paper and stared. Holy crap.
“My mermaid. Your marlin. Wes, what is this?”
“It’s a sketch my dad did. One of the only good memories I have of him. Hell, one of the only memories I have of him was the day he drew this picture and told me the story of the marlin and the mermaid.”
“He’s who you get your talent from,” I observed, tracing the outline of the sketch with my finger. It really did resemble Wes’ own artwork, embodying his knack for realism mixed in with an ethereal quality I’d only seen done by him.
“I guess so.” Wes looked out into the distance toward the ocean. “My passion for it is my own, though.”
“Of course,” I said, understanding his need to separate himself from his dad.
“So what’s the story that goes with this?” I asked looking toward the blackened ocean.