Beautifully Scarred

Chapter 63

{§}{§}{§} people who are meant to be together always find a way back to each other. They might take a couple of detours but they are never really lost. {§}{§}{§}
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Bells
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I knew better than to ask. But when the thought came, it wouldn't go away. The question had slipped out without my having it meant to. His instant defense told me what I had already guessed.
Then when I had questioned him about the idea of me having another lover, he had gone all stiff and angry. He hated the idea and guess what, so do I. To make it worse, it's partly my fault. Isn't it? I had broken up with him. So, wasn't it kind of my fault?
If things were different and I was able to have sex with someone else, I still wouldn't.  I love him. I couldn't even imagine another holding me the way he does. Was it because he had been using drugs? I don't know enough about drugs or being high to know how that effects judgment. I know it does but I just don't understand it.
Now, everytime I kiss him, I find myself wondering who else had been kissing those same lips. Or worse...
Christmas morning was my first time back in the D'Amore house. We watched as the children opened gifts. Mawmaw made a spectacular breakfast that left everyone full and lazy. Oscar and I kept our distance. Both happy to be together but neither wanting to admit that the other wasn't wrong either.
I wasn't wrong.
Nor was he.
So, now what?
Maggie gifted me a bracelet that I played with after breakfast. The guys gathered in the living room. Lex setting up his tattoo gun. Oscar would be getting his first, along with Seth. I decided not to join them but to watch from the kitchen. Oscar handed over his forearm to Lex, Chris would working on Seth.
Oscar locked eyes with me. He watches me carefully. I know how much it means to him to have Lex tattoo him. They chat with each other as Lex works the ink into Oscar's skin. I wonder what the topic of their discussion is.
Mia and Jessy are busy upstairs, laying the children down for a nap. John sits at the opposite side of the table, sipping his coffee and reading the paper. Pauly stands over Lex's shoulder watching him. I apologized to Pauly twice for having dipped out on him at the ball. He had been glad that I had left with Oscar. They were all happy, in fact, that we were together. I had been accepted back in as if we had never broken up at all. It made me love them all even more.
Pauly finally joined me at the table.

"He's taking it well," he spoke of Oscar. "The tattooing."

I grin. "Did you think he wouldn't?"

He shrugs. "Nah. Oscar's pretty good with pain. We use to take boxing lessons from Lex. Even back then, he could take one square on the chin and wouldn't bat an eye."

I look over at Oscar. He is watching me with Pauly. He might love and trust Pauly but he has never liked leaving me alone with him for long. I think it has more to do with Pauly's reputation than his not trusting me.

"He's had years of being tough under his belt before he even came into our family," John put in his two cents without even looking up from his paper.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

John lowers his paper to explain. "His biological father use to be pretty tough on him. He'd use any excuse to slap him around. Things only got worse after his mother died."

John then stands, leaving Pauly and I alone. I hadn't realized how bad things were for him before he was adopted. Oscar doesn't ever speak of his biological parents much. But he has an old picture of himself as a boy with his mother before she became ill. I never really questioned about them. I figured it was too painful for him to talk about. But I hadn't realized that he had been beaten as a child.

"Not everyone can have Lex and Mia as their parents. But Oscar got lucky," Pauly says.

"Are your parents bad?" I ask inappropriately. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that."