Burn for Me by Shiloh Walker

overhead, met Tate’s. “I don’t talk about this with you. I’ve tried before and you never listen. You never want to listen, but damn it, this time you are going to, even if I have to chase you down and sit on you. Tate, your dad isn’t a killer.”
    “Oh, don’t start—”
    “I fucking will start and for the first time your life, you’ll listen to me,” Guy said, his voice flat. “I know bad guys. I know scum. I know guilty men and I know men who could kill and not feel a damn thing. I came from that. I saw it, every time I looked at my father. I know killers. I also know the weak-ass bastards who snap and do awful things and regret it. I know that is who you think Doug is, but you’re wrong. If I had to stake my badge on this, I’d be willing to do it. I don’t think your dad killed your mom—I know that man and if you’d stop being pissed off at him, for just a little while, long enough to look at him, you’d see it, too.”
    Tate glared at him. “ You weren’t there, ” he snarled, leaning in, nose to nose. “You didn’t hear them.”
    “No.” Guy shook his head. “But I was there, day in and day out, when my dad threatened to kill my mom. I walked in when he was doing it … when he was beating the shit out of her and when I tried to stop it…”
    Guy looked away.
    Tate jerked out of his grasp and put distance between them.
    Back in high school, their senior year, there had been a morning when all the teachers had been … off.
    Guy’s seat was empty. They’d shared almost all their classes and come lunch, Tate finally heard.
    Guy was in the hospital. His mom was dead.
    Guy’s father had been sentenced to twenty years for her murder. He’d been released on parole a few years ago, but hadn’t even gone nine months before it was revoked. So he was back in jail.
    Tate rather wished the fucker would rot there.
    He looked down, staring at the battered leather of his boots. “Guy, our parents were different people. Your dad was always…”
    “A monster?” He turned his head and met Tate’s gaze. “Yeah. He is. He was always a monster. He beat me. He beat my mom. He beat that mean-ass pit bull of ours and threatened to kill anybody who stepped foot on our property or looked at him sideways. He’s a monster. I know monsters. Your father isn’t a monster, Tate. I’ve spent too many nights talking to him. I cannot believe that man is the kind of man who’d kill the woman he loved. I don’t believe it.” He closed the distance between them and leaned against the railing, staring out over the town while Tate continued to stare at the river. “But even if I didn’t know your father, I know you. You would cut off your arm before you harmed a woman, man. It’s just not in you. Stop thinking that you’re some fucked-up kind of fruit from the poison tree. You’ve got a woman who’d make you happy. She’s got two kids who love you and you adore them. But instead of reaching for a life where you could finally be happy, you run from it. Out of fear? Shit, Tate. Fuck that. Think about it. Would your mom really want this kind of life for you?”
    Then Guy shoved off the railing and walked away.
    Tate stood there, staring at nothing.
    *   *   *
    “Instead of reaching for a life where you could finally be happy, you run from it.”
    Those words haunted him. Whether or not Guy had intended that, Tate didn’t know.
    But as he bent over the twisting metal, watching the image in his head take form, he couldn’t block them out. There was no escaping the truth of what Guy had said.
    The truth of what Ali had said.
    He was in love with her.
    Had been for … hell.
    Forever, maybe.
    Sometimes, it seemed like he’d just been waiting for the right moment to take his spot in her life. It hadn’t been a sudden thing. He could remember seeing her with that fuckwit, Scott, back in school and thinking how much better she could do. He remembered seeing her push little Joey around in his