Lucky
Well, the shit had hit the proverbial fan in Thirteenth Street.
"Hope, is this true?" Lee demanded, eyes locked on her daughter. "Are you having an affair with Lucky?"
All the pain and suffering and fucking isolation came down to this moment.
She had to do it.
She had to make a choice.
Claim me or shame me.
I had been expecting the inevitable; her begging them to forgive her for something she had no business apologizing for, and then turning around to me and ripping my heart to shreds.
But what I had been expecting was the opposite of what happened.
"I'm not having an affair with Lucky," Hope replied. "I'm with him, Mom."
Lee turned white. "With him?"
"Yeah, Mom. I'm with him," Hope repeated, voice a little shaky. "We're together."
The pressure in my heart was so extreme in this moment that I reached up and rubbed my chest for relief.
Well shit…
She did it.
She actually fucking did it.
"You fucking bastard." Derek shoved his chair back and jerked to his feet.
Derek lunged for me, but was quickly held back by Karen. "Don’t, Der," she ordered. "He's not worth it."
"He's a piece of shit," Derek snarled, glowering me.
"Back off, Derek," Hope snapped, shocking the hell out of me by coming to my defense. "It's not his fault."
"You stole his wife!" Derek roared.
"She was never his to steal, old man," I shot back heatedly. "And trust me when I tell you that she came willingly."
"Because she's a whore, that's why!" Annabelle snarled. "A spoiled, entitled daddy's girl, who walked out that door, knowing Jordan was a wreck, and never looked back."
"Don’t speak about my daughter like that," Lee growled, but Annabelle didn’t listen.
"You left him there to die, Hope," she hissed. "You knew he was on the edge and you left anyway. You practically handed him the knife –"
"Get out of my house!" Lee screamed, stunning the hell out of all of us.
I'd known the Carters' for a few years now, and never once in all that time had I ever heard Lee Carter raise her voice.
But she was raising it now like a lioness.
"Lee, this isn’t Annabelle's fault," Derek chimed in. "She is Jordan's best friend. She's just trying to protect him."
Now, it was my turn to laugh.
"Protect him," I chuckled. "Good one."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snarled, eyes flashing with outrage.
"You do realize what you've let into your house, don’t you?" I asked Hope's mother.
"Hunter?" Hope choked out. "What do you mean?"
"That one right there." I pointed at the blonde bitch with the giant chip on her shoulder. "Is your husband's half-sister." I turned to look at Annabelle and smirked, "Isn't that right, Annalisa?"
"He's lying," she screamed, face turning purple. Shoving her chair back, she jerked to her feet and hissed, "David is not my father!"
"He never said he was," Hope countered angrily. "He never mentioned the name David at all." She glared at the blonde. "You just played yourself."
"You think she gives a shit about your son?" I tossed out, turning my attention on Derek. "Wake up, Derek. She's a fucking implant, man. Been watching the whole lot of you for years now."
"I love Jordan," Annabelle announced, focusing on Derek. "I do. He's my best friend. We've been looking out for each other for –"
"Get out of my house," Lee hissed, rising from her chair. "Now!"
"But I –"
"Get the fuck out!" Hope screamed, coming to her mother's aid. "Or I swear to god I will hurt you."
With a furious expression, Annabelle turned on her hooker heels and stalked out of the room.
"When you run home to Daddy to tell him all about this, make sure you tell him Lucky says hello," I called after.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll hear from him soon," she spat.
"Excellent." I grinned. "Something to look forward to."
The front door slammed, and Lee sank back down in her seat, looking weary and sad.
I hated that.
She was a good woman.
Fucking hated seeing her like this.
"Lee," I began to say, but she cut me off with a cold stare.
"Do not talk to me," she warned.
"Mom," Hope croaked out. "None of this is his fault."
"Not his fault?" Derek snarled. "No. This is on the both of you."
"Princess!" Kyle's voice boomed through the house then, distracting everyone. Moments later, he appeared in the doorway with a furious looking Cameron in tow. "We have a big fucking problem."
"Yes," Lee choked out, dropping her head in her hands. "We do."
"This fucker," Kyle growled, gesturing wildly at Cameron. "Got his girlfriend pregnant!" Oblivious to the tension he had just walked into, Kyle continued to rant. "But wait, it gets better." Pulling at his tie to free it, he ripped it over his head and tossed it on the counter before shouting, "His pregnant girlfriend is a Grayson!" With his tie gone, he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and snarled. "Rachel's niece to be exact. He's gone and tied himself down to that crazy fucking woman's blood."
Lee, who looked like she was tittering on the edge, burst into tears then, resulting in Kyle smacking Cameron around the back of the head. "See what you did?" he growled, glaring at his son. "See what your dick has done to your mother?"
"How many goddamn times do I have to say it? Tillie is her own person," Cameron shot back, looking just as pissed as his father. "She had nothing to do with any of the shit that went down between you and Rachel. But you had to judge her, didn’t you? You had to scare her away." Cam ran a hand through his dark hair in pure frustration. "She's gone, Dad. Back to Seattle. With my kid. Because you couldn’t get over your own goddamn past and support me!"
"Support you?" Kyle strangled out, eye twitching. "You can't drop a Grayson bomb on me like that and expect me not to freak out."
"Well, your 'freaking out' just screwed everything up for me," Cam roared. "Thanks a lot, Dad."
"Where are you going?" Kyle demanded, when Cam moved for the door.
"Seattle," Cam snarled.
"When are you coming back?"
"When she's with me."
"What about work?"
"Fuck your job. I quit," Cam roared back. "And if you can't accept the mother of my unborn child, Dad, then fuck you, too." Cam slammed the front door behind him with such force a photo frame crashed to the floor in the hallway.
"Well, shit," I muttered, glancing down at Hope.
"Yeah," she whispered, looking up at me. "Shit."
Kyle, who up until this point had been wrapped up in his own personal crisis, finally took notice of the scowling faces sitting at his table. "Oh Jesus," he groaned. "What else is wrong?"