Chapter Twenty

 

Maddox

 

“This isn’t going to go well,” I whisper to Audrey as we wait on the porch for someone to answer the door.

“You may be right,” she agrees with a sigh. “That’s why I’m ringing the doorbell instead of using my key to march right on in. We’re making a united front and if he tells you to leave, then I’m going with you.”

“You don’t have to do that—” I start to say before the front door opens to reveal a scowling War.

“What the hell is he doing here?” War snaps.

“It’s Thanksgiving and we’re together,” Audrey says, standing up to her much larger brother, not intimidated by his size in the least. Jabbing her finger into his broad chest, she says, “Warren O’Neil, other than Ren, I’m the only family you have left. And if you want to be a part of my life, then that means welcoming Maddox—”

“No,” War interrupts her. “He’s not stepping foot in my house.”

The rejection stings, especially since I had come to think of War like a father during my years hanging around the club, and then prospecting with him as my sponsor.

“Go inside,” I tell Audrey, and place my hand on her lower back to guide her.

A low growl comes from War when I touch her, but I ignore him. He doesn’t need to scare me off. I get it, he doesn’t want me around. Even though I’m not a hundred percent sure why he hates that I’m with Audrey so much, other than he doesn’t think I’m good enough for her.

Well, I don’t think I’m good enough either. But I’m trying my best to earn a living in Wilmington to support her now, and when we get married after graduation. Yeah, we’ve already talked about it and I can’t fucking wait.

“Go eat dinner with your family and call me to come get you when you’re ready to go,” I tell Audrey.

“I want you to stay,” she says, grabbing a fist full of my Henley tee and looking up at me with her sad, puppy dog eyes. “You’re my family too.”

“We’ll have our own Thanksgiving dinner tonight,” I promise her before I give her a quick kiss on the cheek, then quickly back away down the steps when War lunges toward me. “Just me and you, it’ll be nice,” I add.

“Are you sure?” she calls out as I walk around to the driver’s side of her car.

“Yes, go. I love you,” I yell back.

“Love you too,” she replies, before blowing me a kiss that War interrupts when he grabs her arm and pulls her inside the house.

For the next few hours, I drive aimlessly around town before finally parking in one of the public beach lots. It’s a little windy but a nice day, so I get out to go for a walk with my phone in my hand, debating whether or not I should call my mom.

Since Audrey has been nagging me to reach out to her, I finally take a seat in the sand dunes and dial the number for the house phone that I still remember by heart.

“Hello?” my mother answers.

“Hi, Mom,” I reply.

There’s a brief moment of silence. “Maddox? Is that y-you?” she eventually asks with a hiccup in her voice.

“Unless you have another son that you never told me about,” I tease, to try and lighten the mood while blinking away the moisture gathering in my eyes. I’m pretty sure some sand blew into my face.

“Maddox! Where have you been? I just knew I was going to get a call when someone found you lying dead in a ditch!”

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “I’ve been fine. I’m in Emerald Isle today, but I’ve been living in Wilmington for a few months now.”

“What the heck are you doing on the coast?” she asks.

“This is where Deacon lived,” I tell her.

“Oh.”

“I’ve met some of the guys who knew him, and his two nephews. They’re really nice.”

I leave off the part about how they were so close to becoming my family before everything I wanted slipped from my fingers. Well, that’s not exactly true.

“I met a girl and we’re, um, living together,” I inform her.

“Really? That’s wonderful! I would love to meet her,” my mother says.

“Audrey would really like to meet you too,” I tell her.

“Then you should come home,” she suggests. “I know you can’t ever forgive me, but Todd and I forgive you. Now, he’ll even tell you that he was selfish and deserved what you did to him.”

“Is that right?” I ask, unable to believe he would ever say he deserved an ass whooping.

“We miss you, Maddox,” she says. “Come home and see us. Please?”

Clearing the emotion from my throat, I tell her, “Yeah, Mom, we will. But Audrey’s in college, so we’ll have to wait until she finishes her classes.”

“Of course,” she agrees. “Anytime. You’re our son. The door is always open.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say as I heave a sigh of relief. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders after finally making contact with her. I was worried she would be angry at me or hell, have forgotten about me. But she hasn’t.

 

…

 

Audrey

 

“You’re being a real d-i-c-k, Warren,” I tell my brother, when the four of us sit down at the table in his dining room to eat Thanksgiving dinner without Maddox.

“D-u-c-k is duck, but I’m not allowed to say d-i-c-k,” Ren informs me, making my jaw drop.

“He’s reading now. Has been for a while,” Warren says with a smile, reaching over to ruffle Ren’s dark hair. Then, glaring at me, he says, “So don’t spell anything else like that unless you want me to wash your mouth out with soap.”

Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “I’m not a child anymore. Mom and Dad’s threats no longer work on me.”

“It was only a threat for you, the baby. But they actually did make me eat soap!” Warren grumbles.

“You deserved it for using the f-word on the church playground,” I remind him.

“That little jerk knocked your teeth out. He’s lucky all I did was call him a name and drag him by his collar over to his parents.”

“It was a baby tooth, singular, so it wasn’t a big deal,” I explain to Nova, who has been silently eating and observing our argument, which brings me to ask her, “Nova, what do you think about the situation with Maddox?”

“Oh no,” she says, waving her white napkin at me like a flag. “I’m not getting in the middle of this.”

“Good,” Warren mutters.

“But I have met Maddox and I think he seems like a really nice young man,” she adds, making me smile, and Warren turns to narrow his eyes at her.

“See!” I exclaim. “Maddox is a nice young man. And he loves me!”

“Whatever,” my brother grumbles.

“He does!”

“You’re too young to even know what love is,” he replies.

“No, I’m not,” I reply. “I remember how Mom and Dad looked at each other and how you could see the love between them. That’s how I feel with Maddox. He’s like the missing piece of my soul that no one else can fit.”

“Maybe you should’ve majored in theatrics instead,” Warren scoffs.

“Not only did Maddox come to Wilmington and help me when I needed him, but he gave up everything for me! You have no idea how much becoming a member of the Savage Kings meant to him. It was the one thing he’s worked toward for years. All he wanted was to follow in his father’s footsteps, with the only connection he had to the man, and you took that opportunity from him!” I say, then the words I just blurted out hit my own ears. I drop my fork and slap my palm over my mouth, wishing I could take them back.

“His father’s footsteps?” Warren repeats because he was, unfortunately, listening to my entire rant, about the same time Ren asks, “What’s the Savage Kings?”

“It’s just a name of a group of men who ride motorcycles,” my brother tells his son before turning to me. “What did you mean by his father’s footsteps?”

“Nothing. Forget I said anything,” I say in a rush before grabbing a roll and stuffing it in my mouth. “’Licious,” I tell Nova around the mouthful.

“You’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full,” Ren helpfully informs me, and I give him a wink.

“Who is Maddox’s father, Audrey?” Warren asks.

I take twice as long as usual to chew up the roll before I answer. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

My brother stares, unblinking, at me for several long moments before he tosses his own fork down with a clatter and pulls out his phone.

“War, really?” Nova asks, trying to deter him. “We’re in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. Can’t you wait until later to make a phone call?”

“Nope, sorry,” War tells her sweetly before his glare hits me with the force of a wrecking ball. “Reece,” he says into the phone. “Who is Maddox’s father?”

I hold my breath as I wait for some man on the other line to spill Maddox’s secret that I promised him I would keep.

“No, I don’t want to ask him, I’m asking you! You know, don’t you?” Warren huffs. “It is my business! Don’t you hang up on—” Warren pulls the phone from his ear to look at the screen. “He hung up on me!”

“Good,” I say. “Serves you right for trying to be snooping in other people’s business.”

Instead of letting it go, my brother’s head creases in thought. “Torin is way too young. And even Miles or Reece would’ve had to be, like, twelve, so that’s rather impossible,” Warren contemplates to himself aloud as he starts listing men. “So that leaves only the original members, and there’s only three that Torin’s really talked about. Eddie, who is still around, Rubin, who is Dalton’s father, and Deacon, Torin and Chase’s uncle.”

“There are probably several others, right?” I quickly suggest when he gets too close.

Rather than respond to me, my brother gets back on his damn phone.

“Torin, hey brother, sorry to bother you on Thanksgiving,” Warren starts. “Important question. If one of the original members had an illegitimate child of say, twenty-one years old, who would you guess is the father?”

“There is no way for him to know that!” I huff indignantly.

“Rubin or Deacon?” War says into the phone as he watches me for a reaction. “Yeah, I think it may be one of them too.” It sounds like the man on the phone asks a question, to which War responds with a one-word response, “Maddox.”

“Warren!” I exclaim. “This is none of your business, or anyone else’s!”

Ignoring me, he says, “I’ve already called Reece and he won’t tell me!”

“Hang up the phone, Warren!” I demand.

“I’m going to find out and when I do, I’ll call you back,” my brother says into the phone before he finally ends the call.

“I wasn’t supposed to say anything, and it accidentally slipped out. Please, let it go,” I beg.

“Fine, if you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask Maddox when he comes to pick you up,” Warren declares.

“You would really do that?” I ask, as tears spring to my eyes. “You would ruin everything between me and Maddox because you’re nosy and I almost let one of his secrets slip?”

“If it ruins everything, then you were never really in love, right?” the jerk asks.

The worst part is, I can’t even argue with his logic.