“Is Helen coming back tonight?” Scout asks as she dries her hair with a towel.
“Nah,” I glance over to the kitchen clock and then back to the papers I’m shuffling through. “We’re done for the day.”
Crap. Where are my notes?
“You have to be exhausted. You’ve been practicing in the booth all day.”
“Not all day.” God. Damn. Her sucking me off earlier was unexpected but fucking perfection.
“Let’s not talk about that.” When I glance her way again, her cheeks are flush with embarrassment.
“Don’t even . . .” I roll my eyes. “I know you, Scout Dalton. You don’t get to act all shy when I know the sexy vixen you are in private.”
She laughs and that visual of the top of her head, the heat of her mouth, the suction of her lips . . . I’m one helluva lucky guy.
“What are you looking for?” she asks, purposely changing the topic and drawing me back to the matter at hand—finding my cheat sheets for the broadcast tomorrow.
“I think I left them at the stadium.”
“Left what?”
“My notes. I’ve got to run back and get them.”
“Ah . . . just when I was going to let you take advantage of the rest of me.”
“You were?” Music to my ears.
“I’ll be in bed.” Her smile tells me she’s damn serious. “Naked. And waiting.”
“I’ll hurry.”
Yep. I’m one lucky son of a bitch.
With my notes in my hand and thoughts of exactly what I want to do to Scout when I get home on my mind, I jog down the halls of the club level feeling damn good about life in general.
Things with Scout are incredible.
I’m more than prepared for tomorrow.
My shoulder is coming along.
The Aces are in the series. And fuck, I technically may be a Wrangler, but my heart will always be with the Aces. At least I get to call the game. It’s not playing but it’s better than nothing.
I round the corner.
And stare.
What the hell?
“You have to stop talking about this here. People will start noticing.”
“Let them talk.” Santiago throws his hands up. “See if I care. It’s your image you’re trying to preserve by keeping this all secret. Not mine.”
“Keep your voice down, will you?” my dad says with a resignation I’ve never heard from him before.
I can’t move even though every part of me tells me I don’t want to know what they’re talking about.
“Where do you want to discuss this then, Cal? You refuse to talk to me at your house. You won’t meet me anywhere else because God forbid someone sees us out in public together—the father and the villain—and starts asking questions. Here we’re expected to talk to each other. Here we’ll get overlooked. Here your precious fucking son might not question it.”
My shoes squeak and both of them snap their attention my way. I shake my head as I look from Santiago then to my dad.
Oh my fucking God.
“Are you kidding me?” I think I say it. I’m not sure because my head is full of so much white noise right now I can’t even . . .
How the hell have I never seen . . .
Fuck.
Santiago is my dad’s son?
My half-brother?
“I can explain.” My dad steps forward but I take one back, head still shaking and mind still wanting not to believe.
“No. Just . . .” I blink my eyes several times trying to unsee what I’m seeing. The same shaped eyes, the same chin. It’s barely noticeable with the difference in their skin colors, but I can see it. And now I can’t not see it. “Is it true?” I ask, my voice a croaked whisper.
My dad’s mouth pulls tight as he meets my eyes. And nods. “Easton, let me—”
“Fuck this.” I turn on my heel to escape as he calls after me. Walking to jogging to full-on sprinting. Anything to get out of this concrete maze that feels like quicksand pulling me under.
I need fresh air.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I shove open the door to the parking lot. My hands are on my knees as I suck in air.
Scout.
I need Scout.
I jog home. Fidget restlessly in the elevator pushing the P button several times as if it will make it ascend faster.
The door opens.
“Scout! Scout!”
She runs out from the bedroom and stops in her tracks when she sees me.
“Easton.” Her voice is calm, her eyes are cautious. “Your dad just called. What happened?”
“What did he say?” She takes a step toward me and I take one back. I just . . . I need . . . what is happening here?
“Oh shit,” she says, voice cracking. She takes a deep breath and looks back at me.
“You knew?”
“Not for sure. I still don’t,” she stutters in argument. My chest constricts from her words. “I ran into your dad and Santiago the other day—”
“What? When? Where? Christ.” It dawns on me: Scout wide-eyed and out of breath when she slammed open the doors to the parking lot. “Was it when my dad followed you out of the stadium?”
She nods.
Fucking hell. Why would she keep it from me if she thought . . .
Anger slowly creeps and seeps into every part of me. “You knew and didn’t tell me?”
She holds her hands up. “I overheard them whispering a few words and drew my own conclusions, but I didn’t know for sure. And I sure as hell didn’t ask.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I want to shout at her, shake her, get some kind of reaction out of her because I have so much anger and confusion eating at me from the inside out that I don’t know what to do or say or how to feel.
But I can’t. This isn’t her fault. Not a damn fucking thing. No, Santiago isn’t her fault. He’s my dad’s.
“I was going to tell you—”
“But you didn’t. Were . . . were you going to?”
“After tomorrow night.” Her voice is so soft compared to my shouting. Day to my night. Light to my dark. Fucked to my fucked up. “I didn’t want it to affect you and the broadcast. You’ve been studying so hard and I wanted you to have a clear head and—”
“Yeah, well, that’s shot to hell now, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
My dad has another kid. How long has he known about him? How long has he kept him a secret? Does my mom . . . Shit. My mom.
“Santi-fucking-ago.” I bring both hands to the sides of my head and walk from one length of the room to the other. So many thoughts. So many questions.
“Easton.” She reaches out to me and as much as I want to back away, to shrink into a hole and pretend this isn’t happening, I don’t. She’s the one person I trust right now when I feel like I can’t trust anyone.
Even myself.
“I feel like I’m drowning. Like I can’t breathe. I’ve got to go. To think. To . . . I don’t know what.”
I grab my car keys from the basket and push the button for the elevator.
“Stay. Talk to me. Please.” The break in her voice nearly kills me. Begs me to stay here when right now I know I can’t.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and wish this all away. When I open them though, nothing has changed. She’s still here, and he’s still my half-brother.
The two things I know for sure.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” I say as a tear slides down her cheek. “I just need some time to think.”
She nods. She gets me. She understands.
And yet I understand nothing.
“Open up.” The door rattles as I pound on it. “C’mon, Mom, open up.”
Lies upon lies. So many lies.
Anger. Confusion. Hurt. Betrayal. All four crash head-on inside me.
“Mom. I need you to answer the door.” Bang. Bang. Bang.
My dad’s the reason my mom is broken. His lies broke her.
“Easton? Easton, are you okay?” her slurred yet muted voice comes through the door before the distinct sound of the locks opening can be heard.
“Yes. No. I don’t fucking know,” I say as she opens the door, her face a picture of confused concern.
“What’s wrong?”
I walk right past her into the depressing house of hers—stuck back in time with more empty bottles cluttering the counter than I’ve ever noticed before—and try to hold back my rage that she doesn’t deserve. This isn’t her fault.
“Mom . . .” I don’t even know how to say this. “I know the truth. I know why you and Dad broke up.”
Her face pales and her hands grow shaky as she ambles unsteadily to the kitchen and unapologetically takes a huge gulp from her glass tumbler. Her back is to me but I can see her shoulders rise and fall as she takes in a fortifying breath. When she turns around to face me, she suddenly looks twenty years older.
“Why did we break up, East?”
“No. Don’t.” I walk over and take her glass out of her hand and toss it in the sink. She cries at the loss, but I’m so goddamn sick of her addiction I don’t care.
I need her more than she needs the alcohol right now and I don’t think she sees that. She never has.
I wonder if she ever will.
“We were young.”
“Bullshit. Everyone was young back then.” I run a hand through my hair and catch a glance of a picture on the wall of the three of us, and I fight the urge to smash my fist into it. “He cheated on you, didn’t he? He was in different cities every night with the team, and he was so goddamn selfish thinking only about himself instead of his family that he couldn’t keep his fly zipped.”
Her chin quivers as she braces herself on the counter and slowly lowers herself to a chair. I see the tears well. Notice her hands shaking. Hear her whisper, “Oh God.”
“And then he got someone pregnant.”
“No. Stop.” My mom covers her ears and a violent sob escapes from deep in her chest. She shakes her head back and forth, repeating the word no over and over again. She’s unhinged, much like I feel right now, but I desperately need to reach her. I need confirmation.
I need to hear her say it.
“Is that what happened? Is that what you’ve kept from me? You led me to believe he’s a good man when in reality he’s a piece of shit who loved himself more than he loved us?”
She starts rocking back and forth, her eyes flicking to the half-empty bottle within reaching distance, and she cries harder.
“No. He was . . . he’s going to—”
“Don’t make excuses for him. Don’t you ever make—”
My words fall flat as my thoughts finally align and fall into place.
He’s going to . . .
Present tense.
I’m across the room in a flash and shake her shoulders so she snaps out of it. I need to see her face when I ask the next question. The one that’s currently making me sick to my stomach.
“Who’s the love of your life, Mom?” Panic is all I see on her face. “Who? Is Dad the true love you’ve been waiting for?”
She doesn’t respond. Her lips open and close. She looks to the bottle again and then back to me. Need versus duty. Addiction against love.
It all makes sense now.
“That’s why you always kept those pictures of the three of us up on the wall, isn’t it? I thought you did it so I’d see our family wasn’t always broken. So that I’d know I was loved by two parents long after I was only allowed one parent at a time.”
“You were loved.”
“But that wasn’t it at all, was it? You left them up because you still love him. Because he loved the parts of you no one else loved.”
Her bloodshot eyes are glassy and her smile lopsided despite her tear-stained cheeks. “He said he’d make it right and come back for me.”
I stare at her. Disbelief owns every part of my soul when I thought I’d been shocked enough for one day.
And for the first time in my life, I wish I could be her. Addicted to something that has such a hold over you that you live in the past. Believe things that aren’t true.
Hold on to the lies you’ve told yourself just so you can get through the next second.
The next minute.
The next day.
The next bottle.