Chapter 21

I hate people, but I hate saying that I hate people. It makes me sound mean when I’m really a nice person. It’s just that I hate people.

Reagan

“What the fuck, Way?” I was so confused. “What the fuck is up with the black mug? And, just sayin’, I’m not a mother. You don’t need to get me a present. Hence the word ‘mother’ in Mother’s Day.”

Wade, my baby brother, looked at the mug he was given, too. “The last time I checked, I had a dick and balls—and it’s physically impossible for me to be a mother.” He paused. “Now Father’s Day? I might or might not be a candidate for that particular holiday some day.”

Way, my baby sister, better known as Calloway Rhea the awful, looked like she was about to bust a gut as she tried to hold in her laughter.

“I just wanted to get you all something special,” Way lied through her big fat front teeth.

That’s when Tyler chimed in.

“Thanks,” Tyler drawled, looking at the plain black coffee mug with amusement. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

I looked over and up to see Tyler’s face set in a frown.

He wasn’t sure what to do with Way’s gift…then again, neither was I.

Though, I knew without a doubt that the damn thing was a joke of some kind. Way never managed to be an adult, despite her age indicating that she should be.

Way snickered and finger waved at Tyler. “Who are you again?”

I sighed. “I’m going to kick your ass, Way. Trust me on this. I’m going to walk up to you, shove my foot into that fat meat and knock you straight on your face. Then I’m going to…”

Lennox walked into the room and clapped her hands.

“Girls…” Lennox sighed. “Seriously, if there is one day that y’all shouldn’t fight, it’s Mother’s Day. If only because you love me and you want me to have a nice day.”

Both of us snorted. “She started it,” came from my mouth just as Way said, “I didn’t start it. I just tried to give her a thoughtful gift.”

My dad grunted. “You’re sure you want to have a part of this?”

Tyler looked amused. “I have two sisters myself. Most of the time they fought forcing me to be a referee. I’m thinking that since I don’t see blood yet, this isn’t anything I can’t handle.”

My dad grunted. “Give it time. It’s still early.”

That’s when Way started to let her asshole out to shine.

“Correct me if I’m wrong but…aren’t you both very close in age?” Way asked teasingly.

Silence. Utter and complete silence.

“I’m a few years younger than your dad, I think,” Tyler admitted finally.

He looked uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable.

Which he would be. Since the beginning, that’d been an issue in the back of his mind, along with his heartbreak, as his major reasons for not being with me.

It didn’t matter, and honestly wasn’t even that big of an age difference between the two of us.

But he obviously thought it did.

Way didn’t. She just liked to be a douche bag.

Hell, the last time I talked on the phone with her, she was banging her professor.

“Huh,” Way murmured. “That’d make y’all what…twenty years apart in age?”

“Ten,” Tyler said, sounding like he was being choked.

I narrowed my eyes at Way, telling her without words to drop it, or else.

She didn’t.

Because that wasn’t who Way was.

She was never satisfied with anything. She’d beat the dead horse until there was nothing left that would be recognizable as a horse about it.

“Ten’s not too bad,” Wade said, surprising not just me, but our parents and Tyler as well.

Not Way, though. Meaning she must’ve known what was coming.

“Why do you say that, Wade?” Way fluttered her eyelashes.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Your fake lash coming off?”

She flipped me off. “There’s nothing wrong with fake lashes and you know it.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m just a little bit old school and prefer my eyelashes actually attached to my face.”

Wade snorted. Our parents didn’t comment. Tyler tightened his hand into my hair.

It was almost as if he was anchoring me to him so I wouldn’t take off from the couch and launch myself at my sister—which wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility.

My sister and I had gotten into many knock-down, drag-out fights over the years. Our ages—and maturity—hadn’t stopped us from duking it out every once in a while, when it was needed.

But, in the end, Way was my sister.

It didn’t matter if we fought. It didn’t matter if she stole my clothes and then lied saying she’d never seen them, only for me to see her wearing them at a party she wasn’t even invited to and I had been. It didn’t matter if hell froze over and we never fought again.

What mattered was that she was my family and she was mine.

“I did a senior officer when I was in boot camp. She was fifteen years my senior, but goddamn she was hot. We only went out four times and we stopped before anything more could develop and we got into trouble. But every once in a while, I think about her.” Wade sighed, sounding as if he was sad.

I knew he wasn’t.

My brother was a player, plain and simple.

He’d had his heart broken once and that was enough for him realize that he didn’t want to be tied down ever again—his words, not mine.

“Wow, Wade,” Way said while everyone else remained silent. “One wouldn’t think that you’d have chanced fucking that up. Especially since you were so adamant about getting into the SEALS.”

Wade shrugged. “There was just something about her that made my heart race.”

“It was probably the fact that you could see your career swirling down the toilet with your future in it,” my father drawled.

Wade shrugged. “It might’ve been that, too. The danger factor. The knowledge that what we were doing was wrong. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how the hell I found time to do her at all.”

Lennox made a choking sound.

Way laughed. “Oh, baby brother. You’re so tactful. I, however, would never do that. I’m a perfect little pupil.”

My brother and I made eye contact. No words were exchanged, but both of us wondered who was going to pop Way’s perfect little bubble.

Wade beat me to it, though.

“I remember getting a letter from you while I was at boot camp talking about you doing your professor. Remember that? You wondered whether you got the grade because of your knowledge of the subject, or the fact that you gave him an excellent blow job the day before the examination,” Wade said.

Then he got up and went to the kitchen with his black coffee mug in his hand while the rest of us digested that news.

I hadn’t realized that that particular tidbit had happened, but it didn’t surprise me in the least.

I looked over at my father, who had his head in his hands.

“We raised a bunch of awful kids,” Lennox whispered to my father.

I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it.

I had just gotten arrested…

“We’re not awful and you know it,” Way said, sounding amused. Nothing embarrassed the girl. “It could be worse. We could do drugs. We could be prostitutes. Sucking dick for money is never a good thing. Though, I might’ve considered it if I had to pay for my own college.”

I threw a pillow at Way, who fell back laughing.

My father groaned into his hands. “This is your fault, Lennox.”

Lennox punched my father in the shoulder. “It is most certainly not my fault. It’s your fault. All that cop talk at the table. Our children were never able to live their childhoods carefreely. They always knew the ugly truth.”

“And you coming home and telling us how you had a patient that shoved a water sprinkler up his ass and turned it on, then couldn’t get it turned off or pulled out and died, isn’t something that they didn’t take to heart either?” Dad countered.

Tyler started to silently laugh.

That laugh was cut short moments later.

I frowned, wondering what had set his back straight, then heard it.

“What the fuck?” I turned to see Wade staring at the not so black mug. “It’s changing.”

Way fell over with a wheeze and I narrowed my eyes at her and contemplated taking the mug she just gave me and beaning her over the head with it.

I would’ve, too, had a steely arm not wrapped around my waist and held me down.

Why, you ask, did I have such an extreme reaction?

Because of the photo that she used on the mug itself.

It was my mugshot photo from a few weeks ago.

I turned a death glare from the stupid fucking mug and my laughing brother, to find my sister on the ground next to Lennox—the only woman I’d ever called mom’s—feet, wheezing and laughing so hard that she was crying.

I felt the tears well.

“Do you think this is funny, Way?” I asked. “I worked for six years to get to the point where I could give my dissertation. I’ve dedicated my life to it. I almost lost my job because I’m not allowed to have a record. I did lose my scholarship. I even lost the help of my closest advisor. Even if they do let me do the dissertation, it’s likely that I’ll never graduate because I can’t afford to pay for college anymore—and not even the money that Mom and Dad saved would be enough to cover it. When they yanked my scholarship, they yanked it for the entire year. I don’t think you understand the magnitude of this. Yet, there you are, thinking shit is funny when it’s not.”

Way sat up, her face still full of laughter.

“Oh, come on, Reagan. It’s not that bad.” She wiped her tears away.

I stared at her.

“He tried to rape me,” I whispered.

That cleared Way’s face completely.

“I went to jail because I fought back when he tried to rape me. To make matters worse, we don’t even know where he is. He’s out there, somewhere, watching and waiting. I know that. I had to file charges against him and to make matters worse, even if they do find him, he will probably get out of it because his father is a dirty goddamn judge who knows other dirty goddamn judges.”

With that, I pulled away from Tyler’s arm and stalked out of the house.

My puppy that wasn’t really a puppy anymore followed behind me and I didn’t stop once to look back.

***

Tyler

“I didn’t know,” Way said, sitting up. “I swear, I didn’t know. I thought she was arrested for trespassing. That’s what it said on the county website!”

I felt my stomach sink.

“She was, technically, trespassing,” I admitted, rubbing my hands down my face, relaying just how tired I felt. “Those charges have been dropped now, though. But, you know how she gets. She was there examining a new hydrilla outbreak, or something, I’m not really sure. She was in the boat when someone—IE Dusty—came up behind her. Forced her to get out of the boat. Little prick has been following her around for weeks. And he’s such a smug little shit. Every time I see him, I want to knock his teeth into his throat—not that I’ve seen him since I forced her to press charges.”

Way hadn’t realized the details because she’d just arrived home from college the day before. I’d also done my level best to reduce the charges against Reagan.

“I was able to pull a few strings since I know the sheriff well,” I admitted. “But she still has an arrest record. Each time we try to get a restraining order issued, it’s dismissed. The prick whose property it was saw the error of his ways, but he’s not in much better shape. A judge processed his ass and took him off my hands almost before I arrived back at work the next morning.”

Way was silent.

Bennett, however, was not.

“I should’ve fucking killed him when I had the chance,” he snarled, standing up and starting to pace.

I got up and started to walk outside, but Wade held up his hand. “I’ll get her.”

I didn’t want him to get her.

But I also wanted to have a conversation about this before she got back so nothing else was said that upset her.

Reagan was a hellion. She acted like nothing bothered her, but things did bother her. Deeply.

She just hid it well.

“I’ve fought long and hard to do this the right way,” I admitted, looking at Bennett. “I think it’s time to do it the wrong way now.”

A look passed between Bennett and me.

“I told you I was down with that two weeks ago,” he said.

He had.

I just hadn’t been ready to admit defeat just yet.

But I also hadn’t realized how upset Reagan still was.

She hid everything so well and had been acting so normally, that I hadn’t realized what was going on right underneath my own nose.

“Janie’s been working on some stuff with a buddy of mine, Jack,” Bennett started. “They’re looking into the judge. But, with him running for office this fall, he isn’t likely to allow anything that’ll ruin that to go through the system and possibly taint his chances of winning. Whatever we do is going to have to be big enough that he can’t sweep it under the rug.”

I agreed.

I just hoped that I didn’t lose my job over it.

I liked where I was and who I was with.

And honestly? That was where I’d met Reagan.

I wanted to continue living my life the way I wanted to live it and I wanted Reagan to be there with me.

Speaking of…

“I have one other thing I need to ask you before she comes back…”