“I’m sorry.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean to dump that on you.”
“Kate.” He took her hand. “Please, don’t apologize.”
She released his hand and slumped back in the chair. She looked like hell, and not in a way that wasn’t appealing, but in a way that made him wonder if she was even sleeping. He poured her a cup of coffee—one cream, two sugars, the way she liked it—and she took it appreciatively.
“You know, I used to love the nights when Caleb would stay at J.R.’s and I would come home from work and the house was actually quiet. The nights you weren’t there, I mean,” she corrects herself. “I would read or watch a movie without having to fight for the TV, and I used to tell myself to get used to this because soon he would be out of the house and at college and it would just be me, alone, most nights. It didn’t seem so bad…” A sob caught in her throat. She looked up to him. “I can’t go home at night, not anymore. The silence is killing me, Rex.”
He leaned his legs against the desk in front of her and ran a hand through his hair as he thought of all of the things he wanted to say to her but couldn’t. He couldn’t bring her home with him and he couldn’t stay with her. And he knew that wasn’t what she was asking of him. She just wanted her son back.
He set his coffee down on the desk and knelt before her, his hands landing on her knees. “You can’t give up hope, Kate. We will find him.”
She stared at him a moment before nodding. “I know.” She paused, looking down at her coffee before meeting his eyes again. “I think I know why he left.”
Rex raised a brow. “You do?”
“I found a note in his room.” She took a deep breath. “Rex, Avery’s pregnant.”
He wobbled on his feet before standing back up. He thought back to Avery clutching her stomach and looking sick at school early that day.
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” She nodded. “I found a note she wrote him about it, sounds like they must have gotten in a fight about it.”
“And you think that would make him take off?” He thought back to the stories Kate had shared about Caleb’s deadbeat dad and could see why Kate would rush to think her son would respond accordingly. It’s what he knew to do. Dads bail. “But what about J.R. and Ethan?”
She shrugged as though this thought had just occurred to her. She felt guilty admitting that she was so focused on her own son that sometimes she forgot about the other boys. These same boys who had saved her son. She knew Caleb was different from them. That before he met them he had been going down a road of destruction. She’d never told Rex about the time he was suspended from school in the sixth grade for bullying, or when she had caught him dissecting a dead cat in their backyard when he was ten. She was terrified of him, of what he was capable of. She knew it was his father’s influence. She feared he’d inherited Dave’s psychopathic genes. But she kept it to herself. She’d moved to Timber Falls to give him a fresh start, and it was through the help of J.R. and Ethan that, for the most part, Caleb stayed on a straight path.
“Maybe they were helping him sort it out or talk him through it.” She wasn’t sure, and neither was he. “Rex, you know they were inseparable. What one does they all do.”
What one does they all do.
That struck a chord with him. It circled in his head like a chorus, around and around until it made him dizzy.
He straightened up and rounded the desk until he found his chair and sat down across from her. Avery, pregnant. It wasn’t a surprise, really. But what was shocking was the timing of her pregnancy. He felt the bile turn in his stomach, aching to climb up his throat. He pushed it back down, taking a swig of his coffee that now tasted bitter in his mouth. He will have to have a discussion with Avery, and now thinking of it, he wondered if Grace knew or if this secret was strictly between Avery and Caleb.
“Chief!”
Rex jumped in his seat as the door to his office swung open with such force he felt the wind on his face. Kate, just as shocked as Rex, swore as she spilled coffee on her jeans.
Officer Maloney hung in the door frame, his eyes wild and frenzied, his hair dripping with sweat. Rex could see it in his expression before he even uttered the words. And he wished to god Kate would disappear and wasn’t sitting in his office right now. But she was, and when Maloney spoke the words, it was her cry he heard over the chaos in his head.
“We found J.R.’s car.”
Five weeks earlier
Caleb knew the rumors that were said about him. Some he had even started himself. Like when he’d first come to Timber Falls in the seventh grade and told Micah Dunn how he’d beaten up a senior in high school and ended up in Juvie for a month. It had spread like wildfire.
Everyone eyed him carefully as they passed him in the hall, wondering if it could be true. He walked with his head high, a smirk on his face and gleam in his eye. No one would mess with him, not a student, a teacher or his old man.
It was J.R. who cornered him in the locker room one day after P.E. with that little apostle, Ethan, and actually had the nerve to ask him if the rumor was true.
“Did you really do that?” J.R. was the man on campus, Caleb was quick to learn. If Caleb was here to impress anyone, it would be him. And here was J.R., looking at him as though he was a god. “Was he a big guy?”
Caleb seemed unfazed. “Biggest guy in school.”
“Why?” Ethan asked. Caleb could see the skepticism written all over his face. “What’d he do?”
Caleb shrugged. “He was messing around with this younger kid at the skate park we all hung out at. I told him to knock it off or else. He didn’t believe me, so I had to show him.”
What he didn’t say was that he was the one kicking around a young kid, and it was the older guy who pulled him off and gave him a black eye. Told him not to show his face around there anymore.
J.R.’s eyes widened. He had never met anyone like Caleb. Caleb was the kind of guy you wanted on your side, not against it. “Have you thought about playing football?”
No one questioned his motives after that, and when new rumors were spread about him, he never bothered to correct them whether they were true or not.
But standing in the hall that Monday after J.R.’s eighteenth birthday, he knew he had to do damage control. For the first time, he saw doubt in J.R., like he didn’t know who Caleb was. And J.R. was the closest to knowing who he really was. He’d seen the times Caleb would slip and show his weaknesses, like when his dad bailed on him, or how the nights he would be left alone with only his deranged mind while his mom worked all hours of the night affected him. He never shared that with Avery or Ethan, but J.R. had a way of bringing out his truth. He loved and hated his friend for that. He always knew he’d never fully won Ethan over, but he was too shackled to J.R.’s ass to question Caleb’s motives.
And then there was Avery, who wouldn’t even look at him as she passed him in the hall. Disgust clear on her face as she tossed her head away from him. They both knew he always fucked around, that she wasn’t the only one, but this was the first time he had blatantly shoved it in her face. The bartender wasn’t even hot! What had he been thinking?
He reached out for her as she slid by him, wrapping his large arm around her tiny shoulder and pulling her to him. She tried to resist, but her defiance to him was always weak. They both knew that.
“Let me go, Caleb.” She pushed her hands against him. But one thing they both knew was Caleb never took no for an answer.
He turned her so her back was against the wall, pinning her with the strength of his body. “Come on, baby. You know I was just messing around. Nothing happened between me and the girl.”
She glared up at him. “Because you got kicked out of the bar!”
He rolled his eyes. “They were a bunch of losers.” He laid a soft hand on her cheek. “I would have never gone home with her, swear. I just got wasted and lost a little control, that’s all. And when I went looking for you, you’d left. You know I wen
t looking for you, right?”
She softened a little in her stance. “No.”
“Come on,” he groaned. “You can’t stay mad at me. Let me make it up to you, okay?” She cocked a brow at him and he couldn’t help but smile. Her cute little angry face was just a farce and he knew it. Avery could never really stay mad at him. “Come over after practice. My mom’s working tonight and we’ll have the house to ourselves.” He could tell she wasn’t yet sold on the idea of a hook-up night, so he added, “I’ll make us dinner.”
She was taken aback by that. She met his eyes now and a small smile crept over her strawberry pink lips. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.” He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her to him. This time, she didn’t resist. Her shirt slid up over her belly and he could feel the soft warmth of her skin on his hands. He sweetened the deal by covering her mouth with his, and slowly he felt her melt into him. She loved when he kissed her in public.
“Avery?”
The voice was sharp and loathing. They knew it was Grace before they pulled from each other’s embrace to see her standing beside J.R. and Ethan, arms folded stiffly across her chest. Caleb sighed. Apparently, Grace would need some convincing as well.
“Let’s get to math.” Grace turned on her heels and stomped away as Avery gave Caleb an apologetic smile.
“See you tonight,” he whispered in her ear. And he would. And after ordering pizza, he would show her just how much she needed him and how much he owned her.
“That didn’t last long,” Ethan huffed. He was still sour over Saturday night. He hadn’t waited for the other boys to wake on Sunday before bailing and walking home, not answering calls for the day.
“It never does,” Caleb smirked. He pushed off the wall and followed in step with his friends to history. “Dude, your dad saved our asses!” He slapped J.R. on the shoulder. “Things got a little out of control Saturday night, but I did deliver, didn’t I?”
J.R. stopped in his tracks. “What the hell are you talking about? It was a disaster, and thanks to you we almost ended up in jail.”
Caleb threw his head back and laughed. “Listen to you. Almost ended up in jail. Who else gets to have that story for their big eighteen? Huh? I told you I would give you a night to remember.”
“That’s fucked up, Caleb,” Ethan spat at him. “You know what could have happened.”
Caleb grinned at Ethan. “It was you driving the car all crazy that got Chief Puss all on our asses.”
He swung his arms around each of his friends’ shoulders. “Come on! Think about it. Ten years from now, are we going to be saying that’s the night we regret? Or will it be the wild night we got away with?” He looked at J.R., who was starting to sway in Caleb’s direction. “You know you had fun. At least for most of it.”
J.R. looked at the ground and cracked a smile. “I guess it was pretty wild. Nothing we’ve done before, for sure.” He didn’t share that what he was most pissed about was how close he had gotten to Grace before Caleb fucked up his chance of finally getting laid that night. From the sound of disappointment in Grace’s voice over the phone last night, he thought she felt the same way. When he’d asked if he could sneak over tonight, she hadn’t hesitated to say yes.
Caleb squeezed his shoulder then turned to Ethan who was less amused. “Come on, Deadman. You know you were loving letting loose a little, for as much as you can let loose.” He tightened his grip on Ethan’s shoulder and gave it a little shake. “It’s a good look on you.”
“Alright, knock it off,” Ethan said, shifting out of Caleb’s grip. “You’re right, maybe I am overreacting a little.” He shrugged, tightening his Falcons baseball hat down over his forehead. “Nothing bad happened. Chief Tourney could have taken us in but instead was super cool and took us home.”
J.R. gave Caleb a crooked smile. “Never thought I’d be in the back of a police car.”
Caleb laughed loudly. “Stick with me and it won’t be your last.”
Ethan jabbed him in the ribs but laughed with him. “Man, your dad was awesome about it, J.R. My dad would never be that cool. And he swears he’s not gonna tell?”
J.R. nodded. “He didn’t see the point in us getting in trouble.” But that was far from the truth. What Jameson didn’t want was the dishonor that came with his son cavorting around town and breaking the law.
J.R. had known it the moment he woke, even with the killer hangover clouding his head. As soon as Caleb was out the door, Jameson had laid into him, yelling about what an ass J.R. had made him look like in front of the chief of police.
“How dare you humiliate me,” Jameson raged. “You are my son. What you do reflects on me. Do you have no care for how you’re perceived in this town? You have a reputation to uphold! You are the example. This was all Caleb’s idea, wasn’t it? I don’t know why you ever befriended him in the first place. He’s not your stray cat, J.R. He is not your golden ticket. You have always been his.”
“That’s not fair,” J.R. shot back. Sure, he was pissed at Caleb right now, but he also knew that Caleb would never intentionally sabotage him.
“What if it hadn’t been Tourney who found you? What if it was some other hard-nosed cop who didn’t give a shit about your football career? What if word got back to the Huskies Coach? What then? You think anyone would want you? No one wants a fuck-up, J.R.”
“I am not a fuck-up,” J.R. spat. He had never spoken back to his father this way before. Maybe it was the booze still in his system, or maybe he was just done staying silent. “I am sick and tired of living under your shadow, and I can’t wait to get out of this town so I don’t have to be reminded whose son I am every damn day.”
Jameson raised his hand to strike his son, only to be stopped by the cries of his wife as she raced into the room.
“Enough!” she screamed, jumping between them. Though J.R. resembled his father in looks and stature, it was his mother he took after the most. Jameson hated this about his son. Both of them so meager and cowardly, allowing others to make up their minds for them rather than being true leaders like Jameson was. He should have felt pleased to see them both standing up to him, finally for once speaking their mind. But instead, he only felt revulsion.
Jameson stood there, his hand still in the air. J.R.’s eyes widened in fear as he realized how close his father came to hitting him.
“Get out of my sight,” Jameson seethed, dropping his hand to his thigh. J.R. spun on his heels and bolted up the stairs to his room. He wanted as far away from his father as he could get. And if he just kept his head down and do what needed to be done on the field, then that time would soon come.
“What?” Jameson sneered at his wife’s anguished face. “You going to go coddle him now? He’s not a kid anymore, Anna. Stop babying him.”
She was at a loss for words over her husband’s animosity. For the first time, she felt she was being asked to choose between him and J.R. If she left now to check on her son, she would lose any respect her husband had left for her. But what kind of mother lets her husband get away with almost striking her child? What would have happened if she hadn’t been there?
“Are you crying?” he exclaimed. “Jesus, Anna.” He pushed past her, leaving her alone in the room as he slammed the door to his office.
It was past eleven on Monday night when J.R. rolled his car to a stop, headlights off, just down the street from Grace’s house. He was able to leave home unnoticed as his father still wasn’t speaking to him. His mom had been out of the house most of the evening only to return at ten to kiss him goodnight. He had heard his parents fighting earlier and could see on his mother’s face that it was left unresolved. He felt a calm camaraderie with her, knowing she was on his side, not his father’s.
He had always lived in the shadow of Jameson’s expectations. And usually he delivered. When he was younger he thrived on his father’s attention, reveled in the fact that he was his father’s golden boy. But somewhere over the years, he learned for
himself that it wasn’t love and pride that drove his dad’s adoration of him, but envy instead. Jameson wanted to relive his past through his son. His youth, his football career, even his girl.
Grace was expecting him and had left the back door open. If there was a piece of paper between the wood and latch, then it was safe to come in. When he cracked the door open, there was the paper, falling to the floor. He crept up the stairs he knew so well that he had no problem finding his way in the dark and slid her door open quietly, shutting it behind him.
He could see the outline of her body in between the sheets, and it instantly made him hard. God, he needed this. He needed a release after all the bullshit the last couple of days. And just like Grace to read his mind, she pulled back the covers, inviting him in.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see the shape of her face, the way her hair fell over her bare shoulder as she lifted up on her elbow and the whites of her eyes when she looked at him as a smile crept over her beautiful mouth. She moved to make room for him and he slipped into her sheets, covering his body and then his mouth with hers.
His lips had only touched hers in three years. There had been many temptations, but he prided himself on never acting on one. They had this year together, this last final year before things changed. And though they never talked about separating, he knew it was inevitable. He was driven on his path to UDub, preferably without her.
“Slow down, J.R.,” she whispered between his fervent kisses. But he couldn’t. He’d wanted this so bad and for so long he pushed on, pressing his hardness against her thigh. She moaned as he slid his tongue against her neck, his hands pawing at her breasts that hid beneath her tank top. She was willing, he could feel it in the way she opened her legs to him and let him fall between them.
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