Playing Pretend Box Set

by Natasha L. Black

  I headed straight for my car, not bothering to stop by the front office. They wouldn’t care. They never cared about what the art and music teacher did throughout the day. It was one of the few times I was thankful for the fact that the main faculty didn’t give a shit about their arts program. No one cared about me coming or going, which meant I had no issues slipping out during my planning period if I needed to.

  I headed straight for my car and raced across town. I set my sights on my brother’s house and didn’t stop until I’d pulled into his driveway. I took side streets to avoid traffic lights and rolled my way through stop signs; anything to get me there quicker.

  I had a feeling Cole was there and in need of comfort.

  I pulled up behind my brother’s SUV. Cole’s massive truck was parked beside Lance’s more sensible vehicle, and it made me giggle. Cole had always been obsessed with pickup trucks. The bigger, the better. I sat there for a minute, gathering myself, stuffing my emotions away in order to better prepare myself for the onslaught I was sure to face once inside Lance’s house.

  But nothing could have prepared me for the look in Cole’s eyes.

  “Lance. I’m here,” I said as I walked into the house.

  “Living room,” he called out.

  I walked down the hallway before taking a sharp left. The second I stepped foot into the living room, there was Cole, sitting there with his hands mindlessly between his legs, tears rushing down his cheeks. He didn’t look up. He didn’t say a word. He simply sat there, staring at the carpet, unmoving and unwavering.

  I looked over at Lance, and he shook his head.

  “Cole, if there’s any way I can help—if there’s anything I can do—please, let me know. I know how much Susie meant to you. How much she meant to all of us,” I said.

  But the words seemed to hollow.

  His eyes slowly rose to mine, and my heart shattered. I took off, dropping down onto the couch next to him and wrapping my arms around his neck. He leaned into me, tucking his face into the crook of my neck. As he let out a shuddered sigh, I felt the wetness of his tears fall against my skin.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Cole,” I whispered.

  He hugged me tight; so tight I couldn’t breathe. I held him as close as I could get him, then squeezed my eyes shut. Now wasn’t the time for me to cry. This was Cole’s time to grieve. I’d get plenty of that time to myself, later. Right now, he needed our comfort and our unwavering support.

  “Why couldn’t she just—just stop?” Cole whispered.

  I shook my head. “Addiction isn’t that simple, Cole. There’s a reason why they call it a disease, because it takes so long to remedy.”

  “Oh, God. She’s dead, Layla.”

  As he held me tighter, I couldn’t stop my tears from falling. I couldn’t stop my heart from aching. I couldn’t stop my soul from breaking.

  Susie was gone.

  Which left all of us silently wondering what in the world would happen with her daughter.

  2

  Cole

  Half a bottle of rum after a death would make any man weak. Once Layla wrapped her arms around me, I fell against her. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I was tired. Worn down. Confused and angry. I didn’t have the control I did last night. After staying up all night, pacing around the hospital and finally watching my sister pass away, I didn’t have any more strength. Alcohol only tossed fuel onto the fire, making my tears burn as they fell from my eyes.

  I was sad, yes. But more than that, I was angry. Pissed off to the max. Not at Susie, though. Never at my sister. How the fuck could our mother do this to us? She was the root of all these issues. The shitty things she’d done to us. The lack of respect and care she took with us. Yeah, sure, Susie’s postpartum depression probably played a hand in all of it coming to a head. But it had started much sooner than that.

  It started with our fucking childhood.

  “I’ve got you. It’s okay,” Layla said softly.

  “I’m gonna go get him some water,” Lance said.

  I felt Layla nod against my cheek. I kept clinging to her. Holding her close. Feeling her heart beating against my chest. She was alive. Lance was alive. My niece was alive. I just needed that reminder that my life hadn’t completely crashed down around me. Drinking in anger was never a good choice. But drinking while sad? It always unraveled me. My heart didn’t know how to feel. My soul didn’t know whether to burn or turn dark. I felt myself shaking against her -- my best friend’s sister -- as she continued trying to soothe me softly in my ear.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m here if you need me. We’re all here. And we’ll do whatever we can. Okay?”

  My mind spiraled with so many things. Last night had been such a blur. Mom had called me and told me to get to the hospital because Susie had “done something stupid again.” My first question was about Millie. When my mother told me she’d picked my niece up, my gut reaction was to go over there and get her. I didn’t want my mother to have any influence on that little girl. She’d had enough influence on us. But even I heard the dread in Mom’s flippant response.

  So, I rushed to the hospital instead of heading to her house.

  Right now, the only thing keeping me from marching into that house and taking Millie was the rum Lance poured down my fucking throat. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t intentional. The last thing I needed was to cause more family drama. Yet, at the same time, this was my mother we were talking about. Millie was barely five years old, and she’d lost her mother. I knew she’d be looking for guidance. Help. Someone to answer her questions.

  And she was with Holly. My mother. The Queen of Cold.

  “Here. Drink this,” Layla said softly.

  I leaned up from her shoulder and sniffed deeply. I took the cool glass of water and chugged it back, feeling the alcohol slowly push through my veins. I drained the glass before handing it back to her, trying to get my bearings about me. What time was it? How long had I been at Lance’s?

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “You need anything else, buddy?” Lance asked.

  He clapped his hand against my shoulder, and I shook my head.

  “Nope. And the next time you want to pour rum down my throat, warn me first,” I said.

  He chuckled. “I’ll get you another glass.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “Rum?” Layla asked.

  I watched her quirk an eyebrow, and the expression on her face almost made me laugh.

  Almost.

  “Yeah. Rum. I think it’s your brother’s way of keeping me here instead of storming into my parents’ house and demanding Millie,” I said.

  She nodded slowly. “I mean, I don’t want to bring up yet another tough conversation. But I figured with what’s just happened, it might bring your family closer together?”

  “Yeah. Right. With my mother? She’ll use this as leverage for something. I’m sure of it.”

  We sat there in silence as Lance came back into the room. I knew it was hard for people to process the severity of what happened with me and Susie growing up. It was hard to prove psychological and emotional wounds. If there wasn’t a scar or pictures of bruises, people usually assumed things were just fine. When in reality, things were never fine.

  Not with a mother like mine.

  “All right. Another glass of water and you should feel better,” Lance said as he sat down.

  “Thanks. Again, I app—”

  He held up his hand. “You don’t have to keep thanking me. You know your place is my place. You have a key to it for a reason. I’m glad you finally decided to use it.”

  “I still feel bad for waking you up so early this morning.”

  “The fuck? Cut it out, dude. If there’s any time for you to wake me up, it’s something like this.”

  Lance put his arm around the back of the couch as Layla settled her hand against my knee. I sat there, in between them, feeling their foundation gird me. All my life,
those two had been my rock. My solace. My soft place to fall. Layla always gave me that sweet reassurance with a warm hug, while Lance had no issues delivering harsh advice that was always needed. Every time I went through something, they were there. Every time I struggled with Susie after she had my niece, they were there. Hell, the two of them were the first at the hospital the day my niece was born. They got there before our own mother did!

  They were more family than my own actual family had ever been.

  I looked over at Layla and found her staring aimlessly at her hand on my knee. I wondered what she was thinking. How she was feeling. I couldn’t imagine the toll this was taking on her. Because I knew she and Susie had been close these last few years. But losing my sister to drugs like that? It had to be reminiscent of when she lost her fiancé.

  A drug overdose in Vegas at his bachelor party.

  I settled my hand on top of hers, and she took it. She looked over at me, her eyes clouded over with unshed tears. I nodded softly, letting her know it was all right to cry. Silently, she let them fall.

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmured.

  “Me too,” she said, sniffling.

  She fell against my chest, and I held her around her shoulders. I set the glass of water down on the coffee table in front of us. Then, I pulled Lance into the mix. The three of us sat on his couch, crying and shaking and trying to make sense of this bullshit, trying to figure out how the fuck we were going to plan the funeral and support Millie and explain to my niece what in the world had just happened.

  I held them tightly, the three of our bodies wrapped around one another. We lay back into the cushions of the couch after crying our eyes out, and my head began pounding. I released Layla, and Lance unraveled from me, their sighs dictating the same sort of thing. I wiped at my cheeks as I looked up at the ceiling, trying to crack my neck and release some tension.

  “What brought on the drinking?” Layla asked softly.

  I sighed. I looked over at Lance and wondered if it was appropriate to fill her in on everything. Because, as much as I cared for Layla, Lance always knew more than she did. I only told her what was necessary to get the basic picture across. Lance shrugged at me, and I rolled my eyes. Useless, that man sometimes. I closed my eyes and collected myself, trying to gather my thoughts as best as I could.

  Then, I drew in a deep breath.

  “You know, as much as I hate to admit it, Susie had always been a bit misguided,” I said.

  “How so?” Layla asked.

  I shrugged. “You know a bit about Mom. How cold she always was toward us. How we never had much because Mom always thought we were being selfish. That kind of thing. But I think it impacted Susie a lot more than it did me because she always saw it as her fault. Never a fault of Mom’s, but that she somehow kept disappointing her.”

  “Lance has told me a few stories. But what I don’t get is why she was that way with you,” she said.

  “The short of the story is Mom and Dad got pregnant with me before they were ever married. Hell, with what I’ve been able to piece together over the years, Mom got pregnant with me on her and Dad’s third date.”

  “Yikes,” she said.

  “Yeah. And when a high-society man gets a woman pregnant, there are two options. Pay for her to have an abortion and keep quiet about it or marry her. And he wanted to marry Mom. She didn’t want to marry him, though. She always had these dreams of being a famous singer and ‘making it’ in Hollywood one day. I don’t know the details, but they ended up married before she even started showing and they covered it up as best as they could.”

  “So, she took her anger about not getting the life she wanted out on you guys?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I didn’t get the worst of it. But Susie did. Mom wanted to turn her into the cream of the crop. Despite once having dreams of owning her own life, she tried to make Susie bend to her will. Dress a certain way, talk a certain way, be educated on things a certain way. And when Susie started to rebel around fourteen, things got messy in the house. She’d find her way into Mom’s good wine and get drunk. And eventually, that resulted in her getting pregnant at a party one night when she wasn’t quite seventeen,” I said.

  “Yeah. I knew about the party. Susie called me that night, crying. That’s kind of how our friendship started,” she said.

  I nodded slowly. “So, that’s kind of the gist of things. Like I said, it’s more complicated than that. But I refuse to let Mom do to my niece what she tried doing with Susie. If she thinks for one second she’s going to be the one raising Millie, she’s got another thing coming.”

  “Are you saying you want to raise her?” Lance asked.

  The room fell silent as all eyes turned back to me.

  “I mean, if it comes down to that,” I said.

  I fell back into the couch and sighed heavily. Fucking hell, this was too much for me to handle. And yet, it was the only way. I was the only other shred of family that girl had. Even if I hadn’t seen her in almost two years. That was an entirely different story, though. One I didn’t feel like getting into.

  Not after all this.

  “What did your mother do once Susie got pregnant?” Layla asked.

  I picked up my glass of water. “Just about disowned her. Kicked her out. Cut off her access to the family’s money. She let Susie pack up her things and take them, but that was about as gracious as she was in that situation. She came to stay with me for a little while in the apartment I had at the time until she could find a job and get her own place. But that sort of took a turn all of its own.”

  “What kind of turn?”

  “Layla, we shouldn’t be bombarding him with questions right now,” Lance said.

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. I know there’s a lot she doesn’t know about what’s happening.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t—”

  I looked at her. “It’s fine. I promise. Susie came to stay with me, which turned into her staying at my place for a couple years. We fought a lot during Millie’s first year of life, though. I knew she wasn’t okay. But I couldn’t get her to realize that. Mom tried intervening, and I wouldn’t let it happen, which made Susie angrier. She always believed the best about Mom, when all I wanted to do was protect her from Mom’s wrath.”

  Layla nodded. “When did she move out?”

  “A little over two years ago.”

  “Have you seen Millie at all since then?”

  Layla really had a way of digging down to the truth. Even when someone didn’t want to expose it. I licked my lips and turned my eyes back toward the windows of the living room, staying silent on the question. But she knew. Lance knew. They both knew the answer to that question.

  And I’d be damned if my mother got custody of that little girl.

  Because I wouldn’t let her do to Millie what she’d done to my sister.

  “Well, you know I’m going to help. Whatever you need in this scenario, if I don’t know it, I can get a hold on it quickly,” Lance said.

  I snickered. “Thanks. Because I’m going to need a good lawyer in my corner if I’m going to fight for custody.”

  “I’ve got some phone calls to make to refresh my memory on this subject a bit. But I’m an open book. And for hire. Pro bono, of course.”

  “Exactly. I mean, I know I’m only an art teacher, but any way I can help, I will. Just let me know,” Layla said.

  Only an art teacher. I had no idea why the hell she always phrased it that way. Because in my eyes, teachers like her had more impact on students than any other teachers in a school building.

  “I really appreciate it, you guys. Beyond appreciate it. But I do have one question,” I said.

  “What’s up?” Lance asked.

  “Is there any way I can crash tonight with one of you guys? Because I don’t know if I can go back to my place right now.”

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  A Note from the Author

 
Thank for you taking the time to read my latest release.

  I hope you loved reading my story, as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  It would mean the world to me if you could take some time to leave a quick review for this book. Reviews allow me to understand how my readers truly feel, and they keep me improving.

  I appreciate you supporting me, thank you so much.

  - Natasha L. Black

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  Book One - Forbidden Daddy

  It’s been years since I last saw her.

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  I can’t help but think about her putting my son to bed…

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  Now I’m back.

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  She needs my help.

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  Strike one: He’s my brother’s rival.

  Strike two: We met in the most unfortunate circumstances.