I try to swallow, my throat hot and aching. As much as I despise Sylvia, as badly as she’s treated Cece and me, her words ring true in my ears. Dad did desert us. He got the diagnosis that he needed to reduce his stress or his next heart attack would kill him, and he packed his bags, and he left us.
He left us to her.
Dad lets out a long, low breath at my side. “I know I did. And you’re right.” His voice has changed. He sounds defeated.
“And you deserted me, as well. I married a businessman, one of the city’s top property developers, a mover and a shaker. And then off you go, leaving me with your daughters. How many calls did I get? How many text messages? Two at best, Michael. Two in five long months. That’s not a marriage.”
Dad looks up. “Everything you said is true. I’ve not behaved the way I should have to you or my girls, and I’m sorry.” He reaches for my hand, and I place mine in his as Cece does the same. “Right now, my priority is to my girls. I have a lot of making up to do with them. And I would ask that for tonight, you leave us so I can begin to do just that.”
“You want us to leave?” Sylvia guffaws, her eyes wide, unblinking. “Leave the penthouse?”
“For tonight,” Dad confirms. “And then, we’ll see.”
“Michael, please don’t be so rash. Let’s talk about this.” Sylvia can’t keep the desperation from her voice, and I almost get whiplash from her change in approach.
“Tomorrow,” Dad says simply. “Tonight, I want to be with my daughters.”
“But—”
“Tomorrow, Sylvia,” Dad warns, uncompromising.
“All right. I’ll give you tonight. But I’ll be back after breakfast tomorrow. And remember, Michael, I’m not the evil stepmother here. I’m just a woman, doing the best she can while her new husband was off doing whatever it was he was doing without her.”
I watch her collect her purse and turn to leave with a tail between her legs, trailed by a pouting Kylie.
“Kylie?” I say and she turns to look at me. “Do you want to stay?”
She looks from me to her mother and back at me again. “Thanks, but I’d better go with Mom.”
I press my lips together and nod. As they turn to leave, I know I should feel triumphant. I should be shouting from the rooftops that the dragon has been slain, good has prevailed, that Cece and I are now safe.
I don’t.
Instead, I feel an odd and totally unexpected sense of loss. As she lets the door close behind herself with a click, I realize that without Sylvia, I’ve got nothing to rile against, nothing to drive my need to escape.
Hmm. I think I’ll unpack that some other time.
Right now, my dad has finally come home, and we can put the past where it belongs, and be a family again. Maybe, for a while at least, I can feel some of the happiness I know I should be feeling tonight.
And try to forget that losing Cole has broken my heart in two.
Chapter 23
Cole
Relieved another work week is over and done with, I wipe the sweat from my forehead with the edge of my flannel shirt to stop it from stinging my eyes. Tennessee in summer is hot and humid, and when you work construction, it sure can tire you out.
“Y’all comin’ for a cold one, princess?” Levi, one of the guys I work regularly with asks, his lips twisting at his own joke.
I put my tools in the back of my truck and shoot him a look. “Not if you don’t drop that god-awful nickname.”
Levi and Braeden, the other guy on the job, have been calling me “princess” all week, ever since their wives told them about Rex being my father. What started out as a couple of guys ribbing their buddy has turned into them irritating the shit out of me on a regular basis—another reason to be glad it’s Friday.
“Oh, come on. Cheryl says it’s your old man who keeps telling everyone you’re the ‘heir to his pop kingdom.’ Whatever the hell that means. He figures it makes you royalty, though.”
Levi’s right, Rex has been talking about me as the “heir to his pop kingdom” over the last couple weeks, just as he did the day I met him. It’s flattering and a whole lot cheesy, but I’m not interested in being his “heir.”
Just his son.
We’ve been talking on the phone, getting to know one another, when our different schedules allow. After the story broke and I got the hell out of dodge, that’s been enough for me. I’m not interested in the media attention, and I sure as hell don’t go looking for it online.
It’s been two weeks and six days since the concert at Madison Square Garden, two weeks and six days since my story blew up in the media. Since I walked out on all of it.
Although I knew coming home would mean having to face my mom sooner or later, home was the only place I wanted to be. Although I didn’t reckon my world changing quite as much as it has since that night.
I shake my head. “Rex is entitled to his opinion, but you won’t hear me talking like that any time soon.” I close the back of my truck. “Anyway, how does that make me a princess, exactly?”
“Well, you are mighty pretty with that sandy blond hair and those chocolate brown eyes of yours. I’m quoting the article Cheryl made me read last night.”
“Chocolate brown eyes? Are you kidding me with that crap?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets. “All I’ll say is I don’t get why you’re back here, building some crappy house with us. You could be living the celebrity lifestyle with Rex Randall. He put our home town on the map back in the day. I mean, come on, man! Rex fucking Randall. It doesn’t get much bigger than that, not ’round here.”
“I’ve got my reasons.” I lock my jaw and will myself not to think of Gabby. Fail.
“Pretty dumb-ass reasons if you ask me.”
I walk around to the front door of my truck, trailed by Levi. “Good thing I didn’t, then.”
“What about that girl you have there, too. Cheryl said the two of you were all hot and heavy. I saw her picture.” He lets out a whistle. “You hit that and still came back here?”
The thought of Gabby makes my insides twist painfully. The night of the concert, I packed my bags and left New York, not once looking back. I was pissed. Pissed and hurt, betrayed by the one woman I thought I could trust.
The woman I’d given my heart to.
I like to think of myself as a reasonable man, the kind of man who can take a balanced point of view, see both sides of the story. But, what Gabby did? Well, it confirmed all the fears I had about getting involved with her in the first place. My heart should have listened to my head and stayed well away. She broke my trust, and I just can’t find it in myself to forgive her.
“Yeah. It’s complicated,” I say as I open the driver’s door and slide inside.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind me some complication with the likes of her.”
I force a laugh, trying to loosen up. It doesn’t work, just as it doesn’t every time Gabby crosses my mind. Try as I might to get her out, Gabby Davis has taken up permanent residency in my thoughts.
And it’s making me miserable.
“You know what, Levi?” I say as I pull my door shut and lean out my open window, “I’m sure your wife would be real happy to hear that.”
He laughs. “See you down there? First beer is on me.”
“Nah. I’ve got to be some place this week.”
Some place I need to go to make things right.
“Come on. It won’t be as fun without you there. The ladies want to flirt with Rex Randall’s son, not talk to a married man like me.”
Since the story broke, I’ve not been short of female attention. Like Rex warned, I have no clue if they’re interested in me or my newfound fame—although the cynic in me suspects it’s the latter.
“I’m sure they’ll manage just fine without me,” I reply.
“Next time?”
“Sure. As long as you cut that princess crap.”
Levi’s only response is to laugh as he gets into his own truck,
backs up, and drives away.
A short drive later, I pull up to the curb outside a small green house with a well-tended rose garden out front. I sit quietly, my hands on the steering wheel, the engine still turning over, as thoughts run through my mind.
I’ve put off coming here, though I know it’s something I’ve got to do. I guess I needed time, I needed to get my head straight, to work out what I felt about it all.
Even though I thought I was ready, I find myself hesitating.
I switch the truck off and sit for I don’t know how long, running through everything that’s happened. I almost jump out of my skin when I hear a light tap on the window. I turn to see a familiar figure, arms wrapped around her body despite the heat, her eyes wide. Her face full of wariness and something else I recognize.
Hope.
I open the door and step out. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. It’s good to see you,” she replies tentatively, not moving from her spot.
I nod, my teeth jammed shut, my heart thudding. Weird to feel so damn uptight and nervous around my own mom. “Yeah, I thought it was about time.”
She nods. “Do you want to come in? Avery’s here with Liam and Gracie.”
“I’ve got something to say, and I think it’s best I say it for your ears only.”
Her body, already rigid, tightens up some more. “I’m listening.”
I take a deep breath and get the words straight in my head. I look down, kick a stone on the sidewalk with the toe of my boot, then look up again. “I had this whole speech worked out, but now that I’m here, it’s gone from my head. I guess I don’t know where to begin.”
“How about at the start? That’s usually a good place.” She smiles briefly.
An elderly man out on a walk with a small, fluffy dog approaches us. “Evening, Nikki,” he says to Mom.
“Hi, Harold.” She pastes on a smile, but her voice is strangled.
“Hot, isn’t it? I’m hoping things will start to cool off soon,” he says as he shuffles by at a pace a snail would regard as leisurely.
I wait until he’s out of earshot, which takes a while. The man has got to be about ninety.
Eventually, I clear my throat to try to dislodge the rising lump. “I guess if I’m gonna talk about the start, it’s when I was born, and the decision you all made not to tell me about Rex.”
“Honey, you’ve got to know I’m so sorry about—”
“Let me finish, okay?” She nods and I press on. “When I was a kid, I wanted a dad so bad. I would watch my buddies with their fathers all the time and I’d think, why isn’t that me? Why don’t I have a dad? Sure, I knew they weren’t always great fathers; I knew they could be pretty tough on their kids. But I wanted the chance to have a dad who was tough on me, who would make me try my hardest at school, who would push me in baseball, who would tell me to always try my best. That way he’d show he loved me, that I was important enough to him to do it. Mom, I never had the choice, he just wasn’t there, and it was hard. It hurt me in here.” I press my palm against my chest and feel my deep, long-held sense of loss.
Mom nods, her lips in a thin line as tears roll down her cheeks. “I know.”
“Then, when Grandpop told me the truth, I was so damn mad at you, I never wanted to see you again. You and Granny and Grandpop, Rex, you all kept me in the dark. Even as an adult. You must have known I would find out someday. You must have known it would hurt me real bad.”
She nods once more, and bows her head, her shoulders trembling as she sobs.
“Mom? Mom, look at me.”
With a deep breath, she looks up into my eyes, her face wet and creased.
“What’s done is done, and we can’t undo the past. You know that as much as I do.”
“Honey. Knowing what I know now, if I could, I would have done things differently for you, even though Rex was not the man that he is today. He was, well, he was really only interested in fame,” she tells me falteringly.
“I know that. We’ve been talking. A lot. I know he didn’t want to be a dad, I get that.” I reach out and take her hand in mine. “Looking back, I’ve realized what really matters to me is that I grew up knowing I was loved.”
Her eyes light up with hope, and she places her other hand over her mouth as she puts a death grip on the one she’s holding.
“I had you and Grandpop and Granny, which is a whole load more than a lot of people get.” Tears sting my eyes, and I’ve got to work hard to hold my composure. I have things to say, things that need to be said, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let myself get in my own way. “In the last few weeks, since I got home, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about all this. You’ve asked for my forgiveness countless times since Granny’s funeral.” I pause and wait for her eyes to meet mine. “Mom, I forgive you.” My voice cracks with my tightly-held emotion.
“You forgive me?” Her voice is breathless, that seed of hope I’d seen in her eyes growing.
I nod, my own unshed tears making my throat tight. I take a step closer to her and collect my mom in my arms. I hold her tight. The tension I’ve been carrying around since I found out about my father spills over as we both give in to our feelings.
After some time, she pulls back from me and tries to wipe my tears away with her hands. It’s such a motherly thing to do, it has me chuckling, and any residual tension between us breaks.
“You don’t need to fuss, Mom. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You are to me, honey. You’ll always be my little boy, and I will always love you with all my heart.” She places her hand on my chest as her face breaks into a watery smile.
“Even now I’m twenty-four and haven’t lived at home for years?”
“Even now you’re twenty-four and haven’t lived at home for years. Always.”
I sling my arm around her shoulders, and we make our slow progress up her front steps. “So, if I’m always a kid in your eyes, does this mean I get to negotiate an allowance?”
She lets out a light laugh. “For some things, Cole, you’re definitely an adult.”
“Good to know, ’cause I think I may need a shot or two of Jack after this talk.”
She pauses at the front door, turns, and faces me. “Let me say this one thing first, okay?”
“Mom, if it’s to apologize again, you don’t have to.”
“No, it’s not. I want to say that back then, when you were born, I thought I was doing the right thing for you. We all did. And we were all wrong.” She reaches out and touches my face. “One day, you might do something to protect someone you realize wasn’t the smartest move. We do it for love, Cole.”
My traitorous heart beats for Gabby. She was trying to protect Cece from her stepmother, to get her away from her so she didn’t have to suffer. In that way, at least, she was doing the right thing.
But I’m not going to allow myself to think about Gabby.
Inside the entrance of the house I grew up in, my cousin Avery’s eyes widen to saucers when she sees us together in Mom’s neat and tidy living room.
“Cole. Nikki. Well, this is a step in the right direction.” She pushes herself up off the floor where it looks like she’s been playing with a train set with her five-year-old twins. “Look, kids, it’s Uncle Cole.”
“Uncle Cole!” Liam and Gracie hurtle themselves across the room at me, as though they didn’t see me only last weekend.
“It’s the Troublesome Twins!” I lean down and collect them up in my arms. Being only five, they’re light enough for me to hold one in each arm.
“We’re not troublesome,” Liam protests.
“We’re the best,” Gracie confirms.
I look from one set of big brown eyes to the other. “You know what? I think you’re right. I’ll have to rename you the Best Twins This World Has Ever Known. And you know what else? I also have a feeling you’ve both got superpowers!” I carry them around the room, spinning and bouncing them to peels of excited laughter.
“Be careful, Un
cle Cole. They’ve just had a snack. String cheese,” Avery warns.
“String cheese?” I say to the kids with a mock look of outrage on my face. “You’re telling me you had string cheese without your old Uncle Cole?”
“You’re not old,” Liam says with a giggle. “You don’t have gray hair or wrinkles.”
“You can have some string cheese,” Gracie offers, “but first you’ve got to read a story to me.”
“Not Ariel,” Liam groans, and when Gracie confirms his worst suspicions, he buries his head in my shoulder with an “Argh!”
“Of course, Ariel!” Gracie shouts. “It’s my favorite.”
In an instant, I’m back in Central Park, listening to Gabby’s story about her dad reading her The Little Mermaid, and how she wanted long red hair, just like Ariel. I find myself smiling at the memory, before the pain of her betrayal cuts painfully through me once more.
Why does Gracie’s favorite story have to be Gabby’s?
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll read the story about Ariel to Gracie, and then I’ll read whatever book you want me to read to you,” I say to Liam as I place the kids back on the floor. They may be light individually, but after a while, the two of them pack a serious weight punch.
“No. I want to play,” Liam protests.
“You name it,” I reply.
“Get Uncle Cole!” Liam announces before beginning to try to climb up me like I’m a jungle gym, followed swiftly by his sister.
“You asked for it,” Avery says with a sardonic smile.
Mom pats me on the back as she sails past. “I’ll get you that drink.”
“Forget about the drink,” I call out after her. “Fetch me my wrench. I think I’m gonna need it with these two.”
An energetic “get Uncle Cole” session later, two still-excited kids and one tired Uncle Cole sit on the sofa together. I read The Little Mermaid. Despite his earlier protests, Liam listens just as closely as Gracie.
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