“Shit, Layla . . . I . . . I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t know? That’s fucking laughable! How could you not know? Here’s a clue, Trip, and please for the safety of women everywhere, do try to keep up. When a woman is incoherent, she’s incapable of giving consent!”
“God, I can’t even imagine what you must think of me.”
The plastic case on my phone protests under my unyielding grip. “Oh, dig deep into the depths of hell, Trip. I’m sure you’ll come up with something close.”
“It didn’t happen the way you think it did. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Layla.”
What? What’s he saying? “Didn’t happen the way . . .” I shake my head. “No, I don’t have time for this. I don’t . . .” I can’t consider that things didn’t happen exactly the way Stewart described, but then again, when has Stew ever not lied?
“You told me you loved me.” His whisper is so faint I almost wonder if he didn’t mean for me to hear him.
I told him I loved him? But how? I was gone. Passed out cold.
“Let me tell you my version of the story.” The pleading sound of his voice perks my ears, but my stomach is heavy with dread.
“I’m afraid of any other version, Trip.”
“I understand, but . . . if you’d give me an hour, just one hour, I could come to Vegas and—”
“Why are you doing this? I don’t want to relive this. I . . . I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“Please, don’t hang—”
I hit End and send a quick text to Blake, who won’t get it until he’s off the plane.
If you need me, call Braeden’s phone. Love you. xL
I power down my phone and shove it to the bottom of my sock drawer. Out of sight, out of mind.
Well, at least out of sight.
Thirteen
Blake
It’s almost noon when I pull my brother’s charcoal-gray Mustang GT into the driveway of my parents’ house. The Mexican-style architecture of the old house doesn’t make me think of family holidays or summers spent skateboarding in the street. It all brings me back to the night I was taken to military school.
I’ve been back to visit a half dozen times since I left the Corps, but no matter how many times I come back, the driveway holds a memory I can’t seem to shake.
I throw the car in park and push up and out, my feet hitting the pavement almost on the exact spot where I broke my dad’s nose. It’s been years, and I still search for the bloodstain that faded a long time ago.
With a deep breath of the briny ocean air, I square my shoulders and push back the nervousness that started building the second my plane flew out of Las Vegas airspace. It’s as if the further away I got from Layla, from my home, the more my anxiety built.
My hand absently pats my phone in my pocket, reminding me that Layla is a phone call away. It’s only a few hours before I have to head back to the airport. Surely I can endure anything for a few hours.
I ring the bell and shove both hands in my pockets.
A few clicks of the locks and the door swings open so quickly that a small gust blows the loose strands of my mom’s light brown hair. “Blake.” Her eyes are wide and her lips parted, as if she’s breathing through the emotion to avoid letting it overtake her.
Not showing emotion. No hugs. Nice to see nothing has changed.
“Hey, Mom.” I take in her jeans and pale green collared shirt. Even when I was a kid, she only wore jeans on the weekends. I never thought about it much, but now I have to wonder if that was her choice or The General’s demand.
“Come in.” She steps back to allow me inside, and it’s as if I’m stepping back in time. Everything looks the same from the pale yellow wall color to the antique furniture. Even the lulling tick of the grandfather clock that my dad brought home from a garage sale still sounds through the otherwise silent house.
I move past my mom to the living room with the hope that she’ll make this quick so I can get back to my life in Vegas. “I don’t have a lot of time. My plane leaves at five.”
She pushes back a wisp of hair that’s fallen down from where the rest is wrapped at the back of her head. “Oh, so soon?”
I sit on the couch, and she takes one of the chairs across from me.
“Yeah, Mom, Layla’s about to have a baby. I need to stay close. I’m sure you can understand that.” Fuck, I can already feel the burn of anger stir in my chest and the sound of my father’s voice in my own.
“Of course.” She drops her chin and fumbles with a kitchen towel she has wadded in her hands. “I’d love to meet her someday.”
Good, at least we’re getting right to the point.
“I’d like that too, Mom, but Layla’s had it rough. When Dad and I get in the same room together, shit goes south quickly. Layla and Axelle can’t be around that. I won’t allow it.”
“Axelle is your adopted daughter, right?”
“Layla’s daughter, and yes, now my daughter too.” Just saying their names makes my chest feel warm.
She shifts in her chair keeping her back straight and her knees together, the picture of pristine discomfort. “Braeden says Axelle is very smart.”
“She is. And she’s strong, just like her mom.” And nothing like you. My jaw aches as I bite down hard against blurting something hurtful.
“And you,” she whispers.
“What?”
She lifts her gaze to meet mine. “She’s strong like you.”
I shrug, not comfortable taking any kind of compliment from my mom.
“Are you still playing?” She doesn’t whisper as if it’s a dirty little secret as she used to, but her eyes dart toward the bedrooms out of habit.
“Every day. I’ve even been working with Axelle, teaching her the basics. She’s picking up the guitar like a champ.” I shouldn’t be angry anymore, but every word fires from my lips like a bullet aimed straight for her heart. I want her to know that I’m encouraging my kid toward music rather than treating her interest in it like a fucking disease.
She dips her forehead and nods. “That’s great.”
Shame twists in my gut, and the impulse to get on with it is overwhelming. “So you sent Brae to get me to come home. You got me here, now what?”
Her eyes slide to the hallway that leads to three bedrooms, including hers, before she turns back to me. “Would you like something to drink? Or eat?” She stands. “I could make you a sandwich.”
I glare at her and want to yell for her to just get it over with already. “Make me a . . . Mom? Just tell me why you want me here. What was so important that you had to send Brae?”
She sits back down and takes a deep breath. The air between us is thick with her silence, and I start to wonder if she even heard me.
“Mom, spit it—”
“Diane?” The General’s deep voice echoes from the hallway that leads to their bedroom. “We have company?”
Her eyes widen, and she tilts her head toward his voice, but keeps her eyes on me. “Yes, honey. Blake’s here.”
The only sound coming from the hallway is shuffling, and out of habit, I stand to greet my father. He comes around the corner, and all the air leaves my lungs in a whoosh.
“Dad . . .” It’s not what I call him, and even as the single word left my lips, I wondered why it came as easily as it did. I clear my throat. “Sir?”
“Son.” His steely green stare fixes on mine for a second before he drops his gaze and continues to move toward my mom and me. He’s smaller than he was the last time I saw him, his usual military posture now that of an old man. His hair seems to have grayed even more, and what used to be strikingly sharp facial features now seem gaunt. But even still, his presence fills the room.
My mom moves to help him to the chair she was sitting in, but he waves her off and drops into the one right next to it, allowing his wife to keep her spot.
Once seated, he takes a breath as if just trudging across the room cost him all his energy. “I see
your brother was more persuasive than I gave him credit for.”
His voice calls me back to the present, and I sit back down, elbows on my knees, ass on the edge of the couch. “What’s going on, sir? You look. . .” I can’t even put a name on what he looks like.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Look like shit?”
I nod and shrug one shoulder. “I mean, yeah. Last time I saw you, when you came to Vegas, you seemed fine.”
His expression twists in a grimace. “About that, Blake . . .” He sets his eyes on me, and now that I get a closer look, those too look pale. “I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt. I assumed you were causing trouble when you weren’t, and I’m . . .” He licks his lips, preparing for something that is so foreign it’s probably painful. “I’m sorry. I wish I could take back the things I said.”
His apology knocks me back with a jerk. I blink, stutter, and search for a proper response. I’m shocked by his apology, but it doesn’t take away the sting that years of his rejection have caused. “It’s, um . . . nice of you to say that, but what’s done is done. I could’ve used your support back then when I was locked up. Some things are too old to take back.”
He pins me with a thoughtful stare, not intimidation as much as introspection. “I hope that’s not true.”
I gaze at my mom, who has tears in her eyes, and what started as anxiety flares into widespread fucking fury. Even now, I can’t help but feel as if they’re fucking with me. Jerking me around without letting me in on the why of this mindfuck.
“Tell me what the hell is going on, or I swear to Christ I’ll walk out of here and never come back.” My breathing speeds up, and I can’t hold back the waterfall of anger that’s threatening to spill.
My dad holds up a shaky hand. “Calm down—”
“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down! You haven’t spoken to me but to tell me how disappointed you are in me and tell me what a fuck up I am, and now that I’m here, you look like you’re knockin’ on death’s door and apologizing? I left my family, my very pregnant fiancée, to be here, so do me the courtesy of filling me in so I can get the fuck gone.” I run two hands over my scalp, begging to keep it together. “Just stop messing with my head.”
“Duke.” Mom’s call of my dad’s name sounds almost frantic, as if he has the power to make things right, and she’s pleading with him to do so.
He lifts his chin in a show of stoicism. “I’m dying.”
And the world fucking stops. Life hits pause. The room, our expressions, everything except the steady thud of my heart.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
“What did you say?” I whisper, but my voice sounds distant, as if I’m calling from another room.
“I have stage-four pancreatic cancer.” He’s sitting up tall, acting as if he’s just told me the headline of today’s news.
My thumping heart drops into my gut. “You’re undergoing treatment?”
“There’s treatment that could buy me some time, but there’s no cure.”
“What treatment?” That must explain why he looks so beaten up, as if he’s been put through the ringer and laid out wet.
“Your dad is refusing treatment, Blake. He’s choosing against it because the odds are—”
“Whoa. What?” The question is spit from between my clenched teeth. Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing? He’s dying without a fight?
He clears his throat. “The treatment available to me is chemo and radiation. I don’t want to live out the rest of my days sick all the time.”
I throw a hand out in his direction. “What do you call this? You’re sick now!”
He nods, unable to argue with the truth. “I don’t feel that bad. Just tired.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The anger behind my words fuels my body, and I push to stand then pace. “So that’s it? No one else gets a say. You’re choosing to die?”
Why the hell do I care? This guy hasn’t given a shit about me my entire life, and now he’s dying and still proving he doesn’t give a shit. Fathers who care fight for their lives, if not for themselves, for their kids, for their grandkids.
I grip the sides of my head to avoid putting my fist through a wall. Braeden knew. This is why he insisted I come home, why he wanted me to see The General. Fuck, I have no explanation as to why this news feels like an A-bomb to the gut, but it does.
“It’s my life and I’m given a choice on how I want it to end.” Even though he’s sick and clearly weak, his voice still carries an authority that demands attention. “This is it, and honestly, I’m surprised you care as much as you do.”
He’s not the only one.
He took everything away from me: my music, the trust I had in my mom. He belittled me and locked me up in military school to make sure I stayed away from the thing I loved most in the world. He did that. He never believed in me, never gave me permission or the freedom to follow my dreams and cast my own future. I was ashamed of my music my entire life until Layla. That’s all because of him. So yeah, why the fuck does it feel as if I’m swallowing a golf ball and my eyes are burning?
The room feels too small. I need to get the fuck out of here.
Without another word, I move to the door, throwing it open so hard I’m sure it left a dent. I avoid the car out of fear that driving might be the end of me. Some of us make staying alive for our kids a priority.
As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, I look left, then right, and take off running.
Fourteen
Layla
After Braeden got back from the store with Rice Krispie treat ingredients, I insisted I needed a trip to Baby Mart to shop in an effort to get out of the house. Knowing that my phone is stashed in my sock drawer is too much of a temptation because that conversation with Trip has me more curious than I’d like to admit.
He made the night I got pregnant with Axelle sound like something completely different. I don’t know Trip at all. After that night at the party, he basically ignored me, and I was too caught up in the stress of becoming a teenage mother to give a shit about him. A few months into our senior year he disappeared. Rumors around school said he went to juvie, others that his parents shipped him across the country to live with an aunt. Either way, my days of crushing on Trip were over the morning I woke up naked in the back of Stewart’s 4-Runner.
I mindlessly flip through newborn onesies while lost in my thoughts.
Did I really tell him I loved him? My face heats with a fire so intense that I already know the answer to that. I’m sure I did.
Enough of this! I’m shopping to keep my mind off this crap, not to dwell on it.
I move to the next aisle and find Brae studying the silicone cups of a breast pump on display. He turns it in his hand, sticks one cup to his eye, and then the other. What is he doing? I cover my mouth to avoid him hearing me giggle as he presses the cups to his swollen pecs.
In his black cargo pants and long-sleeved gray thermal, he looks all military badass and gets the attention of a few women nearby. He has no idea he’s gained an audience as he flips the cups around in his hands one more time before facing them out, holding them like guns. He makes realistic explosion noises with his mouth while fake-firing the breast pump cups at random items throughout the store. An unflattering, guttural giggle bursts from my lips.
He turns toward me, a half smile pulling at his mouth. “You think this works?” He presses the cups back to his pecs, his eyebrows dropped low in genuine curiosity.
I roll my eyes and head toward him, laughing. “Why, you thinking of getting one?”
“I don’t know.” He studies it some more. “Looks kinky to me.”
I rest my hand on a hip, cock my head, and glare. “I bet a soccer ball would look kinky to you.”
He closes his eyes, bites his lip, and moans so deep a few of the women watching lean in toward him. “God, Layla . . .” He groans. “Don’t mention soccer balls when we’re in public. They get me so hot.” He lo
wers one cup to his crotch, but I rip it from his hand before he’s able to follow through. “Hey, I was playing with that,” he says with a childlike pout.
I swear I hear a woman swoon. I swat his bicep and shove him to move on down the aisle. “You’re disgusting.”
We pass by his all-female audience, and Brae flashes them his most panty-melting smile. “Any of you ladies want to point me to the nearest sporting goods store?”
I throw my head back laughing and speed walk ahead of him to avoid the embarrassing reactions that I’m sure he’s getting.
He catches up with me, chuckling, when his phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket, and his eyebrows pinch together before he answers it. “Hello?” He listens for a second and then holds one finger up to me.
I point to the check out and motion that I’ll meet him out front. A quick line, sweet checkout lady, and a few new unisex baby outfits in a bag, I find Brae outside leaning against the wall.
“You ready?” His expression is serious, totally void of his earlier levity. Something about that phone call ripped away his teasing demeanor.
We walk to the Rubicon in silence. I don’t want to pry, but I’m worried about Blake. “Was that your brother on the phone?”
He opens the passenger side door and takes my bag to toss it into the backseat. “No.”
“Oh.” I grab hold of his arm, and he helps to hoist me into the seat. “Have you heard from him?”
His green eyes set on mine and he shakes his head. “No.”
Okaaay. Maybe we can try for a two-syllabled answer?
“I’m just worried.” I strap on my seatbelt, and before I get out another word, he closes the door and moves around the hood to climb in the driver’s seat.
He fires up the engine, but rather than backing out of the spot, he grips the steering wheel then drops his hands and turns to me. “There’s something you should know.”
Nervous butterflies explode in my stomach.
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