“That whole place is huge, and the houses cost a fortune.”
“It was the only place I could find once I decided on the move to Texas.”
He scrolled through the photos of Kissing Hills on his phone. “Why do I have the feeling I almost fucked a member of the Royal Family.”
I shook my head. “Close, but not quite.”
Chapter Eleven
Milo
“You look wrecked?”
I tied my apron behind my back and glared at Seth. “Mid-terms, the bane of my existence. I’ve too many units these last two semesters and not enough hours.”
“I’m just calling it like it is. The last few weeks, I’ve given you the schedule you asked for, but today, you’re showing some added years.”
One order blinked on the screen. A medium roast blend coffee with coconut milk, half teaspoon of cinnamon, and a drizzle of caramel. Where these folks came up with what to add to ruin a good cup of coffee baffled me.
Seth left me alone for the last six weeks, giving me what I wanted, and it gnawed on my last nerve that I put up my walls with him, too. My best friend and confidant should be kicking my ass, but in Seth fashion, he granted me my space and never complained or asked more of me than he knew me capable of giving. I didn’t deserve the ones who loved me in my life. Hell, I’d cock blocked Seth from Edward for my personal selfish reasons. Those of which I didn’t understand. I dug my hole deeper with the continued game of ignoring the elephant in the room, Edward and I played. I began attending an earlier lecture, claiming to my professor the shift at my job changed. Avoidance ruled my life presently, and I held fast to keep it close.
After I cut my hand, I stopped trying to have a social life or a sex life. My tunnel vision narrowed on two things; the rest of the world took a backseat. Seth and my mother became silent partners in my plan by standing beside me no matter what. I owed them everything and had nothing to give at this time. Someday, I’d repay them, and it could not come soon enough.
The only good news, keeping my heart beating in a steady rhythm, arrived when my mother and I agreed upon leaving in May, a conversation settled over a couple of bowls of tortilla soup a few weeks back.
“This morning, you said you wanted us out?” She’d held nothing back that night when I returned home.
It took me twenty-one years to have a face to face discussion with my mother about the animal we lived with. “I’m not leaving unless you agree we both go together. I won’t leave you with him.”
“Milo, my sweet boy.” She brushed her hand up against my cheek. “You’ve grown into quite a respectable young man,” Her words hit me in the gut like a prize-fighter. If she knew the truth about Scarlett, Edward, and my less than savory treatment of them both, she’d gather them back up and then whoop my ass with her free hand.
“Promise, Mom. We leave together. No more secrets of lawyers or me stockpiling money. We do it together, and each find our slice of happiness away from him.”
Her big gold-flecked brown eyes warmed my heart as she lay out her plan, “I have a lawyer secured outside Fort Worth. He’s got it handled. I don’t want you worrying another night. I can handle your father. I have for years.” She paused and cleared her throat as the crease deepened upon her forehead. “I want you to continue to act normal when Clay is here. That is the best help you can give me right now.”
I pressed her hand harder against my cheek. We’d never discussed him in terms of his abuse or volatile attitude before, but with those few words we settled on an exit plan.
“Order sixty-nine is ready.” The familiar chuckle of one Edward Baines-Tennant came floating through the door.
Damn it!
“Do you have a plain coffee to go with that?” His baby blues sparkled as he greeted Seth at the register. Jealousy shimmered herself between my solace of the plan and the idea my cock blocking might be on borrowed time.
“Good to see you.” Seth leaned against the counter with that forlorn puppy dog appeal he used when flirting. I’d seen it one too many times growing up.
“My studies have kept me quite busy. But this should help.” He reached for the two coffees. Something ignited in me about who the fucked up flavored one was for, and jealousy laughed in my ear, high pitched as if Tinkerbell flew in, giggling to mock me, letting me know how insane caring about this on any level was for a man in my position. Which only fueled my ego to pop and tell me it all boiled down to wanting to explore more with Edward.
Seth sucked in his lower lip as he swiped Edward’s card through the reader. “I wondered if you’d want to go to a movie or maybe play some video games?”
On instinct, my chest puffed out, preening wide—peacock style, and Edward’s cheeks pinked, noticing me off to the side. He proceeded to poke his tongue out a little, wetting his lips. Lips I dreamed about wrapped around my cock and finally planting a real kiss upon him. Those thoughts invaded my nights, which only infuriated me and contributed heavily to insomnia.
“I’d be up for anything you fancied.”
Without warning, my mouth jumped into their conversation. “Why don’t we go to your apartment Saturday, Seth, and your friend can join us in a little RBI 20?”
Seth turned his head and glared at me, but in true Seth fashion, he rolled with my intrusion. “Sure. Do you know baseball?”
Edward turned up his nose in utter disdain. “The sticks and balls kind?” Seth missed his innuendo, but I caught it square in the chest.
“I’m sorry, we can teach you baseball.” Seth sat like a runner caught stealing a base—dead no matter how he handled this, and we both let him stagger between our silent pissing match.
“I can make the time.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up.” Seth handed him a pen and paper.
I stumbled on my words, “No bother, I’ll—”
My feet shifted on the stone floor, as I found myself next to Seth, my hand clapping on his shoulder. Then, before my undisciplined tongue turned on the charm, I suggested, “How about I make it easy. You write down your address, and I’ll pick you up. I have to drive to Seth’s, anyway.”
Edward pondered a moment, rolling the butt of the pen along his bottom lip. Something I knew out of character for a pristine man such as himself, but he refused to back off this battlefield. “That’s a solid plan. If it’s easier for you to swing by and collect me, you won’t get any arguments from me.”
He tore the paper off and handed it back to Seth, grabbed his two coffees, and sauntered out of Nick’s, leaving me wondering what the hell I’d done.
The early November low temperatures kicked in a few days before Halloween. Playoff season for football began, and tonight round two captured my father’s attention. Friday Night Lights kept him strutting around before dinner. At three, we gathered in the kitchen, an accommodation we followed for superstition before he left the house and stayed away until well after the game finished. It irritated me, keeping up with all the pretences as if our family held traditional values. If abuse counted as the threads for the moral and ethical clothing, then we dressed as emperors in this universe.
The great Clay Wilcox helped the local high school team and watched them for possible college recruitment players on Friday nights. This left him with Saturday nights working with the university’s football team—the nice part of the entire football season, which began in late July and ended somewhere in late December or January if luck graced the teams. It kept him busy and away from us.
“You two makin’ an appearance?” He rolled the spoon through his fingers, anticipating our rejection.
“Clay, we spoke about this. Milo has mid-terms to study for, and I have—”
He shoved the table hard onto my mother, pinning her in her chair between the furniture and the wall. Fear popped into her eyes, and the bruises around her neck and left eye became noticeable when she lifted her head for the first time since I’d walked in the garage door from work.
“You two are the family of Clayton Wilcox. Not once have eith
er of you shown me the respect you should. I deserve it.”
For the first time in my life, rage and blood-red fury coated my vision. My fingers found the butcher block of knives as my feet strolled his direction from the door to the dining room.
“Milo, NO.” My mother’s yelp didn’t stop me.
“What ya gonna do, boy—stab your ol’ man?” My father held up his hands and waved his fingers for me to move closer—a taunt of sorts.
I exercised more self-control than I knew I had. “No, but you’re going to leave and not come back tonight.” The knife clenched in my fist at my side.
“You think you have a chance here, boy?” He moved in my direction, allowing my mother enough room to shove the table away and stand.
“Honey, put the knife down. We’re not looking for trouble.” It sickened me hearing my mother acquiesce as if she hadn’t been assaulted moments ago.
He approached with his shoulders pushed back and a smirk I wanted to slap off his face. The timer on the oven pinged. Neither of us broke our standoff.
“Please. Let’s have dinner and get your daddy on his way.”
He gave up first and focused on my mother, who slid behind me and into the kitchen to pull the enchiladas from the oven.
I refused to let her bruises go this time. “I’m not going to tell you this again. If you leave another mark on her, you won’t need to worry about the authorities.”
He snapped. I watched the crazy haze filter over his pupils as his chest bumped me. “If your queer ass thinks you have rights in this house, you’re wrong. This is my house, and you are my family. The people I make the rules for.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Deborah didn’t leave you for any other reason than she wanted a man. She found that man in me.”
Out of respect for my mother, I dropped the knife, but led with my left and popped my father under the chin, whipping his head back; I followed with a right and cracked his nose. Blood flowed from both nostrils, and he shook his head, splattering the walls. He stumbled back a few steps.
“You’ve learned a few things. But I’m telling you right now, boy. When I return tonight, your mother better be in my bed, and you better be gone.”
He stormed out of the house, leaving my mother and me sadly silent while listening to his truck drive away.
“Milo, let me see your hand.”
“Call your lawyer, Mom.”
“I told you I had this handled.” She slowly approached me. I stared out the front window, refusing her to let this time go. This ended tonight. No more holidays spent with a beast who aimed to kill her. I saw the bruises on her legs yesterday in the shape of his hands. Now, today new marks.
“Grab your phone before I do.”
“Please, let me—”
The ire built inside each time she refused to listen. She needed protection from him and herself for allowing this for so long. “Mom, you have two options. Call the lawyer, or we head straight to the sheriff station. You pick.”
In defeat, she whispered, “Lawyer.”
My eyes followed her down the hall and into her bedroom, where things on her vanity were strewn across the floor. The antique glass lamp of my grandmother’s shattered near the bathroom door.
“Did he do all this?”
She shifted as she pulled her phone out of her purse. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Tears flowed like water down her cheeks, and my heart broke because somewhere deep down, she loved him in a twisted way, otherwise why would she have stayed?
“I filed for divorce, and he received the papers today. They named infidelity, and I had an additional note and pictures sent to him.”
“Then why did he sit here playing stupid while we were all having dinner as normal if he had no clue?”
“They were pictures of him and all the girls you’ve dated leaving hotel rooms.”
My brain lost all rational processing. She knew these things. She sat with me, planning for us to leave and knew all the twisted things he did. She allowed him to beat her.
Before storming out, I turned and made sure she understood me loud and clear, “When I get back, he better have a restraining order placed against him, and you better show me the medical papers that you’ve been checked out.”
She yelled, “Milo, come back,” as Sadey tore out of our driveway.
“I trust you with everything, Sadey. We’ve been through a lot.”
She purred down Route 67 without complaint. Something I needed right now. A place to think and logically dissect the last few months. Everything in my life sat cluttered and disheveled like the junk drawer every house used to store small useless crap. A place where we searched later angry and lost for words when we couldn’t make sense of the mess.
From the time I opened my eyes to my mother and father’s volatile situation, I spent every second check marked with a heavy hand on things within my control: school, schedules, friends, relationships, cars, and income. Out of all those things, Sadey won first place for being loyal and dependable. I lifted one hand off the steering wheel, made the sign of the cross, and sent a silent prayer to my grandfather. Too bad he and my grandmother weren’t here to help now.
“You know, Sadey, August to May, that’s all I asked for. All my courses perfectly situated, and then it all went to shit within a few weeks of school.”
The miles rolled on as her tires ate up the asphalt. Sunset approached, and Route 67 held some of the most beautiful scenic views Texas offered. Unfortunately, my vision tunneled under the chaos called my life.
“Do you think he told me the truth? Did Deb look at me and then decide to dump me for that piece of shit? I knew she wanted money and status, but seriously my ol’ man?” I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, processing the absurd idea.
I understood time as a precious commodity, and Deborah wanted it all but speedier than I could offer it. I kept her from the nitty-gritty of my family, but she knew my dad—I thought?
Good looking, I’ll give him that, but wealthy and able to provide her with the life she wanted? I don’t think so. Although, I sometimes wondered if my father led a cult of football folks who believed he walked on water and paid him for his advice because they seriously bought into the fact that his word may as well be God’s.
“What about Mom? We had plans. She agreed we’d move out of Fort Worth and head to another state or at least another part of Texas in May. How could she have kept all of this secret from me?”
“Highway to Hell” played over the speakers, and the irony forced a satirical chuckle from high in my chest.
“God damn it,” I screamed over the music. My mother knew about my father fucking around on her when we made plans. “How the fuck could she keep that from me, Sadey?” My stomach lurched up my throat at the thought of my mother continuing to share a bed with my father knowing all these things, and she allowed him to lay his hand on her without reporting it.
“I don’t know, Sadey girl. Why didn’t she tell me everything when we spoke weeks ago? Why lie to me, her son?”
The longer I drove, the more questions continued to compile to my list, while fewer answers came to mind. I exited on an off-ramp, filled Sadey up with fuel, and turned Sadey back around toward home. But where was home?
“You know, after listening to me for the last few hours, you’ve not given me anything more than a place to speak freely. Thanks, girl.” I tapped her lovingly on the dash.
Lost in the radio of old rock 'n' roll songs, Sadey decided another mystery for me. She found her way back at the gates of Kissing Hills. The other major issue leaving me unsettled, irritated, curious.
She pulled along the curb about a hundred feet from the gate. I shifted her into first and let her settle down with a final turn of the key.
“What are we doing here, Sadey?”
The street glowed from the lights highlighting the entrance of the elite neighborhood. A place I dreamed of living in one day. Well, not necessarily Kissing Hills, but an elit
e neighborhood with all the amenities.
“Tell me, girl. Edward—why does he make me want to be a better me, but then I treat him worse than shit?” Another problem I kept to myself was, why did I cock block Seth from him? What the hell did I want from him—what?
I felt my blood leave my brain and head south. Every damn time I thought about Edward, it happened. The last time I took what Scarlett offered me willingly, I barely got hard enough to make it worthwhile for either of us. Well, she didn’t complain, but I noticed a huge difference.
I counted the Teslas, Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, and other high-end vehicles coming and going through the gate for a long while. When the traffic slowed, I peered down at my university hoodie and athletic shorts. I’d been running before arriving home for the pre-game shit show that happened. Now, I felt underdressed and out of place compared to the residence behind the gate.
Edward and I stopped talking because of me. He never did anything wrong. Logically I understood him, and I had Seth as a best friend. We could be friends. Tomorrow or rather today—as the clock on the radio shined bright against the dark night and two-thirty smiled back at me—we’d figure out how to make this work, and then perhaps I’d move on with one area in my life.
The longer I sat, the more it dawned me, I should thank Sadey for listening to me, and we should head home and check on my mom. I left her pissed off but knew if she served him with papers, she wouldn’t let me down. She dialed and connected with the lawyer before I stormed out with her hot on my heels.
I yawned and caught the headlights of an approaching truck in my side mirror. As the blue Ford F-150 rolled by, it dawned on me; it belonged to Logan.
“Who knew, Sadey, Logan has friends in high places, too.” As the truck slowed and turned right at the gate, the blond hair of the man I’d been pondering for the last few hours appeared in the passenger seat.
That bitch—jealousy woke me up immediately, and nothing stopped my fingers from reaching for my phone and dialing the stored number of one Mr. Edward Baines-Tennant. Logan dated Seth for a hot minute, but at least I’d shut things down between Edward and Seth. As the phone rang, I questioned my sanity; I knew one thing for sure, Edward and I needed to figure this thing out. Despite the distance I’d placed between us, something more existed and needed exploring. What may or may not need to happen between us didn’t matter—this journey was mine—not Logan’s.
Shattered Beliefs Page 9