by Brooks, Abby
“Well if it isn’t Daddy Warbucks.” Her voice wrapped around me like smoke, unusually deep for a female, almost rusty, and sexy as hell. It sent chills down my spine, and despite my best efforts to keep my gaze on the ground, I met her eyes.
She was young. Too young. Dark hair hung over delicate shoulders. Heart-shaped lips sat in a small face with large, gray eyes. Eyes that narrowed when they landed on mine.
“Wyatt Hutton,” she murmured, half-prayer. Half-curse.
“Well, how did you know that when I didn’t even know Burkey had kids?” Madeline squawked.
The glance the girl threw her mother’s way was filled with enough disdain that even I caught it. “Because he talks about his kids sometimes? You never listen to anyone, do you?”
Burke pulled Kara in for a hug and my heart broke for my little sister. Harlow craved our father’s approval like an addict craved her next fix, and here this Kara had him wrapped around her little finger. As Dad pressed a kiss into her hair, I caught a glimpse of the man he used to be. A man we all mourned, even though we still saw him every day.
In that moment, I hated Kara Lockhart. I hated her on behalf of my brothers and sister. I hated her on behalf of my mother. I hated her because my dad was right. If any of this got out, it would rip our family to pieces. I hated her because I knew I would keep his secret. And with that thought in my head, I realized I hated myself a little, too.
“Wyatt,” Dad said when he released her, “meet Kara Lockhart. The daughter I should have had.”
The more I knew about these people, the deeper I would be pulled into Dad’s secrets and lies, so I offered the girl a curt nod instead of a greeting and gave my attention to back to my feet.
Chapter Two
Kara
Wyatt Hutton wouldn’t look at me. Which was fine because when he did, it was like I was a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Like he couldn’t believe he had to stand so close to a piece of trash like me.
Like I wasn’t worth his time.
A flare of anger demanded I march right up to him and prove I didn’t belong in the same box as my mother. The fact that he put me there without so much as a hello told me everything I needed to know about him.
He wasn’t worth my time.
He was, however, much hotter in person than he was on Facebook. One of those people who didn’t photograph well because his beauty was the kind that moved. I’d heard that line in a song once and never understood it until seeing Wyatt. But now, it made a magical kind of sense. Looking at him made me feel hopeful, which in turn made me feel ridiculous because it was clear he didn’t like me.
He was tall—taller than I thought he would be. The resemblance to his dad was obvious, but also not immediately clear. Burke was like a redwood. Strong and sturdy. Thick arms, thick body, and thick legs. His personality took up massive amounts of space. Wyatt, on the other hand, was long-limbed. He had broad shoulders and a tapered waist. He was blonde where Burke was dark and smiled while Burke scowled. They were opposite sides of the coin, these men, though I wasn’t sure what to do with that thought.
The most stunning thing about Wyatt was his eyes—even if I only saw them for a second before he refused to look at me again. They were such a light blue, they seemed to shine with a light of their own. For the heartbeat of time he deigned to favor me with his attention, they stole my breath.
I thought I would hate him. I thought I’d hate all of the Hutton kids, really. After all, they were living the life I would never have. They had two parents with stable jobs. They lived in a beautiful house that wasn’t paid for with someone else’s money. They were local royalty. Everyone knew the Hutton name, and no one had a bad thing to say about them.
The moment I looked at Wyatt, I realized I couldn’t hate him—though it was obvious the feeling wasn’t mutual. For as much as I thought he had the life I wanted, I had something of his, something he desperately craved.
His dad.
The image of the Huttons I had built by stalking their Facebook accounts was false. Their life was nowhere near the golden Utopia I daydreamed about. And how dumb did I have to be to ever think it was? I knew Burke was a cheat. I knew he was a drunk, too.
I guess I assumed that because he was so good to me, he was that good to everyone. That his own children knew him the way I did. Just five minutes of watching the way Burke treated his son blasted that idea out of the water. In fact, for a moment, I had an uncomfortable sense of kinship with Wyatt. He was a pawn for his father the same way I was a pawn for my mother. At best, we were tools they could use to further their own selfish endeavors. At worst…
…well, sometimes it was better not to think about the worst.
The days Mom couldn’t drag herself out of bed and three-year-old me was left to figure out breakfast for herself. The oversharing of information, things no daughter should learn about her mother, as if we were best friends instead of flesh and blood.
As awkward as those days were, I much preferred them to the days where she had nothing but contempt for my existence. The days when simply seeing my face or hearing me move in my room brought her rage boiling to the surface. I spent so many years wondering what I’d done to make her hate me so much, but only recently realized that I hadn’t done anything but take her attention away from the thing she valued most: herself. She resented me for the heinous act of being born. For weighing her down with responsibility and adding stretch marks to her belly and breasts. As if I had any say in the matter.
I had the uncomfortable realization that, in Wyatt’s eyes, I wasn’t all that much different from my mother. She was the other woman and I was the other child, both of us selfish enough to take time and attention from a man who wouldn’t give it to his family.
And while I couldn’t muster hate for Wyatt, I felt a heavy dose of resentment toward him. It wasn’t like I chose this. It wasn’t like I told my mom to sleep with a married man, then suck him dry for every spare dollar he would throw her way. I didn’t ask for the fancy condo. Or the expensive car. It wasn’t me who begged for the private school tuition, though I knew enough to value the education I was getting—it would be the key that set me free from this life.
I didn’t ask to be born to a woman who was willing to sell her body to get what she wanted. I didn’t ask to grow up without a father, without even an inkling as to who he was or what he looked like. I didn’t ask to be my mother’s keeper. And I certainly didn’t ask for the way she kept looking from me to Wyatt and back again. She was hatching a plot with me at the center. I could see it in her eyes and whatever it was, I was sure to hate it.
I only had to survive this life for two more years and I would be free. Two more years until my eighteenth birthday, and I was out of here. I didn’t have a clue where I would go, but at least I had the balls to look at my situation and know I had to get out. Wyatt couldn’t even do that. He was five years older and still stuck at home, kowtowing to a man he obviously couldn’t stand.
The little ball of hate I’d been building sputtered back to life. I glanced up, ready to eviscerate him with a single look, and my heart fluttered in protest when he met my gaze.
Despite myself, I smiled, which made him smile in return. It was a beautiful thing, warm and genuine and damn if hope didn’t come rushing back to life, filling me with a sense of…of…the thought was gone before it could fully form. Wyatt looked away, rubbing a hand over his mouth and looking worried, and all the dark thoughts from before rushed back in to cover up that brief moment of light.
Confused, I said my goodbyes to Burke and retreated to the safety of my room.
Chapter Three
Wyatt
Days passed and my father’s secret spun like poison in my gut. I couldn’t look at my mom. Or my brothers. Or my sister. I could barely look at myself and I definitely couldn’t stand to be around Dad. The urge to tuck myself away in my room and never come out was strong, but isolation wasn’t in my nature. Instead, I threw myself into my work
, helping guests, learning the books, and finding new and inventive ways to hide my dad’s misdeeds.
A lesser man would have driven himself to drink. Thankfully, while I wasn’t a great man, I was strong enough to resist. I learned to exist on two levels—the happy, optimistic version of myself I presented to the world. The version I knew I could be all the time if only…
…if only…
Beneath that layer coursed a river of anxiety. A litany of repressed anger and frustration caused by the minutia of everyday life. I could never relax and be myself, lest that river make its way to the surface and surprise everyone with the strength of its currents. I wanted to be the light in everyone else’s day, and that meant I had to swallow the darkness. I feared it was eating me from the inside out.
As time marched on and my world didn’t come crashing down, life settled into something resembling normal. My mother didn’t accuse me of treachery. My father almost treated me like a human being instead of a fleck of lint on his favorite suit.
I devoted myself to making my family feel good, and through that, I found a sense of purpose. I joked them into laughter when they were feeling down. I helped my brother and sister with homework or school drama. In my mind, I became a sort of umbrella, protecting them from the difficulties of life and as days passed, I started to believe everything was going to be alright. Life had its ups and downs. Sure, things felt bad now, but that only meant it would make the good times feel so much sweeter when we got there.
It was only at night, when I was alone, that things got hard. As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing for sleep, the weight of my father’s secret settled on my chest, so heavy I could barely breathe. My heart would pound and my stomach would churn and my mind would present a parade of questions and hypothetical situations for me to consider.
What if I told Mom? Would the family dissolve the way Dad said it would? Or would it finally relieve her of having to deal with the monster her husband had become? She could walk away with her head held high and her dignity intact…or maybe she would tell me she was disappointed to learn I was just like him.
What if I told Lucas? He was far enough away, busy being a big bad Marine, that maybe it wouldn’t affect him. Maybe he would have some advice…or maybe he would call me an asshole and never speak to me again.
What if I told Dad to shove his secret up his ass?
What if I confronted Madeline?
…what if…
…what if…
…what if…?
Night after night, I wrestled my demons, my father’s threats of disaster battling my need to be honest and upfront. In this case, the truth felt like a weapon. One I’d been given to hold and one I chose to keep sheathed. I decided to bear the weight alone, so my mother didn’t have to. And as days bled into weeks, the choice felt more and more like the right one.
I was a good person doing a bad thing.
At least that was what I told myself.
With thoughts like that drumming around my brain, I headed to Caleb’s apartment to help him build his new entertainment system. At nineteen, my younger brother was striving for self-sufficiency, recently becoming manager at the fast food restaurant he had worked at since he was old enough to get a job.
He took the position because he needed the money, but immediately began looking for better ways to earn a living. Caleb said the promotion was a wakeup call. He knew he had more to give than a life flipping burgers, even if he didn’t know what that looked like yet. In the meantime, he used the increase in salary to buy some much needed furnishings for the apartment he shared with Derek, a sleaze-ball whose main focus in life was seeing how wasted he could get and how many girls he could bring home.
Caleb answered my knock on his door with a scowl, then shuffled out of the way without so much as a word. His hair stood on end. Pillow marks were etched into his cheek. His puffy eyes struggled to focus. My brother had never woken up easily and I could see the remnants of the little kid he used to be in the set of his shoulders. As an adult, he was the biggest of us Hutton kids, which was ironic because he spent his childhood scrawny.
“Good morning to you, sunshine,” I said as I stepped into the nearly empty apartment.
Caleb ran a hand along the back of his neck and grumbled something that could have been a greeting. Or, he just cursed my name. With him, it was hard to tell.
“Looks like Captain Dickhead struck again.” I gestured toward Derek’s closed door and the stream of women’s clothing leading right to it. A scrap of fabric that might have been a skirt. A bit of lace. A sequined top.
“Sure did.” Caleb ran his hands into his hair, causing it to stick up even worse than it already was. “All night long. Banging some chick who wouldn’t stop screeching the loudest, fakest orgasm of all time.” He ambled into the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Sounds great,” I said, as he grabbed two mugs out of the cabinet. “I know I’ve said it, but congrats again on that promotion. I’m really proud of you.”
Caleb scoffed as he poured his coffee. “Just living up to my full potential here.” His self-deprecating tone wasn’t lost on me and I immediately set about trying to make him feel better. Sure, he didn’t intend to finish his life in fast food, but it would do him some good to slow down and see the accomplishment for what it was—a good thing and a great way to jumpstart his life.
“I don’t know, Moose,” I said, smiling wide. “Management at nineteen seems like a big deal to me.”
The compliment made him obviously uncomfortable, but he offered me a smile anyway. “Thanks, man.” He blew over the rim of his mug, his eyes a million miles away. When they settled on mine, what I saw in them made me nervous.
“Hey, Wy? I need to talk to you about something,” Caleb began.
My heart jumped into my throat because holy shit, he knew. Somehow, he found out what I was doing for Dad and I was finally going to have to face the truth. As much as I knew I’d earned what was coming, that didn’t stop me from dreading it.
Caleb cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the ground. “I’ve been thinking, maybe I can save up enough money to buy a boat. Move down to Key West and start a business. Take tourists out for snorkeling or some shit like that. I’d be in charge of my own future, and on the water all day instead of coming home smelling like burger grease. Maybe, you know, I could even live on the boat for a while to save money. Or something.” Uncertainty clung to his words.
Relief surged through me, followed closely by regret and a heavy dash of guilt. My brother wasn’t looking to confront me. He wanted my advice. Because I was Wyatt, the dependable older brother. The carbon copy of our optimistic mother. The Hutton you could trust to support you and brainstorm ways to turn bad ideas into good ones.
Reminding myself to calm down and breathe more, I leaned against the wall, grinning at Caleb, proud of him for looking for better ways to live. He would be happy on the water all day and had a quiet charisma the tourists would appreciate.
“You know you could do that at The Hut,” I said, referring to our family business—The Hutton Hotel. “Wouldn’t even have to come up with the money for a boat because the hotel already has one. And you could just move back into your old room, so you wouldn’t have to worry about rent. Every dollar you made could go directly to saving up a nest egg. You know Mom would be thrilled to have you back. And the pay would be good. Better than if you opened your own business for sure.”
Caleb shook his head the entire time I spoke, rejecting the idea from the moment he knew what I was saying. “Not gonna happen. Dad never did a damn thing for us. As long as he’s around, I have every intention of returning that favor. He’s on his own.” He glanced at me and shrugged an apology, then glared at the wall.
His words dredged up a memory of Caleb in elementary school. He was always tall, but back then, his energy went into growing up, not out. He was long and lanky. Thin and easily offended. He’d been a target for the other boys, at least until he hit pub
erty and filled out. When things were at their worst, Mom brought up private school, or even homeschool as an option, but Dad had snapped at her to stop coddling him.
The boy has to learn how to grow thicker skin, he said as Mom fussed over Caleb’s swelling lip, a gift from a particularly persistent asshole kid overdue for a fat lip of his own.
An image of Kara Lockhart slithered through my mind, with her sullen voice and private school tuition. That had been happening since the day we met. Out of nowhere, I would find myself thinking of her—which was a waste of energy because she only made me mad. I didn’t like her, and the feeling had obviously been mutual, though I couldn’t figure out why. She had everything I always wanted. My father’s love. His respect. His guidance. Yet, she also had the nerve to look at me like I was the asshole in the situation.
I tried to brush her off as young and immature. It was natural for her to see the situation that way because teenagers were little narcissists who always saw the world in terms of themselves. But I couldn’t let her off the hook that easily. Two of my brothers and my sister were still teenagers and I could guaran-damn-tee that if they were in Kara’s situation, they would be mature enough to realize the money paying for that private school tuition was coming from a man who had children of his own to take care.
Children of his own he wasn’t taking care of.
Caleb and I resorted to silence while we built his entertainment system. Thinking about Kara had ruined my mood and Caleb was never much of a talker in the first place. As we worked and the silence between us stretched longer, my anger sent little sparks of indignation out toward Kara. I wanted to talk to Caleb about it. I wanted to explain what I’d learned and to ask his advice.
But I couldn’t. For one, he was younger than me and was in no way prepared to offer advice on something so complicated. And for two, Caleb already lived in a constant state of anger when it came to Dad. If I told him what I knew, his rage would burn hot and bright until it devoured him. Nothing would be left of his gentle soul. He would go to Dad, ready to combust, and the aftershocks of his rage would shake the family to pieces.