The waiter came by to give Alex a menu. He had just gotten here, and he hadn’t ordered yet. It was too early to bring up the reason why we decided to meet today. I would let him at least get his water first.
“What did you order?” he asked me.
“Grilled cheese and steak fries,” I said. He shook his head. He ordered the All-American cheeseburger with bacon, barely a step up from my order, and he wanted to judge me?
“I don’t know where it all goes,” he said, looking at me. “You and Will, I don’t know how the fuck you do it.”
“Language,” I hissed at him, motioning to Hayden. He didn’t seem to be paying attention, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be asking Rick what ‘fuck’ meant when he got home.
“Colin curses around his kids all the time. They’re fine,” he said.
“This one is Iris’s kid,” I said. “He’s the one thing that takes me back to the house. If I lose him, I’ve got nothing.” He looked at Hayden some more.
“How are you two?” he asked.
I shrugged. Hayden’s food came, and I paused to cut his burger into half for him.
“I haven’t really talked to her since I moved out.”
“So there’s no chance of her putting in a good word for me with your parents?” he asked.
“It would be the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t expect it of her. Are you ready?”
“I don’t know, does your dad keep guns in the house?”
“They agreed to see us; that’s a good thing. Just tell them the truth, you have nothing to hide.”
“How much of my relationship with Cassie do you want me to disclose to them? Like everything, or just the baby, and the fact that we live together; the important details?” he asked.
“You want to shoot yourself in the foot, you go right on ahead,” I told him, smiling, “but since you asked for my opinion, I would keep it quiet.”
The waiter came by with our food. I pushed some of my fries onto Alex’s plate; it was too much for me to finish. He let me.
“How is she?”
“Fine?” he said as a question, because he didn’t know, or more likely, didn’t care.
“Be nice to her.”
“I don’t know how I can be nicer; she’s living rent-free in my house.”
I didn’t want him to get started. She was a sore subject for him. We couldn’t pretend she wasn’t there by ignoring her, but we could talk about her some other time. I changed the subject.
“Can you tell me about the garage?”
“What?”
“The fire and the anvil? Is that what you started doing after football?”
That got him talking. When your boyfriend’s an athlete, you watch them play your sport. I had hours upon hours logged of watched football games—live and televised. I knew names, stats trivia; the whole deal. Total high school WAG.
He said he had converted his garage into a forge. He was a professional metal worker. Blacksmith. I kept my ignorant questions to myself. He talked about it like he liked it. I listened like it was going to be the subject of my next examination. I’d missed so much. It was like if you stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy after the second season, and when you came back in season six everyone is different. Some things were the same, but we literally had years to catch up on.
After lunch, we made our way to my parent’s house. The best part of living near your parents was being able to drop in on them whenever you wanted. Hayden made a run for it, seeing my mom at the door. Mom and Dad—Monica and Elliot when I was feeling feisty—loved Hayden. He was indisputably their grandchild, so they hadn’t rejected him. They hadn’t rejected Rick as replacement dad for him either.
I started after my nephew, realizing I was alone. Where was Alex?
“Liv,” he called. I turned to look at him. He was standing still by his bike. Why wasn’t he following me inside?
“What is it, why aren’t you coming?”
“I think I should sit this one out,” he said.
I looked at him and waited for him to substantiate what he had just said. He didn’t.
“Why? I thought we talked about this?”
“We did. I have nothing to say to your parents, babe.” Did he have a stroke between the restaurant and here? What the fuck was he talking about? We had talked about this.
“What the hell, Lex? Why are you doing this now? It doesn’t make any sense.”
He walked up to me and took one of my hands, holding it tight enough to stop me letting go, but not tight enough to hurt.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” He leaned in and kissed my forehead and turned to start leaving like that was the end of the conversation. No, it wasn’t. What was he doing? I tried to go after him, but I heard my mom at the door. She’d seen me and was waving me over. I watched him mount his bike and take off, just like that.
I wanted to cry. If he didn’t want to come, he should have just said so. I turned and walked into the house. Mom and Dad had completely overhauled the place once we had moved out. My room was the room Hayden slept in when he came over, but Iris’s was a home gym. They’d knocked down several walls on the ground floor too to open the space up.
Mom told me to sit at the table and wait for Dad to come down. Perfect. Time to think up an excuse for Alex. I heard my dad enter the room, saying hi, pausing to kiss me on the cheek.
“Where’s the boy?” my father asked, sitting down. He had always called Alex that in the past. He did it for a long time before he started calling him by his name when he was still on ‘probation’ while we were dating.
It was a miracle that they—he, especially—was at the point of welcoming Alex into the house. Maybe not welcoming, but having an audience with him. I didn’t know whether I had Mom to thank for that or not. There was a chance Iris had something to do with it, but I wasn’t going to thank her if she did. She was five years too late, anyway.
“He couldn’t come,” I said. He had work. He had to see his mom in her assisted living home. He was sick. All I had to do was pick an excuse to cover for him, but I didn’t. He just didn’t want to come. That was it, wasn’t it?
Dad didn’t look impressed. Mom was in the kitchen. I sat and waited for her to come back. We were in the dining room. Hayden was using the television in the den.
“Then why are we here? I thought the pair of you had something you wanted to say. Are you pregnant? Are you getting married?”
“No, I’m not pregnant. Alex and I are back together. I wanted to talk to you guys about… everything. About what happened before college. I know you and his mom and him talked about stuff that I wasn’t there to hear.”
“Sweetheart, why do you want to do this now?” Mom asked me.
“He’s back in town. We ran into each other and reconnected. He… Mom, you remember how it was. I loved him.”
“You were in high school, Ollie. You were both kids. Those relationships hardly ever last beyond those four years. Did you think you would marry him? That you’d be together today?”
“We are together today, Mom. Why did you guys let Iris drive him away?”
“I never liked that boy, Ollie. He was trouble. We warned you that he would break your heart, and he did,” my dad said. Both of them completely ignored my question. I shook my head.
“That was never a good enough reason for me to dump him in the past, Dad,” I said quietly. It wasn’t. I didn’t care that they didn’t like him back then. It likely made the young me want him even more. Now, I was an adult, so it didn’t matter either way.
“How long are you going to keep lying to yourself?” he snapped. “You don’t want to listen to us? That’s fine. Listen to him, because he is showing you who he is, who he still is, and you aren’t paying attention. Where is he? Why isn’t he here if he has nothing to hide?”
He said it like he’d been dying to say it to me since sophomore year when Alex and I got together. I swallowed and breathed deep. No tears, they really wouldn’t take me seriou
sly if I started bawling here.
“Did you ever believe that Alex really did something to Iris?” I asked.
“It didn’t matter whether he did or didn’t. It mattered that Iris told us that he did.”
I paused because it sounded like they just said they sided with Iris even though there was no real evidence against Alex.
“But what about the truth?”
“You don’t have children, Olivia. You don’t understand. When you have a child that’s your only job; you have to protect them, and you have to believe them.”
Iris isn’t your real daughter, Dad, I am, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. It didn’t matter.
“But it was a lie. It wasn’t true, and because of what she did, Alex and I were split up.”
“And it’ll just be a matter of time before it happens again,” my dad said. I looked at my mom for something—anything—but she was quiet. I caught a tear before it rolled down my face. I stood up slowly.
“Rick is going to come pick Hayden up at six,” I said woodenly. I started walking towards the door.
“We’re doing this because we love you, Olivia. How many times are you going to put yourself through it with him until you want better for yourself?” my mother asked. She sounded close behind me like she’d followed me.
I didn’t turn because I was crying. I had to pause to get the door open.
“I was never looking for your permission to date Alex. I’m still not. I just wanted to know why you would do something like that when you knew he was innocent.”
“He’s not innocent, Olivia. Why would you ever think he was a good match for you?”
“Because he loves me,” I said petulantly. I had opened the door. I turned to look at my mother standing in the doorway.
“That’s not enough, sweetheart,” she said. She’d been there, hadn’t she? Iris’s biological father had put her through the wringer. She had told me when Iris got pregnant. I turned and walked away from her. I felt like a seventeen-year-old kid, mad at my mom because she didn’t understand. But she didn’t. I didn’t need her projecting her own insecurities about whoever Iris’s father was on Alex because it was different. I wasn’t her, and I wasn’t Iris either.
Alex loved me, and it was enough.
23
Alexander
Ten thousand dollars for a ring.
Just one.
Not a ring made on the moon, just a regular ring. Stone and metal. I didn’t have to drop that much coin on a ring, but then again, yes I did. Liv wouldn’t care what it cost, but she wasn’t the problem; I was. I would care what it fucking cost.
I worked metal for a living; I could make a fucking ring. Livvy, because she’s perfect and a nice person would probably love it, even if it was made from hammered out cable steel dipped in gold paint.
No. She might not be too proud to wear it, but I would be too proud to give it to her. What did she even like? There were so many different types and options. She wasn’t going to throw it in my face and refuse to marry me if she didn’t like it, but it would score me at least a few points with her if she did.
How did I do this? Did I go with her? This must have been one of those things your dad was supposed to teach you. Will was no help at all. He had never proposed to anyone in his life. He didn’t know the first thing about engagement rings.
I had ended up asking Roberta for help. She was a woman. They were friends. She had an engagement ring. She wouldn’t tell me what it cost, but Colin said he got it for under ten grand, which gave me hope.
I didn’t have to sell a kidney to get Liv the sort of ring she deserved. I would probably have to hold out on getting the power hammer for my home forge though, but I could do that. There was one at work I could use, anyway.
The thing had been burning a hole in my pocket for weeks now. I always had it with me because I didn’t know when to do it. It was always the wrong time. I wasn’t going to hire a skywriter or hot air balloon and do it like that. I just wanted to ask her, but I couldn’t. Not until I talked to her parents. Weddings were expensive parties; they were dumb. You didn’t need them. You didn’t need two hundred guests, an entire botanical garden worth of flowers and uncomfortable, expensive clothes.
What did you need officially, like, two witnesses? That was your whole guest list right there. Liv owned at least one white dress; I had seen her in one. The sundress she had on at her sister’s baby shower. I liked that one. She could wear that. I could wear the clothes I go to visit Mom in. Exchange vows, exchange rings. There ya go; married.
That was what I wanted. I just wanted to marry her. We could do the city hall marriage, the drive-through Vegas wedding; I didn’t care. I just needed her. I wanted her to be mine.
She hadn’t liked that I had refused to go see her parents when she had gone to see them, but it was fine, I was seeing them now.
I couldn’t go before. What the hell would I say to them? I had nothing. What would I do? Tell them they were wrong about me? Great, what then? That was it? They were going to ask about what was happening now.
The shit that happened five years ago had happened five fucking years ago. We weren’t kids in high school anymore. We were two adults trying to have a relationship. Fuck what happened five years ago. We didn’t even need the old shit; we had a whole new steaming pile of shit on top of us to deal with.
Cassie. Cassie’s baby. Cassie’s shit and her person in my home.
They had to see that I was serious about making this time work; that I had some sort of game plan. I wasn’t just the guy fucking their daughter.
Will used to say that the day I died, it would be because Liv’s dad had killed me. He wasn’t former military, or a bodybuilder or anything like that; he was just scary as hell. He was a loving father and husband, but he hadn’t been one all his life. Whatever he used to be in the past, it was something tough. Maybe a convict or something. I’d never asked. We were never really friends. Now I was about to tell him that I wanted to marry his daughter.
I didn’t tell Liv where I was going or that that was what I was going to do. She had told me what had happened when she went, and I figured putting a few weeks between the two visits was the best option.
Olivia’s mother answered the door when I knocked. Olivia looked like her, the hair and the shape of her face. She liked me—or hated me less than her husband did. She gave me juice, and asked me about my mother, the league—small talk before Liv’s dad showed up and tore me a new one. We were sitting in the den when he showed up, and I stood when I saw him. Reflex.
He didn’t even pretend he was happy to see me. At least he wasn’t bullshitting. He didn’t care to ask about me, and my life and how I had been; he went straight for the jugular, asking why the hell he had come downstairs and I was on his sofa.
“Mr. Sanger, I’m in love with your daughter. After I came back to the city, we met, and we’ve reconnected. I intend to ask her to marry me.” I had tried a hundred different versions of that statement, all I had to be was polite because whatever they said wasn’t going to change my mind.
“Heh. Now you want to tie her to you? You have a lot of balls coming to me and asking me that with the history we have had,” he said. He hadn’t bothered to sit down.
“With all due respect, sir, I didn’t come to ask you anything. I came to tell you. Olivia isn’t going to let anyone else’s disapproval of me stop her from becoming my wife if that is what she wants.”
He came towards me like he was going to square up. If he was going to hit me, I was not going to be held responsible for what happened after that.
“What kind of father would I be if I let my daughter marry a man I didn’t trust to take care of her?” he asked.
“No worse than the one who kept his daughter from the man she loved,” I said. “I respect that you want to protect her. That is what I want too. I want to spend the rest of my life protecting her. I chose her the first time, and I did it again this time. She’s the only thing I want in my life.
The only woman I care for. I know she’ll say yes. I think you should know that too.”
I braced myself. He could hit me if he wanted, I would probably deserve it. He gave me a once-over, from my face down to my feet, and back up again.
“I don’t want you as part of my family,” he said. Fair enough. I didn’t want him as part of my family either. I sighed.
“I hope we can move past our differences, Mr. Sanger because I’m not going anywhere unless Olivia asks me to.”
He then got too close to me for his wife’s comfort, and she asked me to leave the house. Whatever. I’d said what I needed to say. They knew I was marrying Liv, and that was all I wanted to tell them. It was a Saturday. I’d taken off work to use the afternoon to talk to Liv’s parents. I passed by the house and called her asking whether she wanted to go out. She wanted to stay in.
I came by at night, after the sun had gone down, around eight. I asked her whether she wanted me to bring dinner over, and she didn’t. Something about her roommate cooked, and there was food in the house already. The lacrosse player. We didn’t really talk when I went to their place, but apparently, Liv was right, he knew better than to try anything with her. He cooked too, more than I could say for Cassie.
When I got there, she made me pick between old episodes of The X-Files and The Twilight Zone. I chose The Twilight Zone, obviously. When Colin and I were kids, Mom used to watch it to death. She’d tell us Rod Serling was our dad, and we’d believe her. Of course we would. It was literally impossible, but we were kids; of course we ate it up. It was the ‘To Serve Man’ episode. Classic. Several minutes in, it was clear Olivia wasn’t as into the show as I was. One of her hands was on my stomach, and she started inching it down lower and lower, till her fingertips were at the waistband of my jeans. She suddenly sat up.
Alex (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 3) Page 17