by Hughes, Maya
“Just realized my parents fucked me over by paying my girlfriend to dump me. I’ll need another.”
He nodded grimly and fixed another whisky. He slid it across the bar, but a hand shot out and intercepted my drink. Harold’s gleaming reptilian glare stared down at me.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“Don’t you think you should fuck off?” I snatched the glass out of his hand.
My mom and dad slid onto the stools beside me.
Downing the drink in one gulp, I sucked in a sharp breath, letting the sting overtake me. Definitely not drunk enough.
“What the hell do you want?”
“We came to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Then you can listen.” Harold snapped his fingers and his horde of flying monkeys descended to clear the area around us.
I watched them persuade people to move to another part of the bar. This should be fun. I grimaced and sucked down the dregs of alcohol lining my glass.
Spinning on my seat, I stared back at Harold.
“What the hell are you two mixed up in?” I glanced between him and my parents.
“Your father is a very important man.”
I scoffed.
“A man who can have a future none of us could dream of if everyone works together to give him what he needs.”
“As if his coffers aren’t full enough. They’re certainly full enough to ruin his son’s life. I’m pretty sure they have everything they need.” I gestured to my mannequin parents with my glass.
“There are some things money can’t buy.” Harold crossed his arms over his chest. I was surprised the cuffs on his shirt didn’t cut him, they were so sharp.
“Like what?”
“Power.” The greed behind his words turned my stomach. “Your father will be running for governor and announcing his campaign after the midterms in November.”
“You two could barely keep a kid alive—how in the hell are you going to run a state?”
My dad opened his mouth but Harold cut him off. “That doesn’t matter. Those things can all be worked out, but we need your cooperation.”
“Fuck you.” I was about 3.5 seconds away from wrapping my hands around his throat.
“I don’t think you want to do that.”
“Why not?” I slammed my glass down. “What the hell do you need from me? Go run your campaign. I don’t give a shit. I don’t want to see any of you again. I’m done.” I peeled off a few bills from my wallet and threw them down on the bar.
“I don’t think you understand,” Harold seethed like he was barely able to keep his cool. Welcome to the club. “This is a package deal. We can’t have you off doing who knows what with God knows who while your dad is vying for office. We need you to be part of the fold.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you screwed me over.” I slid off my stool, and my dad put a restraining hand on my arm. I glanced down at it like someone had dropped a cockroach in the middle of the room.
“Don’t do this, son. We need you.”
For a second I thought he meant it, thought they actually needed me to help or something, but then the events of the past few months came back: the way they’d tried to set me up with Sloane, the questions from Harold. Every phone call and text had been calculated, dripping with ulterior motives I hadn’t known about until this moment.
“You were doing all this for your campaign.”
At least my dad had the decency to look embarrassed. Of course there wouldn’t be another reason he would start calling.
“That’s why you started calling me, texting me…”
“We needed to reconnect.” My mom’s flustered response and the way her gaze shifted around told me there was more. Why was everyone hiding the truth from me?
“Reconnect? You needed to get me to respond, get me to go along with your plan.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? What you complained about incessantly as a child?” My dad’s words slapped me then a sickening thought hit me.
“Did you even have a heart attack?”
“It doesn’t matter,” my mom interjected, her face a mask of irritation.
“It doesn’t matter?! I guess that answers my question, doesn’t it? You lied about having a heart attack to get a pass for being the worst parents—pathetic.” I shook my dad’s hand off my shoulder. Striding past them, I was a second from losing my shit.
“If you leave, we will cut you off.” Her voice followed me, grating on my eardrums.
Slowly, I turned to face them. “What do you mean ‘cut me off’?”
“We didn’t want to have to do this. We were trying to ease you into things, make it simple.” She said it like she was trying to convince me to have chocolate cake instead of vanilla.
“Make what simple?”
“Your involvement in public political life. The guidelines of the will and trust are very clear: we can push back the release of your trust and suspend annual distributions if we feel you’re not living up to the Cunning values.” Seemed my dad had finally developed a backbone, one I was ready to shove up his ass. Betrayal wasn’t even a word I could comprehend when it came to those two. You had to feel something for someone for them to betray you. These two were glorified strangers.
“And what values would those be?” I spat the words at them.
“We can keep you from ever accessing your trust if you don’t do as we say. Help your father reach his potential.”
The breath whooshed out of my lungs like I’d taken a puck to the chest completely unprotected.
“How in the hell is this possible?”
“There’s a provision in the trust where we can make the funds completely inaccessible until our deaths if we’d like to.” All pretense of the motherly air she’d been trying to put on was completely gone now. This was the ice cold like a mid-December morning mother I’d always known.
“What do you want?” My teeth ground together and my jaw ached. I needed that money. I was broke without it. The plans I’d had, my plans with Avery…they died without that money.
“We want you to be the perfect professional athlete son from now until the election—and beyond if things progress the way we want them to.”
“You want me to be part of your little charade of the perfect family.”
“There are certain things people expect of a public figure. They want to see a happy family.”
“Well, you’re starting your political career real early with the lies because we’re nothing like that.”
Harold scoffed. “Oh, please. Poor little rich boy. You’ve had your life handed to you on a silver platter. You can hardly moan that you lacked for anything.”
“Nothing but the love of the two people who should have loved me most.”
“It’s in the past. We have our eyes on the future. It’s a future for all of us, and there are certain sacrifices we all have to make.”
“Like me? Like Avery?” I winced. Her name on my lips was a gasp of air above the crashing surf.
“Emmett, you can’t be serious about that girl and her junkie father. Do you know what that type of entanglement could do for our family and our legacy?” My mom had apparently decided this was the time to assert her parental wisdom.
“All we did was tell that girl what she really was to you.”
My gut twisted. “What did you say to her?” I resisted the urge to punch my dad, to bloody his mouth. That would make for a nice photo op.
“Just that she wasn’t going to get her hands on our family money.”
“She never wanted it—never asked me for a single thing!”
“It would have come. It always does. And with her past, it never would have played well in the media.”
“What was the deal you made with her? The whole thing! All of it.”
“We told you.”
“No, you threw out the piece you knew would hurt me most.” And I’d fallen for it.
“We cleaned up her terrible family mess, had her father put into rehab, ensured child services wouldn’t take her sister, and made sure her father kept his job. A janitor—Emmett, can you not see what that type of association could do to our family?” She said the words like I’d been dating a murderer or someone who should have been committed to a mental institution. More like I’d been insane to ever think they could care about anyone other than themselves.
They used the same words as other people, but I had a hard time believing they were human. Alyson had been in danger of being taken away? Was that what my parents had threatened—to tell social services and actually get them to take her? Knowing my parents and how much they hated not getting their way, I wouldn’t have put it past them.
If Avery’s dad had lost his job, Alyson wouldn’t have been able to go to Rittenhouse. Avery had tried to explain it, tried to tell me everything…even recently, she’d tried, and I’d shut her out again, told her to get the hell away.
I stared up at the ceiling and squeezed my eyes shut. She should have told me back then. I could have helped, but with my parents holding all that over her head, there was no way she’d have risked anyone taking Alyson away. She’d have laid down in traffic for her. I hadn’t understood. How could I, coming from these two monsters? My angry glare turned on them. If her sister was in trouble, there were no lengths Avery wouldn’t go to to save her, and despite everything her dad had put her through, I knew she still loved him.
In a way, I was sure she could have turned all this around into what would have been best for me, especially if she knew my parents were against us being together. All my words about how great it was to reconnect with them, spending time with them, inviting her to stay with us as though we were an actual family… I’d made a confession to her late one night with a vulnerability I’d only let her see. I’d told her how much it sucked that my parents didn’t give a shit about me.
She’d sacrifice it all if it meant I got to have that wish. Everything I’d said to her about her being my only dream—I wasn’t going to let her doubt it again. Never again.
“I don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks of me being with Avery. You two…I don’t even have the words to describe what horrible fucking people you are. I want no part of it.”
“We know about the foundation. We know all about your financial situation. You don’t have a leg to stand on. How are you going to make it through the next few years without any money?”
“That’s nothing for you to worry about. Fuck you and your election. I’m not putting on any charade for you. You couldn’t even put on the charade of being good parents, and I’m sure as hell not sacrificing another second trying to be anything to either one of you. Good luck with your election,” I spat with a bitterness so sharp and acrid it stung my tongue. Storming out, I tried to pull myself together. I’d never not had my family money to fall back on. Even with hockey, if I wanted to quit, I could at any time. College had been an afterthought. Everything was an afterthought.
How did I do this without the money? It was so much a part of me. Who the hell was I without it? With cabs and cars whizzing by me on the street, I slid my phone out of my pocket and tapped on a contact, my hand shaking as I brought it up to my ear.
“I need a favor.”
33
Avery
“Avery, please come down. Declan already talked to him. He said he’s not coming. You need to pick up Percy.”
I stared at the big numbers flashing in the corner of the official website. It was the day of the auction. In less than an hour, Bread & Butter would be sold to the highest bidder. I squeezed my eyes shut. The dull ache from the last few days had turned into a wounded animal clawing its way out through my chest.
“Avery!”
I jerked, staring at the phone, and lifted it back to my face. “Sorry, Mak, I didn’t hear you.”
“I’m sorry, Avery. I’m so sorry.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I licked my dry lips. “Did he say anything?”
“I don’t know. Declan sounded pretty upset when he got off the phone. All the guys have been texting him. Declan told me his parents paid you to break up with him.”
My stomach coiled at the pity in her voice. She was there once again, offering me support, just like she had in high school.
“They did.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
“I’m sure you had your reasons. I saw you, Avery. I know you, and I know you’d never do something like that—would never be so selfish.”
“Maybe I’d be better off if I had been.” If I’d been uncaring enough to leave my sister behind and move in with Emmett, to not bail my dad out and let him feel the full consequences of his actions, to watch as Alyson got taken into foster care…maybe they’d have done better than I had, and my life would have—
Shaking my head, I didn’t let myself continue down toward where that path might lead. Guilt stabbed at my stomach for even thinking that way for a second.
“Are you coming down tomorrow?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I need to figure out a job, decide what the hell I’m going to do.”
“You need to come down here to pick up Percy. It’s a holiday, so no one is hiring. You’ll have the car and you can drive wherever you might need to go for job hunting the next day.”
The thought of facing the Kings after what had happened made me ill. I wrapped my arms around my waist. Nausea threatened to bring up what little I’d choked down earlier in the day. “I’ll figure something out.”
The haze I’d been living in didn’t look like it would be clearing anytime soon. Kicking the door on the way into the bedroom, I slammed my head down on my bed.
“Stop being ridiculous. Get down here and get your damn car.”
I let my head fall back against the hard mattress behind me. The floor was my new favorite place. I hadn’t been able to get up off it for days. No job, no college, no business, no money—worse off didn’t begin to describe it.
Dad was in rehab. Alyson was at USC. Everyone was on the path to something new—except me. I was stuck clinging to the ledge of a cliff over a bottomless pit.
“I’m coming back up there. I’ll drive the car to you.”
“What? No. Don’t do that. You’re right, tomorrow is the Fourth, and I know you have the big party planned. Don’t let me ruin it.”
“You’re not ruining anything. Let me come up there and get you. Come to the party. It will give you a chance to relax.”
The panic caused by the idea of Mak coming to my house and seeing where I’d lived all this time spurred me into action. “I’ll take the train to Atlantic City and you can pick me up from there. I can drop you back off and leave. No one else needs to know.” No use making her come all the way up. I could be down there and back before the party.
“Are you sure? Are you okay?”
No. “I’ll be okay. I’ll come down tomorrow. They’re on the holiday schedule, so there are only a few trains.”
“Let me know which one and I’ll be there.”
“Talk to you later, Mak.”
Ending the call, I stared at the light blue paint on my wall. After I clicked refresh on the webpage of the auction site, I saw a big red banner announcing it had been sold. The streaking tears weren’t accompanied by the tightness in my chest or a clogged throat. They poured down my face in silence. I had nothing left.
The sharp knock on the front door pulled me out of my daze. The soft sunlight that had been filtering in when I was on my call with Mak had been replaced by pitch black darkness. I wiped my hand across my face, drying my cheeks on my shirt.
Another rattling knock. Grabbing the baseball bat from the hallway, I crept down the hall and peered out the peephole.
Relaxing my grip on the bat, mostly from shock, I opened the door.
“What do you want?”
If there was someone slimier than Emmett’s parents, it was this guy. I’d seen him h
anging around the Cunnings that day in the penthouse, lurking in the background.
“Ms. Davis, we haven’t formally met. I’m Harold Sexton. I work for Mr. and Mrs. Cunning.”
“What do you want?” I hated the way his eyes raked over me as he stood outside my door.
“Perhaps this would be better to talk about inside.”
I wrapped my fingers around the door and leaned my body against it. “How about not.”
“Fine, we’ll do this your way.” He reached into his jacket pocket.
I recoiled, taking a step back and bringing the bat up, but it was just a thin white envelope that dangled from his fingers.
My eyebrows furrowed and I glanced between him and the cream paper. “What the hell is this?”
“This is the next chapter of your life.”
“I don’t want it.” I gritted my teeth. “They think they can pay me off again, get me to do what they want? This goes for all of you: fuck off!” I slammed the door, but it bounced back on me.
His shiny shoes probably cost more than I’d bought Percy for, but they were about to get seriously screwed up.
“Be reasonable, Ms. Davis. You have no money. You have a sister at USC and a dad in rehab. The Cunnings won’t be able to intervene for his job this time.”
“I don’t care. We’ll figure it out. I’m not going to let them buy me off again. I’ll find my own way like I always have, so you call tell them to take their bribe and shove it.” I jammed the bat into his foot, making him yelp and jump back.
Slamming the door in his face, I rested my head against it. They thought they could buy me off—again—thought they could treat people’s lives like they were inconvenient pieces on a board game they could maneuver as they pleased, but I wasn’t going to roll over for them anymore. No wonder Emmett couldn’t tell what was real from what wasn’t. His parents didn’t know how to deal with a problem they couldn’t solve with money.
The next day, I’d get Percy and go somewhere else, maybe visit Alyson in California.
Maybe I could even start over there.