After Ever Happy (After #4) (2 page)

My stomach turns at the memory of Vance’s mouth on hers.

“But Ken swept her off her feet immediately. They spent every moment of every day together, just like Max and Denise did. The five of us had formed a little clique, you could say.” Lost in the ridiculous memory, he sighs. and his voice becomes distant. “She was witty, smart, and head over heels for your dad—fuck. I’m not going to be able to stop calling him that . . .” He groans. His fingers tap on the steering wheel, as if to goad him on.

“Ken was smart—quite brilliant, really—and when he got into university with a full scholarship and early admission, he became busy. Too busy for her. He would spend hours upon hours at the school. It quickly became the four of us without him, and things between your mum and I . . . well, my feelings grew tremendously and hers began.”

Vance takes a momentary break to switch lanes and turn the vent so more air comes in. The air is still heavy and thick, and my mind is a fucking whirlwind when he starts up again.

“I always loved her—she knew that—but she loved him, and he was my best friend.” Vance swallows. “As the days and nights went by, we became . . . intimate. Not sexually at this point, but we were both giving in to our feelings and not holding back.”

“Spare me the fucking details.” I clench my fists on my lap, forcing my mouth to close so he can finish.

“Okay, okay, yeah.” He stares out the windshield. “Well, one thing led to another, and we were having a full-blown affair at this point. Ken had no idea. Max and Denise suspected something, but neither of them spoke up. I begged your mum to leave him for neglecting her—I know it’s fucked-up, but I loved her.”

His brows knit together. “She was the only escape I had from my own self-destructive behaviors. I cared about Ken, but I couldn’t see past my love for her. I never could see past it.” He blows out a hard breath.

“And . . .” I press after a few seconds of silence.

“Yes . . . Well, and so when she announced that she was pregnant, I thought we would run away together and that she would marry me instead of him. I promised her that if she chose me, I would quit fucking off and would be there for her . . . for you.”

I feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to look into them.

“Your mum felt I wasn’t stable enough for her, and I sat there biting my tongue while she and your—Ken—announced that they were expecting and that they would be married that same week.”

What the fuck?
I look over at him, but he’s clearly lost in the past as he stares at the road ahead.

“I wanted the best for her, and I couldn’t drag her through the mud and ruin her reputation by telling Ken or anyone the truth of what happened between us. I kept telling myself that he had to know deep down that it wasn’t his child growing inside of her. Your mum swore that he had not touched her in months.” Vance’s shoulders shake lightly as an evident chill runs through him. “I stood there in my suit at their small wedding as his best man. I knew he would give her what I couldn’t. I wasn’t even planning to go to university. All I did with my time was pine after a married woman and memorize pages from old novels that would never become my life. I had no plan, no money, and she needed both of those things.” He sighs, trying to escape the memory.

Watching him, I’m surprised by what comes to mind and what I feel compelled to say. I form a fist, then relax, trying to resist.

Then I form a fist again, and I don’t recognize my voice as I ask, “So basically my mum used you for her entertainment and tossed you aside because you had no money?”

Vance lets out a deep breath. “No. She didn’t use me.” He glances in my direction. “I know it seems that way, and it’s such a fucked-up situation, but she had to think of you and your future. I was a complete and utter fuckup—complete rubbish. And I had nothing going for me.”

“And now you have millions,” I bitterly remark. How can he defend my mum after all this shit? What is wrong with him? But then something in me turns, and I think about my mother, losing two men who later turned out to be rich, while she toils away at her job, coming home to her sad little house.

Vance nods. “Yes, but there was no way to know how I would turn out. Ken had his shit together, and I didn’t. Period.”

“Until he started getting shit-faced every night.” My anger starts building again. I feel as if I will never escape this anger as the sharp sting of betrayal cuts through me. I spent my childhood with a fucking drunk while Vance was living the high life.

“That was another one of my fuckups,” says this man who I was so sure for so long that I knew, that I really
knew
. “I went through a lot of shit after you were born, but I enrolled in university and loved your mum from afar . . .”

“Until?”

“Until you were about five years old. It was your birthday, and we were all there for your party. You came running into the kitchen, yelling for your daddy—” Vance’s voice cracks, and I ball my fist tighter. “You had a book clutched to your chest, and for a second I forgot that you weren’t talking about me.”

I slam my fist on the dashboard. “Let me out of the car,” I demand. I can’t listen to this anymore. This is so fucked-up. It’s too much for me to comprehend at once.

Vance ignores my outburst and keeps driving along this residential street. “I lost it that day. I demanded that your mum tell Ken the truth. I was sick of watching you grow up, and by then I had already secured my plans to move to America. I begged her to come with me, and to bring you, my son.”

My son.

My stomach lurches. I should just jump out of the car, moving or not. I look out at the pleasant little houses we travel past, thinking I will take physical pain over this any day.

“But she refused and told me that she had some testing done and . . . and that you weren’t my child after all.”

“What?” I reach up to rub my temples. I would crack the dashboard with my skull if I thought it would help.

I look over at him and see him looking left and right quickly. Then I notice the speed we’re traveling at and realize that he’s running every stoplight and stop sign, trying to make sure I don’t jump out. “She panicked, I guess. I don’t know.” He eyes me. “I knew she was lying—she admitted there were no tests many years later. But at the time, she was adamant; she told me to leave it alone and apologized for making me think you were mine.”

I focus on my fist. Flex, release. Flex, release . . .

“Another year went by, and we began speaking again . . .” he starts, but something is off in his tone.

“You mean
fucking
again.”

Another hard exhale escapes his mouth. “Yes . . . every time we were near one another, we made the same mistake. Ken was working a lot, studying for his master’s by that point, and she was home with you. You were always so much like me; every time I came over, you had your face buried between pages. I don’t know if you remember, but I would always bring books to you. I gave you my copy of
The Great Gats—
”

“Stop.” I cringe at the adoration in his voice while distorted memories fog my mind.

“We kept this going on and off for years, and we thought everyone was oblivious. It was my fault; I could never stop loving her. No matter what I did, she haunted me. I moved closer to their house, directly across the street. Your father knew; I don’t know how he knew, but it became clear that he did.” After a pause and a turn down another street, Vance adds, “He started drinking then.”

I sit up, slamming my palms against the dashboard. He doesn’t even flinch. “So you left me with an alcoholic father who was only an alcoholic because of you and my mum?” The anger in my voice fills the car, but I can barely breathe.

“I tried to convince her, Hardin. I don’t want you blaming her, but I tried to tell her to bring you to live with me—but she wouldn’t.” His hands run over his hair, and he tugs at the roots. “His drinking became heavier and more frequent every week, but she still wouldn’t admit that you were mine—not even to me—so I left. I had to leave.”

He stops talking, and when I look over at him, his eyes are blinking rapidly. I reach for the door handle, but he accelerates and presses the power locks several times in a row, the
click-click-click
seeming to echo around the car.

Vance’s voice is hollow when he starts talking again. “I moved to America, and I didn’t hear from your mum for years, not until Ken finally left her. She had no money and was working herself to the bone. I had already started bringing in money, not nearly as much as I have now, but enough to spare. I came back here and got a place for us, the three of us, and I took care of her in his absence, but she grew more and more distant from me. Ken sent divorce papers from wherever the hell he’d run off to, and still she didn’t want anything permanent from me.” Vance frowns. “After all I did, I still wasn’t enough.”

I remember his taking us in after my dad left, but I never thought too much into it. I had no idea that it was because he had a history with my mum, or that I could be his son. My already tattered view of my mum is completely shredded now. I’ve lost all respect for her.

“So when she moved back into that house, I still took care of both of you financially, but I went back to America. Your mum started returning my checks each month and wouldn’t answer my calls, so I started to assume that she’d found someone else.”

“She didn’t. She just spent every hour of every day working.” My teenage years were lonely at home; that’s why I found company with the wrong crowd.

“I think she was waiting for him to come back,” Vance says quickly, then pauses. “But he never did. He stayed a drunk year after year until something made him finally decide he had had enough. I didn’t talk to him for years until he contacted me when he moved to the States. He was sober, and I had just lost Rose.

“Rose was the first woman since your mum that I could look at and not see Trish’s face. She was the sweetest woman, and she made me happy. I knew I would never love anyone as bright as I did your mum, but I was content with Rose. We were happy, and I was building a life with her, but I’ve been damned . . . and she grew sick. She gave birth to Smith, and I lost her . . .”

I gape at the thought. “Smith.” I’ve been too busy trying to put the fucked-up pieces together to even think about the boy. What does this mean?
Fuck
.

“I thought of that little genius as my second chance to be a father. He made me whole again after his mother died. I was always reminded of you as a boy; he looks just like you did when you were young, only with lighter hair and eyes.”

I remember Tessa claiming the same thing after we met the kid, but I don’t see it. “This is . . . this is fucked-up” is all I can think to say. My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I just look at my leg, like it’s some phantom sensation, and I can’t seem to move myself to answer the call.

“I know it is, and I’m sorry. When you moved to America, I thought I would be able to be close with you without being a father figure. I stayed in contact with your mum, hired you on at Vance, and tried to grow as close to you as you would let me. I repaired my relationship with Ken, even though there will always be hostility. I think he pitied me after I lost my wife, and by that point he had changed so much. I only wanted to be close to you—I would take anything I could get. I know you hate me now, but I would like to think I accomplished that for a little while at least.”

“You’ve been lying to me my entire life.”

“I know.”

“So have my mum and my . . . Ken.”

“Your mum is still in denial,” Vance says—another excuse for her. “She will barely admit it even now. And as for Ken, he always had his suspicions, but your mum has never confirmed it. I believe that he still focuses on the slight chance that you are his son.”

I roll my eyes at the absurdity of what he’s said. “You’re telling me that Ken Scott is stupid enough to believe that I’m his child after all the years of you two fucking around behind his back?”

“No.” Stopping the car at the side of the road, he puts it in park and looks over at me, serious and intense. “Ken is
not
stupid. He’s hopeful. He loved you—he still loves you—and you are the only reason he stopped drinking and went back to finish his degree. Even though he knew the possibility was there, he still did all of that for you. He regrets all the hell he put you through and all the shit that happened to your mum.”

I flinch as the images haunting my nightmares flow behind my eyes. As I relive what those drunken soldiers did to her all those many years ago.

“There wasn’t any testing done? How do you know you’re even my father?” I can’t believe this question is being asked.

“I know it. You know it, too. Everyone always said how much you looked like Ken, but I know it’s my blood that runs through your veins. The timeline doesn’t add up for him to be your father. There is no way that she was pregnant by him.”

I focus on the trees outside, and my phone starts to buzz again. “Why now? Why are you telling me this now?” I ask, my voice rising, my barely existent patience evaporating.

“Because your mum has grown paranoid. Ken mentioned something to me two weeks ago, asking you to get some blood testing done to help Karen, and I brought it up to your mum—”

“Testing for what? What does Karen have to do with any of this?”

Vance glances down at my leg, then at his own cell phone resting on the middle console. “You should answer that. Kimberly is calling me as well.”

But I shake my head. I’ll call Tessa as soon as I’m out of this car.

“I really am sorry for all of this. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, going to her house last night. She called me, and I just . . . I don’t know. Kimberly is to be my wife. I love her more than anything—even more than I ever loved your mum. It’s a different type of love; it’s reciprocated, and she is everything to me. I made a huge mistake seeing your mum again, and I will spend my life making up for that. I won’t be surprised if Kim leaves me.”

Oh, spare me the sad-sack act.
“Yeah, Captain Obvious. You probably
shouldn’t
have been trying to fuck my mum on the counter.”