Take Me On (28 page)

West

I changed into jeans and a T-shirt before driving to the bar. The private-school dress code would get my ass handed to me by a mob of angry laid-off union workers. Though getting the shit kicked out of me by a mob doesn’t sound like a bad idea. It could possibly hurt less than the memory of breaking not only my heart, but the heart of the only girl I’ve ever loved: Haley.

A few guys play poker at a table in the corner. It’s sad I’ve grown fond of the sour stench of spilled beer. Like always, Denny hovers over a laptop near the end of the bar. “You’re late.”

Worthington starts an hour later than public schools. I glance around. It kills me how much pride I’ve got in the dump. The tables and chairs I fixed, the mounting of the speakers, the woodwork along the bar. I finally found something I’m talented at and it all goes down the drain.

I suck in air to keep my fists from closing. I’m not reacting anymore. I’m thinking and I’m giving Haley what she needs. “Thanks for the opportunity, but I’m quitting.”

My boss’s muscles ripple as he straightens. Denny’s the most peculiar person I’ve met: a big-ass man who feeds a stray drug dealer and gives a job to a throwaway. “You crawled back to Daddy after all. I thought you had grown a fucking pair of balls.”

I never told him I was the rich boy. “You’re talking about stuff you don’t know about.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m talking about shit I’ve known about since your momma was in damned diapers. Sit you sorry ass down and wait.”

It’s like I’ve been absorbed in a tunnel when Denny shuts his laptop and heads into the back. All the sights and sounds and smells of the bar fade away as I sink onto a stool. Thoughts race in my mind... The months of wondering why my mother comes here... Was she having an affair... Abby telling me she came to see her brother...and as Denny slips out of the back with an overstuffed scrapbook in his hand, the horror of the truth makes me dizzy.

“You can still walk away.” Abby slinks up next to me. Doing something she’s never done before, she touches my arm. Nudges it and tilts her head to the exit at the same time. “It’s okay to not want to know some truths. Pretending is much easier. Trust me on this.”

I’m slow meeting her eyes. “Did you lie to me about why she came here?”

“I lie.” The confession with no apology. “It’s what I do to survive and every now and then I do it to help others survive. I need all the good karma I can get.”

The door to the entrance is propped open by a wedge of wood. I could leave and return to my old life like Dad suggested. So many routes to take: head to the party tonight at Mike’s, fill out the new paperwork for the University of Louisville or stay. Leaving could be blissful—to remain ignorant of things that I have no doubt will change me.

Denny drops the scrapbook onto the bar and the sound awakens the drunks and me. Like it’s a spell book that contains magic that can alter history, my hand hovers over the cover, fingertips barely brushing the edge.

“There’s no going back after this,” says Abby. “No take backs.”

There was no going back the moment I met Haley. Regardless of what’s in this book, I’m changed for good. I open it and close my eyes. It’s me— It’s a fucking picture of me. My body convulses like I’ve been shot multiple times.

I reopen my eyes at the sound of pouring liquid. Denny fills two shot glasses with straight Maker’s. He inches one to me and toasts me with the other. “To family and whatever the fuck that means.”

He swigs the shot. I stare at mine, half thinking the burn of bourbon will erase the information, but I made my bed... I chuckle... No, Mom made her bed and now I’m lying in it.

“Dad said they didn’t meet in college.” But even when he said that, I assumed Dad was the one who messed up, not Mom.

“Tell you that, did he?” Denny laughs like one of us told a joke. “That man’s a real piece of work.”

“Mom said she made mistakes.” Especially when she grieves over Colleen. Mom would sit in a ball on the floor of Colleen’s room and wonder if her death was the punishment for Mom’s past unknown crimes. I imagined the worst thing she did was speed on the freeway.

Denny pours himself another drink. “She made a mistake by screwing a Young and accepting his marriage proposal over mine. Colleen wasn’t a mistake, even if she was biologically a Young. You weren’t a mistake, either. You were a glimpse of what Miriam and I should have had to begin with.”

The world loses focus and I rip out the picture of me as an infant in this very fucking bar. “I was conceived to save Colleen, so this is bullshit.”

“That idea only occurred to your mom after the stick turned blue. Half genes had to count, right? Your mom was born and bred in this neighborhood. She always thought fast on her feet in order to survive. Except when that Young decided to flip off his parents by slumming it on our side of town. She couldn’t see straight when he showed.”

“They met at a bar?”

“This bar. My dad owned it then.” His eyes flicker to Abby, who’s stayed unusually silent. “Dad also had a habit of taking care of those who needed it.”

“How long has the affair been going on between you and Mom?”

He smirks. “The one your mom had when she cheated on me with your father and got pregnant with Colleen, or the one night your mother and I spent together when she found out Colleen’s cancer progressed to stage four and your father took a business phone call after getting the news?”

Mom’s from this neighborhood.

Mom’s from this neighborhood and her boyfriend used to be the guy in front of me. Dad said that he went wild when he was younger. I guess this is where he ended up. In this bar, hitting on my mother and they created Colleen. Then they got married and lied to us.

They lied.

They lied because everything with the Youngs is about image.

When life became complicated, after my parents had built a marriage with three children, they buckled under the weight of a sick child and my mother came here...to Denny... She returned to what she knew and she made me.

“Sounds like he’s not my father.”

“He gave you what I couldn’t.” Denny stretches his arms wide. “You’re looking at my palace. Screams day care, doesn’t it?”

I shove the picture into my back pocket. “Don’t fuck with me. I know she comes here on the third Friday of every month.”

Abby reaches over and flips the album to the middle and there are more pictures of me. “She comes to bring him pictures. It’s what he asked for when he gave up rights.”

“Why not mail them?” I push. “She visits because you two are still involved.”

Denny shakes his head. “If I had to give you up, your mother had to show here once a month and face the decisions she made. She has to look me in the eye, knowing what she’s denying me. Me and Miriam, it didn’t continue. Even after that night we spent together, she still belonged to your dad. That was never a question.”

What was he forcing her to face? That I wasn’t in his life or that she wasn’t? But the question stays internal.

“Here’s the truth.” He shuts the album. “Your mom and dad made mistakes and so have I. We were young and didn’t know who the fuck we were. I’ve seen you change over the last two months. You can go back to that huge house and play marionette for the Youngs just like your mom and dad did or you can break the chains and make your own decisions.”

I jump off the stool, then kick it out of the way as I step into his space. The stool snaps and rattles against the ground. “You don’t know what I’m up against.”

“If it’s the Youngs, it contains control and money. Just a tidbit of fatherly advice—once you start down that path, it’s like entering a savage garden. It’s beautiful until the vines tear you apart. Your mom used to be a different person. She used to be full of life.”

I loathe the pity flowing out of Abby’s eyes and I suddenly understand why she hates it. “Why the hell am I listening to you? You gave me up.”

“Funny,” says Denny, “how you still ended up here. The kid who walked in here two months ago thought being a man meant calling out every asshole on the block. Tell me, are you the same stupid kid or have you figured out what being a man truly means?”

Haley

The skies finally opened up and erupted in rain. My hair sticks to my face and my shirt clings to my body as I enter my uncle’s. I shiver against the combination of the warmth of the house and the cold drops of rain that slither down my arms. My toes go behind my heel to kick off my shoe, but I stop when Mom walks into the living room with a phone pressed to her ear. Her face is white and her fingers shake.

“If you hear from him, you’ll let me know?” she asks. Everything is wrong. The house sits silent. My uncle doesn’t rule the world from his chair. My younger cousins aren’t shoving each other against a wall. Maggie isn’t drawing on the floor.

“Okay, thanks.” She clicks off the phone and she looks at me. “I thought you were heading to the gym after school.”

I fight the automatic tears with the mention of anything associated with West. “I changed my mind. Where’s Paul?”

“Your aunt persuaded him to leave with her to help me out. I need time.”

The way her hands shake sets me on edge. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s your father. He’s missing.”

West

It’s close to midnight and I slam the back door to the kitchen. My mother spins. Her cell phone is tight to her ear and her eyes are wide and puffy. “He’s here.”

Mom pushes a button and lowers the phone. I’ve spent hours driving, thinking about my mother: her asking me continually to use a napkin at the dinner table, the glares when I’d wear a hat backward at a charity event, teaching which fork to use at a dinner party, the countless tux ties she’d undone and done again. “You lied.”

“I didn’t think Denny would tell you.”

“For eighteen years I’ve thought I was a failure. I thought
I
was the reason Colleen died, but I was never going to be a match to begin with.”

Her hand flashes to her heart. “They said there might be a slim hope, so I did hope, and it gave your father hope, and he was able to see past my mistake and love you because you were going to be our answer.”

I throw my arms out. “And then he hated me once I failed!”

“That’s not true.” Dad walks into the kitchen.

Dark hair, dark eyes and nothing like me. “Is it a relief I’m not yours? You must have been dying to tell me since when, fifth grade?”

Dad loosens the tie stuck at his throat. “You’re my son.
My
son. I never wanted you to know.”

I yank the picture out of my back pocket and slam it on the island. “I’m not your son.”

The moment I hit the hallway, I turn. “I gave up Haley because of you. I gave up the one person who meant a thing to me.”

Mom comes up behind Dad and sets a hand on his shoulder. I don’t understand the two of them. They hurt each other, betray each other, lie and cheat and yet they still act like they are in love.

Dad covers her hand with his. “You’re wrong about Haley. You didn’t give her up because of me. You gave her up to help you. To help her.”

I chuckle. The son of a bitch has actually said something right. “True, but if it wasn’t for you trying to control me, I wouldn’t have been faced with a choice between living in hell without her or being a bastard for keeping her from her dreams.”

“Let’s sit,” he says. “Let your mom and I explain.”

I don’t say no. Instead I walk away.

Haley

Jax shines the flashlight on me and I raise my hand up to keep from becoming blinded. “It’s almost curfew, Haley. Go home.”

“I’m n-n-o-t-t-t g-g-g-oing.” My teeth audibly chatter. The rain hammers the pavement and pools on the street. The three of us of have been searching for hours for my father. He’s been gone for two days. It turns out Dad started staying out all night over the past three months. Mom kept it a secret from us because he showed early the next morning, and she was able to smuggle him in before my uncle woke for work. This was the first time he’s been missing this long.

The spring rain ushers in colder temperatures and with midnight looming, the three of us comb the neighborhood one last time. Jax takes my hand and guides me under the freeway viaduct. A tractor trailer passes overhead and the steel and concrete surrounding us rumbles.

Kaden rips off his soaked sweatshirt to expose a long-sleeve undershirt. He pulls the dry shirt off and hands it to me. I shake my head that I don’t need it as I rub my hands over my arms to fight the chill. “Take it, Hays, or I’ll strip you myself to put it on you.”

Both of them turn as I pry the wet material off and shrug into Kaden’s semidry and warm shirt. I roll the sleeves up and wish I was under a pile of dry blankets. “I’m done.”

They face me again and Kaden yells over the roaring rain. “Now go home!”

I wish I could. “He’s my father, too!”

Jax inches closer. “You’ve never slept on the streets. It’s going to get damned cold soon.”

“Three sets of eyes will find him faster. You’re wasting time! What if he’s out here? What if something happened to him?”

“Go tell Dad what we’re doing,” Jax says. “Maybe he’ll let us in tonight if he knows we’re searching for his brother. You know your mom and Maggie are upset. Be with them. They need you.”

My jaw aches with the constant chattering. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

Jax’s whitish hair is plastered to his head. “You’re becoming hypothermic and we don’t need a hospital run on top of finding your dad. Go home.”

“What about you guys? Where will you stay if it gets too cold?” The last bus to the gym left a half hour ago.

“When are you going to learn we’re tougher than we look?” Jax flashes a sly grin. “Go on. Get going. There are minutes left until curfew.”

Begrudgingly, I walk into the pounding rain. A car comes up the road and I step into the grass to avoid becoming two points against the driver’s license. The lights hit me and I look away to avoid the brightness and that’s when I spot movement down the freeway ditch.

My heartbeat rushes to my ears as I recognize the tan coat. “Kaden! Jax!”

I race down the gully, fumbling and sliding down the hill, and scream for my family again. They yell back my name and their footsteps pound behind me. Beams of light bounce on the dirt before me. The saturated ground gives and my feet slip out from underneath me. My hands fly back to break the fall, and Jax catches me from behind as Kaden rushes past.

Kaden bends over the form. “It’s him! Jax, I need you!”

I steady my feet and Jax jumps down and helps Kaden draw my father up. Shivers run through me and it’s not from the cold, but from the fear. “Is he okay?” He has to be. My heart can’t take much more loss.

“Fuck!” mutters Jax as he crouches in front of him. “He’s drunk.”

Not caring if the entire hill has dissolved into a mudslide, I collapse back onto my butt. My father, the man who hardly ever drinks, is drunk and there’s no way my uncle will allow anyone who touches alcohol in his house. “We’re all screwed.”