“So where is it?”

I ignored his question.

Who knew what he was talking about, but I was always sorry when I let him get me to talk. I just shut the f**k up and breathed.

“You’ve been practically keeping one hand in your pants’ pocket almost the entire time of every f**king visit except today. What do you keep in there like a goddamn security blanket, and why don’t you have it all of a sudden?”

I chewed on my lip, tapped my foot, and then tried saying my cards in my head over and over again.

2-4-5-6-7. Spade, spade, spade, spade, heart.

The room, with its high ceilings and long hallways off to the sides, echoed with conversations I couldn’t make out, and the bustle of visitors filled the air. Light poured through the windows, but it didn’t make anything feel happier.

“You think I’m an ass**le.” My father put another card down and spoke quietly. “I am an ass**le, Jared. I’ve made you hard, but I’ve also made you strong. No one will hurt you again, because you’re untouchable. Even to that girl, you’re out of reach.”

I snapped my eyes up to meet his, and my cards crumpled in my fist. The deep rumble of his raspy laugh ripped Tate from my head.

“You got your money,” I gritted out, tight-lipped. “Shut up.”

He just shook his head and continued arranging his cards. “Does she know about you? About what a coward you are? About how you abandoned your brother?”

Jax.

“There is no ‘she.’” My lie came out as a mumble.

“You’re right,” he retorted. “You’ll always be alone, because you know that that’s better. And she’ll find someone to marry her and fill her with babies that aren’t yours.”

My stomach caved, and I didn’t think.

I slammed my cards down on the table and launched out of my chair, popping my father right across the jaw. The ache in my fist spread up my arm, and I watched as he fell out of his chair, onto the floor, still laughing his ass off.

My chest heaved as I breathed through my nose.

“Next week is my last visit,” I told him. “I won’t miss you, but I know you’ll miss me.”

“That’s enough of that.” I heard a voice say before I was grabbed by the arm.

Looking up, I saw a guard, a little taller than me with dark hair and light eyes, scowling.

I yanked my arm away from him. “No worries. I’m gone.” And I turned around, my jaw hard as cement as I walked out.

“Don’t worry, Jared,” my father yelled behind me. “We won’t stray far from each other. I’ll always be in your head.”

As soon as I got home from the visit, I found my mom in the kitchen with a cake.

“No way. I’m not in the mood.” My tone was hard, and I didn’t mean to cut her, but I backed out of the kitchen and walked towards the stairs.

“Jared, please,” she shouted after me.

I stopped, every muscle in my chest so stretched that I was ready to scream, and I spun around and charged back into the kitchen.

My mother stood on the other side of the kitchen table, brown hair in a high bun and arms at her sides. She was dressed nicely in jeans, heels, and a short jacket.

Gripping the back of the chair until the wood creaked beneath my fingers, I stared at her, trying to swallow down the fight I wanted.

“I appreciate the effort,” I told her. “I really do. But we’ve gotten along just fine without having to pretend that we’re an actual family. You do your thing. I do mine.”

My stomach was in knots, and my words spilled out like mud.

Her eyes dropped, but she recovered and lifted her chin.

“I want Jax to come and live with us,” she said matter-of-factly and out of nowhere.

I stopped breathing and narrowed my eyes on her, too shocked to even respond.

Excuse me?

Jax live with us?

She smiled a little and circled the table towards me before I even had a chance to process if she was kidding.

“Jared, I’ve already spoken to a lawyer. Nothing is for sure, but….” she paused, eyeing me carefully, “but he might be able to help. Do you want your brother with us?”

I wanted my brother safe.

I tightened my grip on the chair’s back. “Do you want him here?” I asked her.

Her eyes dropped, and her lips turned up with a thoughtful smile. “Yes. I like Jaxon.” And then she looked up at me again. “He brings out the best in you. Just like Tate used to.”

I couldn’t eat cake.

I didn’t like attention, and the idea of my mother making me blow out candles had me gagging.

I went to my room and close the door, enjoying the dark and quiet for however long I could have it.

Jax with us? I thought as I laid on my bed.

I still couldn’t believe she’d thought of it. That she wanted to take him in.

It was expensive, but she didn’t seem to care.

That was one issue I never pushed, even though it confused me. She worked in an accounting firm, earning enough to support us but not enough for what we had. Our house was paid for, I always had the best cell phones, and she had a nice car. Paid for.

To be honest, I was just afraid to ask. I didn’t want to know how we lived so well.

I got a text from K.C. saying she hoped we were friends, and she offered a thank-you for the help with her dipshit boyfriend.

He’ll be cheating again in a month. They always do. But I didn’t tell her that.

She also let it slip in a not-so-subtle way that Tate was on her own now. Her visiting grandmother had left town.

My lips turned up, and I was about to stalk over there and pick another fight with Tate when I got a text.

Everything good?

Tate’s dad.

Fine, I typed back.

You got the house key back to Tate, right?

Yes, I lied. I wasn’t ready to give that up yet.

Thanks. Happy 18. Present should be arriving soon.

Thanks, I typed back, not good at being gracious.

Tate’s birthday is in a week. Find out what she wants, he ordered.

I let out a sigh.

That might be difficult, I texted.

He shot back not thirty seconds later. A man…?

And I punched the bed with my fist.

…takes care of business. I reluctantly finished.

Make it happen, and thank you, he shot back.

I threw off my shirt and jumped in the hot shower, lulling me into some f**king peace and quiet for once in the last twenty-four hours.

I still couldn’t believe I’d hit my father. I’d never done that before, even to defend myself that summer.

I didn’t know why that comment about Tate having another man’s babies had gotten me so angry. My father had accomplished what he’d set out to do, and I’d fallen for it again.

I couldn’t think of myself as a father, now or any time in the future.

But one thing was for certain. Whether it was now or ten years from now, I didn’t want Tate having anyone else’s kids.

But someday she’d want them. Most people did.

And I swallowed the baseball-size lump that it wasn’t going to be me in her future.

Chapter 24

It was Monday morning, and I was breaking and entering for the first time in my life. Of my own free will, anyway.

My hands weren’t even shaking as I loaded the key into the lock and walked into the Brandts’ empty house. Tate had left for school a half hour ago, and I was a little aggravated that I was late for school, too. I’d hoped she’d be off early this morning, doing whatever she did in the chemistry lab, but not today. She’d left late, and now I was behind.

Tate’s dad wanted me to find out what she wanted for her birthday like we were friends or some shit, and he knew better. The only way I was going to find out the answer was to ask her, and our relationship wasn’t on good foundations.

So…I decided to snoop.

Yep, that’s what I thought was a good idea.

Check the history on her laptop, sift through her f**king journal, maybe look through her drawers for open boxes of condoms…

My leg tingled, and I took out my vibrating phone.

Where r u?

Madoc.

Late, I typed.

Closing the back door and slipping my keys back into my pocket, I walked through the kitchen and over to the stairs.

She was everywhere. The smell of her shampoo—like warm strawberries—made my mouth water.

I hadn’t seen or heard a thing from Tate all weekend. The truck had been in the driveway, but she seemed to be in hiding since Friday night.

I sucked in a long breath before I entered her room. Not sure why.

All I knew was that I felt turned on and perverted all at the same time.

I decided to be quick about it and get out.

I wasn’t a pu**y. I had the guts to sneak through someone’s shit.

Clothes were strewn throughout the otherwise neat room, and she’d added some more pictures and posters to the walls since I’d been in it.

My eyes roamed the space as I slowly walked around, and I saw her laptop but bypassed it and sat down on her bed instead.

My throat was dry.

Fuck.

I picked this moment to develop a conscience?

Her computer history might reveal exactly what I needed, or it may show me shit I didn’t need to know. She could be Googling face creams and designer umbrellas. Or she could be emailing some jerk she’d met in France or admissions offices for colleges far away.

I decided to start slow and opened her bedside table drawer instead.

There was some hand lotion, a small bowl full of rubber bands, some candy, and…a book.

I pinched my eyebrows and picked up the tattered, faded paperback that I hadn’t seen in years, but it seemed like just yesterday.

Memories poured in all at once.

Tate stuffing it in her backpack on her first day of junior high.

Tate trying to read some poem about Abraham Lincoln to me after swimming at the lake.

Tate’s dad taping the binding when Madman had run off with it.

The book—Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman—was older. Like twenty years. It had belonged to her mom, and Tate always kept it close. She used to take it with her anytime she left town for a trip.

Flipping through the pages, I searched for the poem—the only poem—that I liked. I couldn’t remember the name, but I remember she’d underlined the passage.

No sooner had I started flipping through when some pictures spilled out. I forgot the book and picked up the photos off my lap instead.

My heart pounded in the back of my throat.

Jesus.

It was us.

The pictures were of her and me. There were two, both when we were twelve or thirteen, and a ton of f**king emotions fell on me at once.

Tate kept pictures of me?

They were in her mother’s book that she treasured.

And she’d most likely taken these to France with her along with the book that held them.

I shook my head, my feet feeling like they were stuck in a bucket of cement.

She kept pictures of us like I kept pictures of us, and I smiled, feeling like I’d just won something.

And then the tiptoeing-through-the-fucking-tulips feeling that I was enjoying crashed to the ground as soon as I spied a black lace bra lying on her dresser. The tingling sensation of someone roller skating across my heart moved south, and now, I wanted to leave here in search of her.

My jaw moved, and I almost bit my tongue to keep my dick in check.

Well, well, well…Tate wore lingerie.

Her sleek body dressed in black lace blanketed my brain, and then I blinked.

Wait.

Realization dawned.

Tate wore lingerie.

Tate. Wore. Fucking. Lingerie!

What the hell for? And for who?

I ran a rough hand through my hair and felt the sweat on my forehead.

Fuck it.

Let her dad give her some money. That’s what every other teenager wants for their birthday, isn’t it?