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“Okay,” I say. “All right. Spill it, boys. What’s going on with you two?”
Cade looks at Jonah and widens his eyes as if to tell him to stay quiet, but Jonah starts talking.
“Kids were teasing us today about what’s been going on. They said our moms are both liars and that means we must be liars too.” His eyes are turned down to the ground as he confesses.
“Oh, honey,” I say, and I kneel down and wrap my arms around him as Sam does the same to her son. “None of us are liars, and sometimes kids say things when they really don’t understand the whole story.”
“I know, but they don’t believe me when I tell them the truth. They just believe what their parents repeated.” Jonah starts to cry, but Cade remains stoic and quiet.
“I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this,” I murmur, and the hate I feel for Rivera rises a few levels as I think about how this isn’t affecting just me or just Lincoln. There’s a whole network of people he hurt because he was trying to get ahead, and it’s such utter bullshit that he wasn’t fired on the spot. I’m sorry all of us are dealing with this, but I can’t pretend like I didn’t make some mistakes along the way, too. “We’ll get through it, okay?” I rub his back and he sniffles and nods.
“Who wants ice cream?” Sam asks brightly, and both boys seem to perk up a little at that.
She makes them sundaes while I clean out their backpacks, and we even get them to crack smiles by the time they’re done eating them.
I covertly check my phone to see if Lincoln has tried to get it touch, but it’s still nothing, and now I’m starting to get worried.
So eventually I text him.
Me: Are you okay? Are we okay?
And then I wait.
CHAPTER 17: LINCOLN
This has been the day from hell.
After the press release went out, my phone never stopped ringing. Megan is able to screen my professional calls, but it’s all the personal ones that are keeping me from getting a single fucking thing accomplished.
I declined calls without even checking to see who they were from, and eventually I had to mute the damn thing and ignore it.
I’ve been in and out of meetings all day, and I’ve discovered my brother will not be getting a paycheck while he’s suspended, which means I’m out seven hundred fifty K for the moment since I paid off his debts for him and he doesn’t have the money to pay me back.
And since he doesn’t have a paycheck, he has a decision to make about where he’s going to live. He had planned to share a house with Gabe Kessler and Noah Hawkins, two rookies new to the Aces, but if he can’t make rent, he can’t stay there, and he really shouldn’t stay with anyone on the team.
Including me.
Which means that for now, the twenty-seven-year-old adult will be moving back in with dear old Mom and Dad.
I’m not sure being with Dad is the best place for him, but it’s his life to live, not mine. And I’m currently struggling with my own, as it turns out.
Things start to quiet down after regular business hours when most everyone heads home, but I stick around the office a while longer. I order in dinner, and it’s almost nine when I finally head home.
And I find my father sitting in his car in my driveway as he waits for me to get home.
Fuck.
I consider driving around the block and running the fuck away because the last thing I want to do right now is face him, but I know he saw me, and furthermore, I know that’s not a real option.
I pull into my garage, and he stands in my driveway waiting.
“Hey there, Pops,” I say more brightly than I feel, and he just shakes his head as he glares at me.
“What the fuck have you done?”
I blow out a breath. “The right thing?” I say it as a question, but I mean it like an insult.
He rolls his eyes. “The right goddamn thing is protecting your family. Protecting your own. Not turning your brother in like some goddamn criminal.”
