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It’s not like too many people were reaching out to him on the weekends unless it was for a work emergency, and in his eyes, he was entitled to some time away from his job.
Though he was committed to his business, he didn’t have to bust his ass to make ends meet.
When he saw it was his mother calling, he was going to walk away from it, but he hadn’t talked to her in...he couldn’t remember.
They didn’t talk. They might text a few times a year and that was birthdays or holidays and being cordial more than anything.
There were times he wanted to wipe her from his life but couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be that cold and it would make him no better than her.
If he learned one thing from his father, it was forgiveness. Or so he was trying. He just couldn’t seem to forgive himself.
“Hello,” he said when he hit the button. Maybe it was important or an emergency. Hard to say, but it wouldn’t hurt to find out.
“Knox,” his mother said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d pick up the phone or not.”
“I did,” he said. “What’s up?”
“That’s not much of a greeting,” his mother said.
“If you thought I wouldn’t pick up then what kind of greeting were you expecting I’d give you?”
There was silence on the other end. “Good point,” his mother said.
“Then what is going on?” he asked.
“I hate to ask you this.” She paused and he held back his sigh. “But Blaze’s tuition is due and I’m falling short.”
He should have expected this. When his mother found out his father had hit the lotto for millions years ago, she’d been more livid than he had ever seen.
Karla Bradford had wiped her hands of Dan Bradford twenty years ago. She’d never changed her name, never remarried, but the divorce was as fast as his father could do it.
You’d think that his father had this money back then or that his mother actually loved his father with the way she reacted when he won the lotto.
She acted like she’d been robbed of something and had cursed and sworn for the entire five months she’d known about it until his father passed.
When Knox was left everything, that was when things got even worse between his mother and him.
“Not my problem,” he said. “It’s your kid. Hit up Blaze’s father. Or don’t remember who it is? We know it’s not my father.”
“Are you ever going to let me live this down?” his mother asked.
“No,” he said. “You made your choices in life. You chose other men over Dad.”
“He wasn’t an easy man to be around. He wasn’t someone who ever let anyone in. Maybe if he did I wouldn’t have strayed.”
“Don’t go there again,” he snapped. Knox wasn’t going to listen to his father get shit on anymore. “If that was your biggest issue then when you were divorced you wouldn’t have cheated on every man you had a relationship with. You’re a serial cheater because you want what you want when you want it. If the person you are with can’t give it to you, you find someone else. No one stays withyou, not the other way around.”
“That is a horrible thing to say,” his mother said.
“The truth can be that way,” he said. “We don’t need to hash everything out again. I’m over it.”
“I told you how your father was,” his mother said.
“In your eyes. Your relationship with him had nothing to do with me. My biggest issue is what you said about him to me. Lies to make me not want to be with him. To resent him. And I spent years being pissed when I was forced to spend time with him.”
Time he could have used to get to know his father more.
To have a relationship with the man.
