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“I know,” she said. “I do have to think it through at times.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “What about Lara? You said you’re close.”
“She’s sixteen. To her I’m an older sister rather than an aunt. She texts me a lot and we talk when I call Quinn, but it’s more texts with her. She’s at that age where sometimes she butts heads with her parents.”
“You never said anything about Davy and Lara’s mother,” he said.
“She’s in New York City. She works as some fashion buyer or something. I don’t know the whole story, but her career was more important to her than her kids. They might see her once a year if that. The kids never ask to see her and she barely communicates with them. Max lets the kids make those decisions. He long since stopped forcing them to visit and his ex doesn’t push it.”
“Then I’m glad they’ve got your sister.”
“That’s a sweet thing to say. They love her more than their mother. I know it sounds horrible, but…”
“Not horrible if they are cared for and get the attention and affection they need,” he said.
“Thanks for that. I feel the same way. Just because someone fathered or birthed you doesn’t give them the right to actually be your parent or tell you what to do.”
When he angled his head at her she wished she hadn’t said that. She didn’t bring up her mother or brothers often.
Brett and Annie had their life with their kids. They were worn down and working more than one job each while trying to make ends meet. Quinn helped when Annie accepted it behind Brett’s back. Karl, he was trying to get his shit together after finally being released early from prison last year. Her mother was still locked up and Lilian was fine with that.
Armed robbery and the last guy she hooked up with was holding Quinn hostage with a gun while the police were outside.
Trevor Miles was the Chief of Police back then and, in an odd twist of fate, the man who helped get Quinn back when she stupidly walked into their mother’s hotel room ended up marrying Max’s sister, Riley, years later.
Karl had been coaxed into the robberies with their mother, thinking he was going to visit Quinn. He’d gotten a lighter sentence for cooperating and Quinn had footed the bill for the attorney.
Their mother could rot in prison for the rest of her life in Lilian’s eyes, but she doubted that would happen. Rae Baker would get out at some point, she was sure.
“That’s true,” he said. “What about Jocelyn and Carson?”
She liked that he wasn’t pushing her on her mother.
“Jocelyn is a doll. Carson too, but Carson is attached to his father at the hip. I think he was upset and didn’t understand why Davy had to go away to college. And then I left too. So his world got turned upside down. Quinn said he struggled at first and cried when Max left for work each day.”
“That’s hard,” he said. “When my father died, we had that problem with Talia and Nelson. Talia was four and Nelson six. I mean, it’s not like they saw my father much. He was always gone, and to them, West and I were the men of the house being the oldest.”
“That is a lot of responsibility on your shoulders,” she said. “You were fifteen?”
“I was. So though it wasn’t like they understood our father was never coming back, it was more that West had left for college. He wasn’t that far away. Just under two hours but not enough to commute daily. Though he came home on the weekends to help out as much as he could.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Where did you go to college?”
“I went to Wake Forest like West did,” he said. “Just under two hours away. I went to law school there too.”
She always thought Braylon tried to be like West. That he looked up to him so much but didn’t realize they went to college together too.
“That’s not an easy college to get into, is it?” she asked.
“No. We both got good grades, but then add on my father’s career and we got all sorts of aid and grants. It made sense for us to go together. We didn’t live together though. He was in senior dorms and I was a freshman. He got his MBA there so he was there one extra year for that. But it helped that we both went home together on the weekends. It’s not like there were a lot of cars and West had one.”
“You guys all worked together,” she said. “I know the world probably looks at West as this hardass.”
“Which he can be,” he said.
“But he’s not,” she said. “I’ve seen a different side to him.”
“Not many do,” he said. “I’m glad you can see it.”
