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“What we do is none of their business,” Oz growls angrily.
“Well, yeah, but I mean you have to tell them,” Danny says, furrowing his brow at his friend.
“Why would we?” Oz asks.
“Because they’re our parents,” I whisper.
“Are you still tight with them?” Oz asks, his voice dropping two octaves to a rough rasp.
“I don’t really see them much. I usually visit for a couple of days at Christmas, but I speak to my mom sometimes. We have to tell them eventually.”
“The fuck we don’t, we can tell my grandpa, he’s the only decent family member I’ve got. He’ll fucking love you, Little One, he’ll try to steal you from me the moment he meets you.”
“What about your mom?”
“She’ll lose her shit if she finds out I married Maureen’s kid. I haven’t seen her in years, no point rocking the boat.”
“So you want to keep us getting married a secret?” I ask quietly, twisting around on his lap so I can turn to look at him.
“No, I want everyone important in my life to know. My mom is a recovering alcoholic, and my dad’s an asshole. I don’t have a relationship with either of them, so why would I tell them about us?”
“Your mom’s a recovering alcoholic?” Danny asks, clearly shocked by that information.
“Yep. She hit the booze like the world was going to run out, and she had to drink enough to last her a lifetime as fast as possible when my dad walked out on us. She was drunk or high pretty much all the time until I left for college.”
“Oh my god,” I whimper. “Did Bruce know?”
“You know good ol’ Bruce, he doesn’t see anything he doesn’t want to see. He left, and apart from when they were forced to go to court together, I don’t think they saw each other again more than a handful of times.”
“So, he had no idea your mom was…struggling?” I ask carefully, not wanting to rile him or think too much about who he was back then.
I feel rather than see his shrug. “He had your mom and ten fucking kids two minutes after he walked out. He didn’t look back. Not his problem anymore. Mom lost her shit. She went from being happily married, living in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and working part-time to being divorced, having to move to a shithole apartment in a rough place and working two jobs to make ends meet. After a while, we moved in with my grandpa, and he made sure there was food in the kitchen and that I made it to school every day. He made sure I graduated high school and got into college. He was more of a dad to me than Bruce ever was.”
“No wonder you hated me,” I whisper.
Both Oz and Danny focus their attention on me, and I tense, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
“The past is the past. We need to focus on the future, and as far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t need to involve my parents or yours.”
“But—”
“Enough,” Oz snaps, silencing me and instantly making my muscles tense.
“I think I’ll make some coffee,” I say meekly, slipping quickly from Oz’s lap and darting into the kitchen, hating that in the face of his anger, my instinct is still to run.
“Etta, Little One,” Oz says, sighing tiredly.
“It’s fine,” I murmur, keeping my hands busy by emptying the coffee machine and topping it back up with fresh grinds.
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry,” Oz says, following me into the kitchen and backing me against the counter, caging me in with his arms.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, my gaze fixed firmly on his chest, not daring to look up any higher, scared to find out what I’ll see in his furious eyes.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks and the tension thickens until I’m fighting the urge to run.
“Stop,” he murmurs against my ear. “I’m not mad at you. Never at you.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
