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“Wh—what’s going on?” Paul stepped forward, but no one was paying attention to him.
“Fine. Ephraim. What are you doing here? Obviously, you’re not interested in a family reunion.” And while it hurt, the man’s malice almost made it easier to disengage his emotions.
“A video of you, sent on the computer, to of all places…my church.I go to visit Reverend Green to talk about Bible Study, and he shows me thisinterviewwith you, telling everybody you’re queer and about the sh—shameful thing you did in my barn. You used my name!” He sputtered and flung his arms around as he worked himself into a frenzy. “Haven’t you done enough to this family?”
The more hateful words his father flung at him, the calmer he felt. Almost like when a blacksmith dipped hot metal in cold water. Robby grew harder with each passing moment. “I’ve done nothing to you.”
“As soon as we saw your disgusting video, we called your brother—” He shook his head. “—my son, and he said Jerry Connor’s boy had found it on YouTube. It was on an official church channel—they called it ‘outreach.’ Can you believe a church would sanction such sinfulness? Travis got me here with the map function on his phone.”
The most shocking part of the whole rant was the fact that his father knew what YouTube was. “I’ll ask you again. What do you want?”
“Take the video off the internet. Stop embarrassing my family. Have some dignity.”
He huffed out a breath. “Dignity? How much dignity did you show when you threw a child—your child—out on the street? How long did you think I would last without any money or any help?”
“Your hardships are not my doing. They’re your own.”
“I was a child!”
“Bull spit.” His father crossed his arms. “I got married at seventeen years old, became a father a year afterward. If you weren’t ready to take responsibility for yourself, maybe you shouldn’t have disregarded the will of God while living under my roof.”
“Robby,” Sara’s husky voice broke into his father’s tirade. “You didn’t tell me we had company, darling.”
“What the hell are you supposed to be?” Travis contorted his face into a grimace so exaggerated, it would be comical if it weren’t so offensive.
“We’re just leaving, Sara. Please cover the desk for me.” He didn’t ask his family to follow, but he knew they wouldn’t stay in the center without him.
“I’m so sorry, Robby.” Paul sounded stricken. “I didn’t know who they were.”
Of course, he didn’t, but Robby would have to absolve the reverend some other time.
He made it half a block down the street before his father grabbed his arm. “Don’t you make me come back to this disgusting place, boy. You fix this, before your mama catches wind of it.”
Looking down at his father’s grip, Robby peeled Ephraim’s fingers away. “I don’t have a mama, remember? I don’t give ashitif you are embarrassed by what I am doing. You threw me away, and when you did it, you lost any say in how I live my life.”
He turned to his brother. For as long as he could remember, Travis had loomed tall and strong over him. Now they stood as physical equals, and in one glance, he knew his brother would fold under the threat of hard living. “Take your father and get out of my city. If I ever see you again, it will be the worst day of your life.” He threw the parting words his brother had given him back in his face, and this time, Travis was the one to withdraw.
His brother took their father’s arm. “It’s not worth it, Dad. Let’s just go. We never have to see him again.”
“But you’ll remember this,” Robby vowed. “And one day, maybe on the day you finally greet the Lord, you’ll realize which of us committed the graver sin. I hope you take the knowledge with you to the hereafter. God might forgive you, but I never will.”
***
Matt
Matt scowled at the unfamiliar number blowing up his phone. The same person had called him close to ten times in the past hour. He’d just sat down on the sofa after a long day, and he didn’t have time to deal with a telemarketer. Not with all the papers Jared had sent home with him to review.
The man had worked some kind of magic, getting all of his paperwork in order at school so he could get credit for his internship, and with Amanda overlapping payroll with Berringer for the summer, he had just enough to pay the university fees.
He hadn’t set foot back on a construction site, which meant he’d avoided Robby entirely. A blessing for his tattered heart, but it didn’t escape him that he wouldn’t have this opportunity without Robby’s interference.
Only the late-occurring thought of Patty trying to reach him from a stranger’s phone made him finally swipe open the line. “Hello?” He infused the single word with as much irritation as humanly possible.
“Matt? Is that you, doll?” Even if anyone else in the world had ever called him doll, he’d still recognize Sara’s throaty voice anywhere.
“It’s me. What’s going on?”
“I need you to get down to the Q-Center ASAP. Please. Hurry.” She disconnected before he could ask any more questions.
