Page 29

Son of a freaking bitch.

Pressed into the headrest, Tick eyed the bumper-to-bumper standstill on Willowbrook. An accident on 45 was rerouting traffic, and frustrated commuters packed the street. He got it. He was one of them, late for the office and an early team meeting he’d scheduled.

He watched the minutes ticking off on his dash. Once they’d ground to a halt, he’d fired off a text and an email that he’d be late.

But this shit wasn’t moving at all.

Unreasonable anger heated the front of his throat, and he forced his body into a slouch. The situation lay outside his control, even if he didn’t have the patience this morning. He resisted the urge to slam his palm against the steering wheel.

He didn’t have time for this bullshit.

The words reverberated through his head.

And he was sitting at the kitchen table all over again the day after Daddy’s funeral, Mama’s lists spread over the scarred wood. He’d clenched his hands in his lap so she couldn’t see. His right hand had hurt like a son of a bitch, the broken bones not set because he hadn’t had it seen.

A couple of broken fingers had seemed like nothing.

“No bullshit, Lamar.” He flinched inside because that was the tone she used when she was infuriated with Daddy, like that Lamar was for Daddy, not him. “I don’t have time for it.”

So he locked it all down, the pain and fury, how he wanted to climb out of his own skin. Grandma and Grandaddy were devastated, their oldest boy gone, so they didn’t need to see it, either.

Lock it down.

Drown it out.

Get drunk. Sleep with your toxic ex.

Walk away.

Sleep with a girl trying to assert her own agency.

Father a child you wouldn’t know for seven years.

“Dumbass,” he muttered, the same way he did most every time he thought about that morning after the night he’d spent with Caitlin in Panama City when they were just college kids, how he’d glimpsed something special in her, the way she met him where he was with just herself, and how he’d sent her away, how he’d left.

Maybe screw up your marriage because you couldn’t handle—

No. He didn’t have to go down that road.

With a shaky exhale, he gripped the wheel with both hands.

“Shit.” He straightened his fingers, regripped the wheel, right hand protesting. “Hell.”

Fixing his gaze on the white work truck in front of him, he sucked in a couple more deep breaths, releasing each one slower than the one before. “Get it together, Lamar.”

She did her best. Being mad about it didn’t make sense, didn’t help—

“Holy hell.” He scraped a hand down his face, sweat dampening his brow.

This felt like Caitlin’s anger, the way she’d sniped for years at her brother. Her simmering resentment at Vince had annoyed Tick’s younger self because from the outside it appeared petty. His brother-in-law had been damaged himself, trying to keep his sister safe, and that had meant keeping her silenced and controlled.

He’d done what he could. His actions had harmed Caitlin — and himself — and hadn’t made sense, but Vince had done what he thought he had to at the time.

When she’d finally felt safe enough, a couple of years into their marriage, Caitlin had broken it down with her therapist.

And like Vince, Mama had done the best she could at the time with what she had.

And Tick? Well, he’d kept his bullshit away from her, like she’d dictated. That had meant keeping it from Gene and Louise, too, while they grieved their son.