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Families were a pain in the ass. I shook my head even as I smiled, feeling a bit lighter, thankful Aya had the Graces in her corner.
“Steve…”
He stopped at the door, turning to look at me over his shoulder. I licked my lips. Overcome your past. Don’t let it destroy you. This man, a faulty one, was my father, and he’d just picked me up off the floor.
“I need you to help me with this because I really messed up. And I can’t blame Lindsay or drugs or anything else. I broke my relationship with Aya. Just like I’ve swatted away all your attempts to reconcile. I…I’ve messed up. A lot.”
“What do you need?” he asked, hesitant but also eager.
I grimaced. “The correspondences my mother and Pop Syad left for me.” That I’d refused to open, let alone read. “And their wills. I need to deal with their deaths.”
His gaze turned knowing. “Aya emailed me her mother’s will last night while I was driving her.”
I squeezed the back of my neck. “I better read that one, too. And…would you stay with her? Please. I don’t trust her with anyone else.”
He nodded, his jaw working. Finally, he managed to say, “I’ll keep your girl safe. Do the same for yourself, all right?” He looked like he wanted to say more—no doubt about my fall off the wagon.
“I made a mistake last night,” I acknowledged, straightening to my full height. “I might not be able to fix things with Aya, but I damn well can own my actions with the whiskey. I don’t like how alcohol makes me feel. I don’t like the man I become when I drink it or when I do drugs.”
Steve nodded, but his eyes remained guarded.
“And we need to talk,” I said. Aya had asked me to, knowing my relationship with Steve bothered me. “About…you being my dad.”
He shook his head, a furrow digging into the space between his eyebrows. “Sure.” Then he laughed, but it was mirthless. “You really do know how to pick the worst time for things. Just know I’m here for you, son.” His voice caught. “I’m always here for you.”
I nodded. I needed to hear that, and I decided to believe him.
27
Aya
It would have been lovely to disappear to my grandfather’s home on the lake, lie in my mother’s bed, and ignore the world. But my father had sold it last year.
He’d sold Jeddi’s place in Paris, too, around the same time, and squirreled those funds into an account without my knowledge. My solicitor had informed me of this during one of our meetings a few weeks ago, and he’d apologized profusely for assuming I’d consented to the sales, seeing as my father had been on my bank account at the time. My father had been my guardian and my legal advisor, because of my youth—something he’d finagled though I remembered, vaguely, my solicitor telling me I was of age and didn’t need to add him.
Thankfully, I had a plan B, and my early-morning return to the Graces had allowed me to avoid any cameras. Mama Grace had welcomed me back with a warm embrace and a good, strong cup of breakfast tea. She didn’t mention the time nor my weird state of dress.
Before she opened her mouth, I held up my hand. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
Mama’s mouth thinned as I left the cup of tea on the table and trudged my way up the stairs toward my bedroom. When I woke, I spent the day worrying that Nash would fall back into the old comforts of booze or drugs, and hoping that he’d call.
He didn’t call.
Not that I could blame him for being upset. He’d suffered a nasty shock—perpetrated by my father, yes—but ultimately courtesy of my mother and Jeddi, who’d claimed to care for him. But Nash hadn’t handled his feelings well. It was as if we’d made no progress at all these months, and that left me angry—so angry my insides wanted to curdle and fling themselves up my throat. He’d promised to love me, but because our grandparents had conspired years ago, Nash would now throw us away. Like we no longer mattered, like he didn’t even know me. We must’ve been engineered like one of those K-Pop groups—groomed for years to hit just the right note while dancing. Did that make our feelings for each other not real?
Steve showed up late that morning with my clothes.
“Thanks,” I said.
He set the case down and hesitated. “He’s hurting, too.”
I turned away.
Steve sighed. “Cam’s the only one who stuck around for him. I’m blood, and I failed him before I even had a chance to prove myself. That’s on me.”
I stood still, feeling like a deer in a hunter’s sights.
“Nash has been let down repeatedly. Even by you. I know you two talked about this, but that thing in high school was terrible for him, too. He was hurting, and he was alone. He’d just been abused by his father. He’d just learned I was more to him than I let on. That’s some betrayal. And then you disappeared. He needed you, too. He needed you so much, and you walked away. I know you’re sorry for that, but to him, it feels like you did it again last night.”
