Текст книги "Addicted for Now"
Автор книги: Becca Ritchie
Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 31 страниц)
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LOREN HALE
We made a deal not to put ourselves in stressful situations. Like the Sunday luncheon with Lily’s parents. Like any communication with my father.
Today I’m breaking that deal.
Lily is busy with Sebastian, pretending to be tutored. I told her I was going to work out with Ryke at the Penn gym, but when I drive to Philadelphia, I make the turn into Villanova. Some of the houses have acres and acres of trimmed lawns, decorative fountains gushing in the front yard and glittering Lamborghinis parked in the driveway—a place more suited for Beverly Hills than the suburbs of Philly. My nerves ricochet every mile down the road.
Before I talked to Connor last night, I had no intention of seeing my father. But I asked him the probability of finding the blackmailer before the information leaked. He told me that I had the same chance as the sun exploding in less than a billion years. I looked it up, and apparently the sun won’t explode for another four to five billion, so in Connor Cobalt’s words—I’m fucked.
Then Lily’s phone vibrated on the nightstand. She was in the shower, so I answered it. An unknown number texted her. The word pounding in my head. Slut. It felt like someone punched me in the ribs, and just before I went into the bathroom to talk to her, I had a sudden impulse to check her other texts.
Seventy-five of them.
That’s how many times she’d been texted with insults—some more colorful than others. I’m not upset that she didn’t tell me about them. But now she can’t be upset when I talk to my dad. This has already gone too far. And I’m out of options. My father, he has more power in his right pinky than I do in my whole body. And if this is what it takes to ensure Lily’s safety, then so be it.
I pass the gates and park the car into the circular driveway. It takes a moment for me to muster the courage to ring the doorbell. I can hear the chime reverberating throughout the house.
After a couple minutes the door swings open, and I expect the staff to stand on the other side, ushering me in to see my father. Maybe Jonathan’s assistant. Maybe the groundskeeper, who sometimes finds his way indoors.
But my father has done the impossible and answered his own door. His forceful posture fills the frame, nearly goading me to take a step down the stone stairs and plant my feet on the sidewalk in defeat. Somehow, I stand my ground.
He wears a tight-lipped expression, eyes darkened by booze and soul blackened by hate. I focus on the wrinkles by the creases of his eyes, weathered since the last I saw him. I think, in this moment, I should have a sudden undeniable resentment towards this man. He spit on me when I asked for help. He took away my trust fund when I told him I was going to rehab. He lied to me for twenty-one years.
My emotions tangle together, and yet, bitterness is so far from what I feel. Pity is closer to the surface. I realize that I could have become him. Hell, I still can go that direction and be alone in a mansion, drinking away my problems and wishing away the “could-have-beens” with the “nows.” As much as I hate to believe it, he is me—without Lily. Without Ryke or Connor. He’s my future if I drink again.
I don’t say anything, partly because he should lead me inside without me asking. He can’t pretend he never sent all those messages about wanting to meet up or have lunch. He wants to see me, even if he denies it, even if he’s barely moved an inch from the door.
“You’re on my fucking doorstep,” he finally says. “Would you like to explain why, or are you waiting for an invitation?”
I hold in a strained breath. “I wanted to talk.”
I think maybe he’ll say something sharp like calling me back would have sufficed. But he pushes the door further open and walks into the house, dapper in his charcoal suit. I follow him, closing the door behind me, and head through the long hallway towards the outside patio.
The house feels different. I grew up here. Ran through the hallways and slid on the waxed hardwood, nearly breaking my arm. Yet, being here sober, clearer, makes all those memories seem dark and hazy.
On the stone patio, I take a seat at the black iron table, overlooking the small pond that rests on sprawling acres of land. Two ducks swim in the murky waters, avoiding the lily pads floating beside them. My father mixes himself a drink at the black granite bar, glasses clinking together in a familiar tune.
I close my eyes, listening to the reverent sounds: the chirps of birds, the trickle of the fountain, the jingle of the wind chimes. Sometimes I think a part of me has been chipped away. I know I’m not completely the same person sober as I was when I was drinking. But what if the part of me that changed was a piece of my soul—a good piece? Or maybe I’m just making excuses to drink again. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Deciding what’s right and what’s wrong in my head. I just feel so confused all the time.
I open my eyes just as my father saunters over with two empty glasses and a bottle of dark liquid. He places the crystal glass in front of me, and I focus on his slow movements.
On impulse, I place my hand right over top of the glass before he can pour anything into it. My heart beats loudly in my chest.
His eyes darken. “So you can’t even have a fucking drink with me now?”
My throat feels like lead, but I manage to find my words just fine. “It’ll make me sick. I’m on meds.” Thank God I took my pill this morning.
His jaw clenches tight, and he resigns by pouring himself a glass and sinking down in the chair across from mine. I take my hand off the crystal and flip it over.
“Are you here for money?” he asks, jumping straight to the point.
I stare at the table and gather my thoughts. Why am I here? For two things, neither of which revolve around finances or lack thereof.
He continues off my silence anyway, and I let him. “I know what I said before you went away—”
“Do you?” I snap.
“Yes, Loren. And maybe if you gave me some time to process everything, things would have turned out fucking differently.” I’m not sure what kind of different he means. Not going to rehab? Having a relationship with him? Did he just take away my trust fund out of impulse? But if that was true, he would have given me money when I returned to Philly. He would have made a better effort to fix things.
My eyes narrow at the table in deep thought. He did try to call me. He was reaching out. I was the one closing him off—because Ryke told me to. He said I shouldn’t open that door again, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe my father has been right all along.
He swishes his drink before downing it in one gulp.
My throat goes dry.
“You’re my son,” he says definitively, “and I’m not going to let you struggle because you make bad decisions.”
“Rehab wasn’t a bad decision.”
“It was a waste of fucking time,” he refutes. “Drinking isn’t a problem, and you’ll do it again. Don’t fucking fool yourself.” Before I open my mouth to retort, he says, “But that’s beside the point.” He pulls out his checkbook. “I want to help you get on your feet again.”
“I don’t want your cash,” I say, even though I know that’s a stupid choice. Because, really, what am I going to do? I can’t keep living off Lily’s inheritance. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to figure what I’m good at and make a living without crawling back to my father for rent.
“This isn’t the time to start being humble,” he tells me. “You can’t try to be sober and work a job at the same time.”
“What do you think normal people do? Not everyone has rich parents to fall back on.”
“You do,” he says. “And why the hell do you think I work so fucking much?”
“You have nothing better to do.”
He glares. “I do it so that you won’t have to struggle like this. So stop being a fucking idiot and take the damn money.”
I believe him, even though Ryke would probably tell me that I shouldn’t—that Jonathan Hale spends hours at his office because he’s miserable and alone and likes all the riches that he can afford to buy. There’s a stipulation attached to that check too. I’ll be indebted to him in some way. It’s why he took away my trust fund in the first place. It’s more than just him wanting me to enroll in college again. He wants that power over my life—to tell me what to do, to mold me as the son he always dreamed I would be. But I’m just a big fucking disappointment.
“That’s not what I’m here for,” I say, a weight bearing on my chest.
He sighs and shuts his checkbook. He pours another glass. “What is it then?” He’s more intrigued than he lets on. The curiosity glimmers in his dark eyes.
I take a breath, staring at the over-turned, empty glass in front of me. Booze would help, but I have to do this alone. “I want her name.”
“Who?” His voice has an edge, telling me that he knows exactly who I’m referring to.
“My real mother.” The woman he had an affair with. The reason why he split from Sara Hale, Ryke’s mom.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” he says coldly.
“And I don’t believe you.”
He lets out a low laugh and taps the table with his lighter, a cigar box not far away. “I knew you’d want answers. Where she lived, what she looked like, but they’ll only upset you. And I didn’t want to see your face twist.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She didn’t want you, Loren. I’m telling you not to waste your fucking time.”
How can I believe him after all these years lying to me? But a part of me digests this information as truth.
“There it is.” He brings the glass to his lips. I realize that my face has contorted in a multitude of emotions. Hurt, the strongest of them.
“You’re wrong,” I say under my breath, just so I can go back to being as hard and cold as him. “I want her name. After all these years that you told me Sara was my mother, I, least of all, deserve to have a semblance of the fucking truth.”
He rolls his eyes dramatically, and to my surprise, rips off a check and flips it over. I watch him scribble on the paper and then he slides it to me. “I’m not the bad guy here,” he says. “I’m just protecting you from feeling more pain. That’s it.”
I stare at the check.
Emily Moore.
“Did you love her?” Not, where is she? Or, why did she give me up? I have to ask the stupidest, meaningless question there is—because my father doesn’t believe in love.
“For all of fifteen minutes, sure,” he says dryly. “Now you have what you want, can we move on from all this bullshit?” He wants to go back to the way things were, but I’m not even sure that’s possible.
“I need something else,” I tell him as I pocket the check. “And it requires discretion.”
He laughs wryly and gets up to refill his glass. “Why am I not surprised? What the fuck did you do this time?”
I ignore the slight. “It’s not entirely about me. It involves Lily.”
He sits back down, hand cupping a full glass of scotch. I try not to focus on it too much. “I golf with Greg and have lunch with him every other day, so is this the type of discretion that requires me to lie to her father?”
Oh, yeah. “It will ruin the Calloways.”
My father straightens up, his features hardening. He actually looks a little like Ryke. “What the fuck is going on?”
“You have to promise, and I want it in writing.”
He gives me a look. “Don’t be a little shit.”
I glare. “I’m not being a little shit. You say you’ve done all of this…” I motion around me. “…the lying about my brother and my real fucking mother, because you were trying to protect me. Then understand that I’m trying to protect the girl I love. And I’d do anything to accomplish it. So if you don’t fucking sign something that says you won’t open your goddamn mouth, then I’m gone.” I stand up, my chest rising and falling with sudden anger.
“Sit the fuck down.”
I don’t.
“Sit,” my father sneers. “I’ll go get a piece of paper. I don’t think I can write a contract on the back of a check.”
I sink to my chair and watch my father leave the patio, muttering curse words under his breath. But I’ve won. This time.
* * *
He ends up typing it on his laptop. After an hour we have a contract written and signed, not allowing him to directly or indirectly tell the Calloways anything. If he does, he forfeits Hale Co. to Ryke. At first we had agreed that I would acquire the company, but he looked a little too pleased about the idea of me inheriting his business. Now stress-lines crease his lips at the very thought that his kid—who despises him—could obtain his legacy. At least I know he loves me more, but really, that’s not a very high achievement.
My father has a newly topped glass of scotch, and we’re sitting on the patio again. His contract in his office, mine on the table.
“Now, what’s so serious that I can’t even tell my best friend?” he asks.
“When I got back from rehab, I received a text from an unknown number,” I tell him. “He said he hated me and he basically threatened to expose Lily’s secret out of revenge. So I don’t think he’s blackmailing us. He’s not asking for money, but he did mention it once. He said he could get paid a lot from the tabloids if he told Lily’s secret.” The words pour forth before I have time to stop and evaluate each one. I’m scared, and if my father didn’t see it before, he does now. I feel like a little kid blubbering about a bully at school.
“Slow the fuck down,” he says sternly. “We’ll take this piece by piece.”
I repeat everything again, being vague about Lily’s involvement and even going into more detail about the unknown number and how Connor’s PI traced it to a disposable phone.
My father listens rather well, and by the time I finish I can see him reeling over the piece of the puzzle that I’ve purposefully avoided.
“Unless Lily is the ring leader of a drug cartel, I highly doubt it’s anything to land Fizzle in a financial crisis. Really, tabloids have better things to do than gossip about heirs and heiresses. Look at you going to rehab, you didn’t even make it in The Enquirer.”
My addiction and hers are not proportionate. Not by a longshot. I’m another notch on the rich-kid sob story who gets addicted to alcohol or drugs. Lily, a girl, is addicted to sex. Even if it does happen, people don’t talk about it, but they will this time.
“Let’s say people find her newsworthy, and not in a good way. What then? Do you think you could find this guy?”
“I could try,” he says, eyes alight with interest. “What is it?”
And I just let it out. “She’s a sex addict.”
I watch him frown and then quickly the disbelief turns into humor. He laughs so hard that his fist subconsciously pounds the table, a pepper shaker overturning and clinking on the iron. I guess it’s hard to believe that the girl he knows, shy and a little awkward, would have that kind of addiction.
“You got me. I’ll give you that,” he says, leaning back in his chair with a grin.
My expression never falters. I can’t laugh with him or joke about Lily’s problem. Not when I know how dangerous it has been. Before we were together, I caught her surfing Craigslist for a hookup. There are levels to sex addiction that scare the shit out of me.
My father watches my unwavering features, and his smile fades. “You’re serious?”
“She’s addicted to sex. She has been since…I don’t know, since she lost it.” I cringe, never wanting to talk to my father about this.
He rubs his mouth, connecting everything together. “Oh…” His eyes grow. “Oh…fuck.” He glances at my contract like he’s one second from snatching the paper and setting it on fire.
I pocket the contract, and his eyes lift to mine. “We have a deal,” I remind him.
“Sex addiction—are you even sure?” he asks. “That’s a serious accusation, something that would need proof.”
“She’s seeing a sex therapist,” I tell him, “and not that it’s any of your business, but she used to hire male prostitutes, so yeah—she had a fucking problem.”
“Had? Past tense?”
“We’re working on it.”
He lets out a low laugh that chills my bones. “You’ve been letting your girlfriend fuck other men?” He shakes his head, and I can practically hear his thoughts: that can’t be my pussy of a son. He stands to pour himself another drink. I usually don’t notice how often he refills, but this has to be the third or fourth time—an amount that would have most people sloshed. But he’s a functioning alcoholic. Twenty-four-seven drunk. No one can really tell. It’s there in his hard eyes, ready to lash out spitefully at any moment. He’s just riding that wave, the edge to his life sandpapered down.
And I know if I had a sip, I’d be the same exact way. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I’m not aggressive, but sometimes I’m belligerent. I can make sure that won’t happen. I’ll be calm.
I have the sudden urge to flip my glass and ask for alcohol. I’ll get sick, I remind myself. It’s literally the only argument I can think of right now.
I try to focus on my father’s eyes and not the glass in his hand. “I didn’t let her fuck anyone when we were together. We only started dating seven months ago.” I explain quickly about our fake relationship, cursing myself that everything has become so complicated that I have to reveal this too.
My father hasn’t taken a seat yet. “You acted like you were together just so I wouldn’t send you to a military academy?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You were ready to ship me off, weren’t you?” I had fucked up and vandalized some guy’s house for messing with Lily. He mailed her a dead rabbit after his girlfriend discovered that he fucked another girl, and he blamed it on Lily, even though he was the cheating bastard.
I retaliated by dousing his door in pig’s blood. It was one of my more creative efforts. And I was black-out drunk. I honestly remember very little of the whole ordeal. But I can recall everything afterwards—how my father grabbed me by the neck and yelled in my face. What did you get out of this, Loren? Did it make you feel better? Do you like being such a sick fuck?
My father was prepared to kick me out after I dragged his name through the mud. I was the degenerate, the resident bad boy who would go to another school district just to mess with someone. I was suspended. I was a stupid kid who wanted to make Lily feel better—who wanted to change every horrible fucking thing. But I just didn’t know how.
My father wanted to be proud of me, but I gave him nothing to be proud of.
“Maybe I would have shipped you off,” he says, swishing his ice in his whiskey. “I was mad as hell back then. Your relationship with her was the only redeeming thing. So maybe.”
I nod. Yeah it’s why he let me stay. Maybe he would have missed me too. But he’ll never admit that.
“So if you two weren’t really together, what the hell were those noises coming from your room?”
I frown and then recognition hits me. I bury my face in my hands, mortified. “You heard her?”
“You weren’t the only one living here,” he snaps, “and you two were loud.” No. She was loud. “It’s not as if I was trying to listen. Believe me.”
This is so fucked up. I rub the bridge of my nose, wanting so badly to wake up. Wake the fuck up.
He finally settles in his chair. “Don’t tell me you let her fuck someone else in your bed.”
I drop my hand and scowl. “Let’s get something straight—you’re not allowed to talk about her fucking anyone. Not me, not someone else, not anyone. Got it?”
He rolls his eyes. “You just told me she’s a sex addict—”
“I don’t give a shit,” I say coldly. “She’s still my girlfriend. She’s still Lily. And I’m not anywhere near comfortable talking about this with you.”
“Maybe she’s just a slut,” my father says, clearly ignoring me. “Ever think of that?
I could punch him. I think I could. But I don’t. I use my words, just like he taught me. “I’m going to say this once, and then you will never ever fucking call her that again. Nor will we have this discussion.” I’m standing up now. “She has a problem. She cries herself to sleep because she can’t stop thinking about it. I hold her in my goddamn arms, trying to get her to quit. Sex is her drug.” I point to my chest, my arms trembling. “I get it. I fucking get it, and you should too if you think for a goddamn minute how much you rely on that.” I motion to his drink and he stiffens. “And if anyone is the slut, it’s you.” He paraded enough women in and out of the house that I could have easily obtained some complex. My chest rises and falls heavily as I finish speaking.
His voice softens considerably. “That still doesn’t explain what I heard in your bedroom. If you two weren’t together—”
I grimace. He’s still on that? “I used to let her masturbate in my bed.”
His eyes widen and he opens his mouth to speak. I cut him off. “No way,” I snap. “You don’t get to ask any questions about that. Our relationship—even fucked up—is between us. It has nothing to do with this situation.” That’s a lie, but I’m not discussing that shit with my father, no matter if our own relationship is complicated too.
He keeps his lips tight now and then sips from his glass.
“If the tabloids found out—” I start, but it’s his turn to interrupt me.
“Lily would be in the tabloids, being called names that you don’t like.”
“What about Fizzle?”
“It would suffer, and because you’re linked with her, so would Hale Co.” He rises from his chair. “Let’s find the bastard.”
