The entire scene had me searching through memories, wondering when things had taken a turn into irreparable. The cheating, the berating, it all seemed to get exponentially worse the more he drank. I had memories of when I was a child of him being a good father, but they just came farther and farther apart the older I got. Until they stopped altogether.
I couldn’t be around him anymore. I couldn’t even set foot in that house if there was a chance he would be there. It killed a little something inside me. Our family ranch held so many special memories for me. My grandfather teaching me to ride. Working the vegetable patch with my mom. Playing hide and seek with Walker and Jensen. Now, it was this dark and ominous place.
I let my head tip back against the headrest. I had to tell my mom the truth. Something in my gut told me it wouldn’t make a difference, that it would only add to the pain she lived with daily, but I had to try. I just had to hope she could forgive me for keeping the secret for so long.
I hadn’t meant to, but it had started when I was young. That muscle in my cheek ticked as I remembered my dad’s words.You keep this between us, son. If you don’t, your mom will leave, and we’ll be all alone.
Who said that to their kid? A shitty human being, that’s who. The years of keeping that secret as a child had turned into a weight I just couldn’t seem to shed. So much fucking guilt.
I jerked as my passenger door opened, and Jensen slid inside. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Worry etched her face. “You looked like you were thinking pretty hard there. Everything okay?”
“What do you think?”
Jensen reached over and linked her fingers with mine. “I think you’ve had to spend the past two days with your asshole of a dad and you’re about ready to break some shit.”
Her words brought a small smile to my face, but it didn’t linger. “Will you go for a drive with me?”
“Of course.” There was no hesitation. Just easy agreement. Anything she could do to ease my pain. She pulled out her phone and sent a text. “I told them we’d be back in a bit. Let’s go.”
I put the truck in reverse and then took off down the gravel drive. In minutes, we were off ranch property and out on winding country roads. Snowy fields flew by as we drove. No music, no chit-chat, just silence and that peace that comes from being with someone who knows all of you. The good and the bad.
I flashed back to the drives Jensen and I used to take after I got my license and she just needed to get away. When girls at school were pulling petty shit, or she’d gotten in a fight with her mom. She’d call, begging for me to get her out for an hour. We’d sit in silence like this until she was ready to talk.
The same went for me. Jensen had been the one to pick up on what was going on with my dad first. She’d always had that little bit of extra perception about people. Animals, too. Irma would say that she’d passed her “psychic gift” on to Jensen, but Jensen was in denial about it. Whatever the reason, Jensen could always tell when I needed to get away from it all.
We would drive up to the horses, out to the lake, or sometimes, like now, just crisscross the county in circles until we worked out what we needed to. There was something about J’s fingers interwoven with mine that added a whole new level of peace to the scenario. I traced circles on the back of her hand with my thumb. “He’s getting worse.”
Jensen said nothing, just let me go at my own pace.
“I don’t think I can go back there. At some point, it’s going to escalate to something neither of us can take back.” I gripped the wheel a bit harder. “It almost did today.”
“Do you have to? Go back, I mean. Can’t your mom come to your place? She has to know this isn’t a good situation for you to be in.”
I let out a sound of frustration. “I don’t know what she thinks.” I hated that as time went on, I lost more and more respect for my mother. Because no matter what Dad did, it never seemed to warrant her leaving. It didn’t change that I loved her, but I didn’t like her all that much anymore. And that made me feel guilty as hell. Even more guilty because I hadn’t told her the one thing that might push her over the edge to leaving.
Jensen squeezed my hand. “You’re angry at her.”
I released Jensen’s hand and used mine to run through my hair. “Damn straight. And then I feel like a garbage human for being mad. I’m just losing patience with them both. They make each other miserable, so why the hell stay together? If they broke up, they’d at least have a shot at finding some happy, even if that happy was alone. Though for my dad, it would probably be with a harem of women.”
Jensen twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “I think when you’re used to life a certain way, even if that way is miserable, it takes a lot to break free of that. But they might be closer than you think.”
We’d circled around Sutter Lake and were headed back through downtown. I pulled my truck into a park. “Do you think I should tell her?”
Jensen’s hand squeezed mine. “I hate that you’ve been carrying the weight of that for so long.” She stared up at me. “I would want to know. I’d also want to know that my husband had forced my son to keep that secret for so long. But I also think there’s going to be fallout, and I hate that you might be the casualty.”
I blew out a loud breath. “Fuck.”
Jensen reached up and ran a hand through my hair. She began massaging my scalp, easing the tension away. “You’ll know when the time is right.”
My eyes slowly opened. “I hope you’re right.” I glanced around. The place was dead. I cupped Jensen’s face in my hands and took her mouth in a long, slow kiss. I could’ve lost myself forever in her lips and died a happy man.
Reluctantly, I pulled back. “I’ve got a little something for you.”
Jensen’s face lit up. “What is it?”
I chuckled, reaching into my backseat and handing her a small box. “You’ll have to open it to find out.”
