“She’s your mother,” I seethe into the phone, trying to control my anger. Here I am, sitting in the middle of my apartment in the middle of my own personal devastation, and of course my father found a way to get to me. It’s like he can sniff out when a person is at their lowest point.
“Maybe you should just pay for it yourself.”
“I would, Dubs, you know that,” Dad says, “if only I had the money. You know, that last job we did together didn’t end so well.”
I don’t know that, and I think he’s lying out his ass. If he wanted to help pay for Gran’s care—for her home—then he would have found a way. That’s one thing I’ve learned about my father—if he wants to do something, he will.
And I’m sure he’s made a lot more money after our little betting scheme came tumbling down. That job ended with me in police custody, and my father running free after his arrest. There’s no way he’s been laying low this entire time.
Unless… it occurs to me for the first time that maybe hehasbeen laying low. Maybe he realized that, without me, he couldn’t pull things off like he used to. It sparks a note of pride in me, but it’s quickly followed by a thrill of fear.
If Dad knows he can’t do it without me, that means nothing will stop him from trying to get me back.
Once again, that feeling from Uncle Vic’s office settles over me. All this time, I’ve been doing my best. Serving my time, then working for the FBI. Trying to prove to all the people around me that I can be trusted. That I should be allowed my own life after a childhood I didn’t choose, didn’t want.
And now, after all this effort, I’m right back where I started. Maybe even lower than before. At least in prison—and the FBI—I felt like things were going up. Like I was improving, getting better, watching my life resurrect itself around me.
Now, I feel like I’m sitting at the bottom of a well, and someone at the top is sliding the cover on to block even my view of the stars.
“What kind of job?” I hear myself saying it like I’m not inside my own body, and my heart thumps dangerously loud in my chest the moment I do.
I can practically hear my father’s smile through the phone. He’s always so fucking self-satisfied when he gets what he wants.
“Meet me at three o’clock,” he says, “I’ll get you more information about the place. And don’t be late, Dubs. That’s not how I raised you.”
Luca
“Your mother isn’t going to let me eat dinner tonight if I don’t ask about you and Wren.”
I blink from my spot trapped under the Firebird. It’s been hours of Dad and I working mostly in quiet, but now that I’m under the car, he’s decided to pullthatout. Grimacing, I tighten the bolt I’m working on.
“Coach thinks Wren is the one who’s been leaking information to the other teams,” I say, my voice echoing off the bottom of the car. While it’s my car, this thing has always been our passion project. When I bought it, it was on the brink of junk, and he and I brought it back together, working during the off-season together.
The car started making a weird noise when I was driving home from Sloane’s, and without thinking, I brought it straight here. I pulled into my parents’ garage and waited until my dad came out, watching me as I tinkered around in the engine.
“What the f—?”
I come sliding out from under the car when Dad places his foot on the edge of my creeper and rolls me into the sunshine. It’s an unseasonably warm day, and the garage door is open.
“Do you think that?” Dad asks, staring down at me, his foot still on the creeper. I groan and push myself to sit, running a greasy hand over my hair. I have no idea what to think.
My logical mind is telling me that there’s no other option. Wren is the only thing that makes sense. But the part of me that cares about her argues it could never be true. I’ve seen her passion for helping us win. Watched her under the pressure of other people not believing her, or trusting her. That day outside the arena, the P.I.’s folder spread out over the ground, flashes back to me, and I realize the look on her face then is a lot like how it looked in Coach Vic’s office.
Angry, but somewhat justified. Like she’d had an inclination that it was going to happen. As though she’s just been waiting for us to show her that she’s not deserving of the benefit of the doubt.
“Luca,” Dad prompts, and I realize I’ve been stuck in my head, saying nothing to answer him.
I clear my throat. “I don’t know. I…want to trust her.”
The unsaid hangs in the air. How it’s terrifying to trust someone, to really give them the wide-open to hurt you and know that they won’t.
“Right.” Dad sighs, sitting down in an old computer chair we use at the wood bench. We sit in quiet for another moment, then he says, “Did your mother ever tell you about the time we spent apart?”
I blink at him. “What are you talking about?”
He presses his lips together, nods likeThat’s what I thought. “She was pregnant with you—we didn’t know it at the time, god knows—and we decided to take a break.”
My mouth opens, but I have nothing to say. This is news to me, and shocking at that. I’ve always thought of my parents as the kind of people who were made for each other. Not the kind of couple that would take a break—and while pregnant.
