“No, tell him you’re thinking about selling his birthright because his brother is fucking it all up!”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Is that true?” Trevor looks between us for answers, and I give a gruff nod. I can feel his heart breaking from feet away.
“Don’t you dare, Mom,” Trevor pleads with her. “We’ve been working day and night. Haven’t we, Lance?” He looks to me helplessly, and I feel the failure down to the center of me.
“I won’t let you lose yourself the way your father did,” Mom whispers, her eyes on mine. “I won’t let it drag you down anymore. You deserve the life you choose.”
“I choose this life, over and over again,” I swallow.
“Then don’t let it eat you alive.” She walks over to Trevor and grips his face. “Neither of you.”
“I won’t, Mom, I swear,” Trevor assures her, his eyes spilling over. It’s the look on his face that is eating me alive.
“Don’t, Mom,” I swallow again and again, “don’t do it. Please, don’t do it.”
“Then prove to me you can handle it,” she says between the both of us. “Without losing yourselves.” She peers over at me with my eyes. “You always told me you didn’t want to be one thing, right?”
I nod, feeling the rug being ripped out from under me, just another thing I can’t control.
“Then don’t be one thing.” She leaves Trevor shaking in her wake, and I walk over to where he stands.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let it happen.”
He wipes his face. “What are you doing? When’s it going to be enough?”
“Dad—”
“You’re my Dad,” he interrupts. “I lost him years ago. You had to take over, and I’m sorry for that,” his voice cracks, and he shakes his head. “I can’t lose you too.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What the hell are you saying…you’re halfway gone already.”
He kicks at the edge of my dresser and scrubs his face. “I just went to get ice cream. What the fuck happened?”
Harper. Harper happened.
Harper
Tossing back a shot with Tony, he grins over at me as I turn the glass over and set it next to the others. “I needed this.”
“Me too.”
I pinch the edge of the stick and take aim, the way Tony taught me. “Three ball, corner pocket.”
“You’re stripes this round.”
“Crap.”
I reposition, take a shot, and miss as Tony steps up for his turn.
Nick sits silently in the corner of the ripped pleather booth, next to where we shoot, his face swollen from rounds of Lance’s brutal blows. My insides match his outsides, feeling just as battered. But I refuse to dwell on it tonight as I look around the decade’s past-prime bar feeling the upbeat vibe before glancing over to Nick.
He’s got an easy smile, but he’s not much for words, much like his recent opponent. Though he has caught the eye of one of the women in the booth adjacent to us. They’ve been going back and forth with lingering looks for the last few songs. “Hey, you,” I say to Nick, who draws his eyes from hers to look at me. I push two of the shots his way. “Take one over to her.”
“Not a bad idea.” He winks in thanks, and I giggle. Vodka does that to me.
Nick saunters away on the prowl while Tony nudges me that it’s my turn.
“How are you doing?”
I scan the table and line up my stick. “Hanging in there.”
“He’s making it tough.”
“I can handle it.”
I look up to see he’s calling my bluff with his expression.
“I can. I’m just having an off day.”
“If you say so.”
I miss another shot. “Is he really ready?”
“Yeah, absolutely. I’ve never seen anyone hit as hard as he does. He wants you to think being here isn’t helping, but since you showed up, he’s thrown himself back into it. I think knowing where you are is help enough.”
“That’s so barbaric.”
“True.” He clasps his hands around the top of his stick, planning his next shot. “But think about it this way, how would you feel trapped in a corner of the world where nothing existed but your job, your two very hard jobs, knowing the girl you want is living this great life without you, and possibly with someone else? I call that fucking torture.”
I scrub my face, forgetting my makeup. “I just want to be with him.”
“He just wants it to be real.” He takes a shot and sinks it before his eyes lift to mine.
“I’m all in. He’s not just my first, he’s my only. And it’s terrifying because I’m not sure what I’ll do if he won’t let me love him anymore.”
“You’ve only been here a little over a week. He’s still thawing.”
“You saw him in the barn the other day. He’s doing anything but.”
Tony sighs and lifts his beer from the tall cocktail table we’ve congregated around. “I need to tell you something.”
This has me pausing, and I lift my eyes to his. He gestures toward the seat, and I take it. I look up puzzled by his expression when he speaks. “I’m trusting you with this, which may end Lance and me if he ever finds out.”
“Okay, you’re scaring me.”
Tony blows out a breath. “He’s scaring me.”
I grip his forearm. “Tell me.”
He looks me over carefully and shakes his head. “Fuck it. Three months ago, Lance found Jack alone with one of his hunting rifles.”
It takes me the length of a second to realize what he’s saying, and suddenly, there is no air in the pool hall. My whole body cringes as I try to grasp the idea of what that was like for Lance.
“I don’t know if he was really going to do it, but I know there were shells scattered around him.”
“Jesus, Tony.”
“Jeannie and Trevor don’t know, and the only reason I do is because I happened upon them at the right time. Lance has slowly come unglued since.”
Reeling, I try to reason with it. “Not Jack. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t do that to Jeannie, to his boys.”
“He wasn’t in his right mind. Even so, I really don’t think he could have gone through with it, but then again, I don’t have a disease taking over my body and ruining my brain.”
“Oh my God, Tony. What if he had—”
“Damn, he’s here,” Tony whispers before his pleading eyes meet mine.
I try and give him as much reassurance as I can. “You have my word, Tony, I swear it.”
I turn in time to feign a smile for Lance. “You came.”
He’s not planning on staying, that much is clear when Tony lifts a fresh beer in his direction. “One won’t kill you.”
Lance jerks his head before he eyes me, his voice clipped. “We need to talk.”
I look back to Tony, and he grabs my stick and lays it on the table. “Go on, I’ll tab us out.”
“Okay.”