The Man I Love (The Road Trip #2)

16. Chapter Sixteen

16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

January

Seven Months Earlier

Los Angeles

It was nearing dusk when Tristan pulled into the parking lot of City of Hope Cancer Hospital. He sat in his truck, still wearing the tuxedo he’d worn the night before, but now the shirt was open, his throat exposed, the sleeves pushed up to his forearms. Of all the places he could’ve gone when he landed this morning, he wasn’t sure what had brought him here.

Curiosity, he guessed.

He was curious about his brother, his father, his father’s new wife, and the new life that meant more to his father than the family he started thirty years ago.

The entire subway ride back to the airport, he’d felt numb, as though he was incapable of ever feeling again. As though his heart was so broken it had forgotten how to beat. He hadn’t ever felt this low, even in his darkest moments when he’d lost his football career—it scared him.

He’d sat in complete silence in the terminal, trying to keep his mind from playing the scene repeatedly, over and over, as thousands of people rushed to their flights. He found himself at a bar, obsessively searching through his father’s website from his cellphone. A website dedicated to his brother’s fight with leukemia.

When he finally boarded his plane, he knew his brother’s name, and that he resided in a hospital less than an hour away from Tristan’s home in L.A. Uncanny, considering his dad had flown three thousand miles to talk to him.

His head pounded as he sat in the parking lot now, searching his glove box, looking for pain relief. He would have sworn he had a hangover, but all he’d managed was two shots of tequila the entire six-hour flight back to Los Angeles. Not nearly enough to handle the dozens of photos he’d found of his father’s new family. There was only one that he couldn’t shake. It was of a little boy standing on a hospital bed with a red plastic pirate sword in his hand. A patch covered one eye, and he waved it in the air as though he were in a fight. He had no hair, and there were deep hollows beneath his eyes that showed just how sick he was, yet his smile was infectious. Despite the tubes that were hooked up all around him, this little boy found joy in his own imagination.

The photo was posted two days earlier with a hashtag for City of Hope Cancer Hospital. Attached was an article written by his father, detailing his son’s diagnosis, treatments, and a plea for help—urging anyone and everyone to be tested as a donor—because time was running out.

Tristan squeezed the steering wheel as the resemblance between him and his brother gave him chills. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was looking at a photo of himself at that age. He wasn’t the most forgiving man, but he knew this boy was innocent. He deserved a chance to live, and if Tristan had the power to do so, he would give it to him.

Securing the emergency break, he opened the cab door and headed into the hospital. He didn’t care that he still wore his tuxedo, or that everyone stared at him when he walked inside.

“How may I help you?” the woman asked from behind a glass window at her desk.

“I’m here to see Liam Montgomery,” Tristan said, holding up the stuffed elephant he’d purchased at a gas station mini mart on the ride over here.

“ID please.”

He pulled out his wallet and handed it to the woman.

She smiled sweetly, studying his driver’s license for too long. “I should have known.” She chuckled. “You look exactly like him.”

He wasn’t sure if by “him” she was referring to his father, or his brother. He knew both were true. “Yes,” he nodded.

“The genes must run deep in the Montgomery veins.” She grinned.

He nodded again, but his chest ached.

The woman entered his information into the computerandthen handed him back his ID.

“He’s a real heartbreaker, that Liam. All of us ladies look forward to seeing him on his walks—” but she paused, her face fell, and in that moment Tristan knew she hadn’t seen Liam in a while.

She slid a guest pass under the glass and nodded toward the elevator. “He’s on the second floor. Room 203.”

Time stopped as Tristan waited for the elevator doors to open on the second floor. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing here. He could find out what he needed to know, never having to lay eyes on his brother, but his heart needed this.

Needed to see his brother face to face.

Needed to make sure he was okay.

As he walked down the hallway, his own childhood flashed before his eyes. Football games, practices, all the times he’d tackled his father to the ground in play. With all the hours they’d spent together as father and son, as coach and player…he’d never tried to please anyone more in his entire life.

When he finally made it to his brother’s room, it was open, but he hesitated outside the door. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find in room 203, but what he saw caused his body to stiffen. His father’s wife was sitting by his brother’s bedside, an intense expression of worry on her face even though his brother appeared peacefully asleep. She wore sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, one leg tucked under her body as she sat on the gaudy pink and blue hospital chair. She couldn’t have been more than mid-thirties—not much older than Tristan himself, yet the lines etched into her forehead were so deep, it was as though unwavering doubt had carved them there indefinitely.

She was pretty despite it all, which didn’t surprise Tristan knowing his father’s tastes. She had short blond hair, pale eyes, and a kind face—but it was the way she ran her hand over and over his brother’s tiny face that forced him in the opposite direction. It was the way his own mother had comforted him as a child when he was sad or sick.

Bile rose in the back of his throat, and he walked past the door. He needed air. Needed space. Needed to get his mind checked because he’d obviously lost a piece of it coming there.

“Wait!” a woman called from behind him. “Wait!”

Without turning around, he paused, and every hair on his body stood on end.

“Tristan.” The sound of steps on hard tile filled his brain. “Is that you?”

He wasn’t sure what surprised him most, that she knew his name, or that she’d recognized him even without seeing his face.

He turned to face her, finding her standing with her arms folded across her chest. She inhaled. “Your dad isn’t here.” She let out a breath, waving her hand back toward Liam’s hospital room. “He’s on a business trip. He’ll be back this evening. I can call him if you’d like.”

A business trip? Is that what he told her?

Tristan stared blankly. “I’m not here to see my father,” he said after a pause. He wasn’t sure why he needed her to know that, but at that moment it felt very important.

Two years ago, Tristan wished for just one moment with the woman who had broken his family apart. He had so many questions. About her character, about why she would want a man who would leave his whole family behind—but now he had nothing. Guilt, pain, regret, and unexplained emotions replaced everything he’d felt back then.

Her hands dropped to her sides, her fingers finding the fabric of her sweatpants. “You look just like him, you know,” she said, her voice a mere whisper.

He turned on his heels, not wanting to hear one more comparison. “I know.” He’d heard them his whole life. His entire existence had been filled with never-ending parallels to his father.

“No!” she yelled. “No…” Her voice was shaking. “Don’t go.”

He froze, because the desperation in her voice sent a chill up his spine; he turned to face her again.

“I meant Liam. You look like Liam—my son.”

Time stood still at that moment. Two years looming like a ghost in the distance. So much hurt. So much timelost. He’d always comforted himself by saying that it was his father who was missing out. He and Renee were thriving. Happy. Successful. In loving relationships. But for the first time since his sister’s wedding, he realized it wasn’t just his father who had missed things; he had missed things too. His stubbornness had prevented him from knowing his own brother existed. A brother who could have been mistaken as his twin had they been born at the same time. His chest ached with the realization, rising and falling with deep soulful breaths as he tried to calm himself down.

“I feel like I just met the grownup version of my son,” she whispered.

Tristan looked down at his shoes. For so long, he’d blamed this woman for everything. Blamed her for his parents’ divorce, blamed her for his father’s absence in their lives. He’d needed a scapegoat, and she’d been an easy target. Now that they’d met, he could only see her for who she was, which seemed to rip open wounds he’d thought healed long ago. She was his father’s wife. A mother of a dying child. A mother who was so worried about her son that she didn’t sleep. She was human. She was real, and she wasn’t the demon his family had made her out to be all those years ago.

“He’s sleeping,” she finally whispered, breaking the silence again. “I’d like for you to meet him, if you’re willing?” Her words were shaky, soft, almost panicked. “Would you—would you like to meet your brother?”

A rush of emotion twisted in Tristan’s chest, and he stepped backward, as though needing to catch himself from falling. His brother. His baby brother was just a room away.

A moment ticked by, but soon his voice came rough, dry, and full of emotion. “I would like that very much.”

Until that moment, he didn’t realize how desperately he wanted to meet Liam.

She motioned for him to follow her, and his feet shuffled forward until he entered room 203. Nostalgia washed over his body as he took in the hospital room. Reminders of his old childhood bedroom were everywhere. Found in the arrangement of toy cars in the corner, portraits of Winnie the Pooh on each wall, and a small collection of stuffed animals at the end of Liam’s bed.

His little brother slept in the middle of the heap, the plastic pirate sword from the photo held in his left hand.

Liam's whole body was thinand frail, and his skin was duller than in the photo taken just two days earlier.

“I guess I should introduce myself,” his stepmom said then. “My name is Heather Montgom—” She wiped her palms against her sweatpants. “I guess you knew that part already.”

He actually didn’t. He’d always assumed his father would marry her, but he’d never checked.

He glanced around the room, partly stalling for time. The toys, the decor, the love that surrounded his brother were everywhere. Signs of his father were there, too—the footballs, the little racetrack carpet, so like the one Tristan and his father spent countless hours playing on when he was young.

In another universe, this space would be bright and cheerful—playful even. The paintings, the fuzzy pillows, the books that lay scattered on the floor…it was the bright lights and machines that grounded Tristan to the present, which made him painfully aware of where he was.

He’d expected to hate her. This woman he now knew was Heather Montgomery. But he didn’t. She’d fallen victim to his father’s charms—one of thousands. Could he really blame her for that?

With shaking hands, Tristan handed her the stuffed elephant he’d bought for his brother. It was soft, with big ears, and had a ribbon tied around his neck in bright Dodger blue. “I thought he may like this,” he said when she glanced up at him.

She gripped the elephant until her knuckles turned white. “Do you know why he wasn’t at the wedding?” Heather blurted out.

Tristan froze, his mind having a hard time keeping up with the shift in conversation.

“Liam was born that day,” she said, “three months early.”

Tristan closed his eyes, his jaw clenched painfully shut.

“I had pregnancy induced toxemia,” she continued. “My blood pressure was high, and the doctors had to induce my labor. I don’t remember a lot. I think I blocked it out, but it was the day of your sister’s wedding. Your father wanted to be there, but he needed to be here. With me. With Liam.”

Tristan wasn’t sure what to say, or even the reason she was telling him this now, but his eyes found his little brother, still sleeping in his bed, and he shook his head, replaying all the conversations he’d had with his father on the way to Renee’s wedding. There had been so many opportunities for his father to tell him what was going on. Why hadn’t he said anything?

He realized now that it hadn't just been an affair his father had been hiding. He’d been hiding a whole life. A child. A sibling. He wondered how everyone would have taken it back then if his father had told him. Would they have accepted it? Would they have understood?

Tristan glanced to the machines which monitored his brother’s heartbeat, then to his tiny chest which labored with breathing.

He wondered if he’d have accepted his father had he tried to tell him the truth. If he would have heard the words through all of his pain he was feeling in that moment in time.

He glanced up at Heather again, no longer caring about how they got here. All he cared about was this little boy. He wanted Liam to grow up. More than anything else in the world, that was what he wanted.

“I’ll make an appointment tomorrow,” he whispered. “If I’m a match, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Heather’s face wrenched with emotion, and she threw her body against his chest. “Thank you,” she wept. “Thank you so much.”

His body stiffened, but he stood there awkwardly, comforting a woman he barely knew.

Once she retreated, wiping cheeks that were red streaked from tears, she said, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.” She had no makeup on, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d left the hospital.

There was a knock at the door before he could form a response, and he glanced over Heather’s shoulder to see a nurse standing there with a vitals monitor. “Should I come back?” she asked, glancing apprehensively between the two of them.

Tristan retreated a step, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I was just leaving.”

Heather turned to the nurse, then back to him, her gaze quizzical—as though, for the first time since his arrival, she noticed he was wearing a tuxedo.

Visions of last night flashed through his mind, and he faced his brother’s bed again, lacking the strength left to explain himself. “Thank you for letting me meet him,” Tristan whispered.

Heather only nodded and turned to help the nurse as Tristan stepped out to the hall.

Alone outside the room, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on for the first time since landing in L.A. Dozens of notifications chimed at once.

Renee: What’s going on?

Penny: We have a problem.

Dad: Call me, son.

Renee: Did you land?

Penny: Tristan, where are you?

Renee: Please call me.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but there wasn’t a single missed call or text from Samantha.

A raw brokenness squeezed his heart as he walked down the hall toward the elevator. The wounds from last night were fresh, painful, raw, and he couldn’t think straight.

Had she set him up? Had she planned that? Knowing what he knew now, would it still matter to him? His mind was reeling when his phone vibrated in his hand.

“Hello?” he answered on autopilot.

“Tristan, where have you been?” Penny shouted. “They’re taking everything!”

Feeling empty inside, he pushed the down button on the elevator, as Penny continued to explain. Collections had been at the office when she’d arrived that morning. They took the trucks, the furniture, and all the equipment. His few remaining employees were freaking out. “I tried to stop them,” she whispered.

His entire world collapsed as he listened. The elevator door opened, and he stepped inside, unsure where he was going. He pushed the button that took him to the bottom floor, feeling trapped in a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

In the last twenty-four hours, he’d lost everything. The life he’d built for the last three years was crumbling at his feet.

“Everything will be fine,” he said out loud, but even to his own ears, it sounded like a lie.