Chapter 15 #2
Storm rolled her eyes and released a cry of despair. She could see I was attempting humor by being ridiculous. “Great. So, Daddy is a murderer as well as an adulterer.”
The girl had a point. I pulled my feet off the floor and tucked them under my legs.
“Sorry.”
In a tone of pure contemplation, Molly took that moment to jump in. “So, your father thought the child could be his?”
“Yes. Imagine the shitstorm that would be caused by it being leaked that my father has an illegitimate child. Imagine the papers?” Storm’s shoulders slumped as I lifted the letter back to my face and re-read the conclusion.
“But your dad didn’t father anyone, well, not this boy anyway. The profiling doesn’t match. The findings are negative.”
“I know. I just needed to hear someone else say that,” Storm admitted, and I could sense her relief that we’d both drawn the same conclusion.
Allowing the report to flutter back onto the table, I offered my closing assumption.
“So yes, your dad may have been a dick years ago, but at least there were no consequences. The age of the boy also doesn’t fit with the timeframe of the affair, unless it started up again at a later stage. Who knows?”
“I just have an awful feeling. What if he’s had other affairs and there are loads of his bastards scattered across the city?”
We all moved at once, shoving the damning documents back in the box. “Well, you have two options. Confront your father or…” I knew my casual tone hit a wrong note as Molly grimaced.
“Or?” Storm looked at me hopefully.
I had no clue, really, but not wanting Storm to have another meltdown, I shrugged and went with, “Allow Jeeves to throw this in the trash as instructed and forget you ever found it.”
Storm made a face. “You mean Noah?”
“Whatever,” I huffed. I knew sweeping stuff under the carpet was never the best course of action.
“You said yourself it would crush your mother. It happened almost two decades ago; what good would her knowing about it do now? You never know, she may already know about it, and they’ve put it behind them.
Bringing it up may rehash painful memories.
I mean, it isn’t like your dad went to extremes to hide this shit.
Not if he left it in the corner of his office for his assistant to move?
If that were me, I’d be beside the shredding machine until it was all destroyed. ”
“True,” Storm sniffed, that haughty edge to her voice now gone. My suggestion of taking the easy way out, i.e., ignorant bliss, worked like a charm. “Fuck this. I need a drink. Anyone else?” she questioned, pushing to her feet and walking across her bedroom.
Molly and I exchanged a wary glance as Storm pressed a button on the wall. It caused a hidden panel to open, and inside was a mini fridge surrounded by neon lights. Oh, dear.
Rolling my eyes, I checked my phone, seeing more messages from Nix; so much for being excited about watching Jaws on the big screen!
I glanced back to watch our hostess grab some shot glasses and a bottle of spirits. Storm then came back to the sofas and poured three fingers of vodka into each glass, almost finishing the contents.
Nodding towards the almost empty bottle, I grabbed a glass and saluted the girls with it. “Well, I’d say you’re going to need a bigger bottle.”
Storm grinned. And the party girl was back. “There’s plenty more where that came from. What shall we drink to?”
“Ignorant bliss?” I suggested with a strained smile.
Things were about to get messy. I had many issues, but being foolishly spontaneous wasn’t one of them. We were about to get trashed on a school night, but at that point, I figured, why the hell not?
Then something occurred to me, Maple Avenue? Wasn’t that the name of the street where Phoenix’s mother lived?
I pushed away the thought.
About an hour and several tequila shots later, the sleepover started to morph into something any unrespectable male only dreamed of.
The paperwork from the special box where Storm had discovered her father’s infidelity was now spread out across the table and onto the floor.
The bedroom was a mess with clothes everywhere.
At Storm’s request, both Molly and I had joined her to try on outfits for the weekend.
We then danced around the room in our underwear, singing (badly) to a selection of songs played through the Alexa whilst getting more drunk.
It was great fun, and the fuzz I had been given from the bottle of spirits was a welcome one as I slumped down onto the floor and pushed my back against the bed.
Molly and Storm were over by the dressing table, where Molly clutched the picture of Reed and held it in front of her face. Her impression of him was borderline ridiculous, and I laughed along with them as I grabbed a pile of old photographs by the side of the spilled box of secrets.
I wondered how the boys were getting on. My phone had been quiet for the last hour, but both Molly's and Storm’s had pinged away. Should I be jealous that they were getting more attention than I? Probably, but it wasn’t as if I was unused to that.
Hazily scanning through the pictures in my hand, I glanced down at what looked like a medal that had fallen by my foot as one of my favorite Nickelback songs came on.
Leaning over, I picked it up by the rainbow-colored ribbon.
It was gold and shiny and fit perfectly in my palm.
That urge to take it surged through me. To be honest, I had felt the need to take something as soon as Storm came out of the bathroom.
The dress ring with the large diamond-looking stone, which she had on in the car that day, was now hanging around her neck on a chain.
But apart from ripping the chain from her throat, there was no way I’d be able to easily take it.
No, the medal would have to do, for now.
Glancing at the girls, I could see their attention was now taken up with the other pictures on the corkboard, the ones from school. Molly was pointing to a snap of Storm and Tate, and her nose was wrinkled in distaste as Storm said something to her. I couldn’t hear due to the loud music.
Skimming my finger across the surface of the medal, I saw it was a college, ‘coming first’ award.
Something to do with sports, considering the image of the football on there.
That feeling to steal it was so strong that I discarded it and dragged a pile of scattered photographs across the floor towards me.
They were taken at a college football game, from the size of the stadium.
They were clearly old, some stained at the corners, and I felt a twinge of sadness.
Why had they not been looked after? Photographs were memories.
I’d sell my soul to have the ones back of my family, before they’d been destroyed in the fire.
There weren’t any of the other women in there; they were all football players. Boring.
And then I came to the last one, and I flinched as my heart almost stalled.
I flicked a glance of shock towards Storm and Molly, who were now rearranging the collage of pictures on the corkboard.
Swallowing, I glanced back down at the image in my hand.
It was a picture of a strong young male.
He was standing with a sponsor in front of a sports stand.
The player had dark hair and brown eyes (whisky-colored), and was holding a brass statue of a football player with the words Butkus Award etched beneath it.
My heart began to race in my chest as I stared at the image of a young Dominic Summers and how proud he looked.
He was breathtaking, an image of an elite athlete who oozed confidence and pride.
And he was the spitting image of Phoenix Carter, a boy who could have been his son and the possible result of an affair that was, after I redid the math, nineteen years ago?
If I was right, the truth of what that made Storm to Nix, hit me like a bullet.
PHOENIX
After I sent my last message to Harper to apologize for being so withdrawn, I waited for her reply, but the two ticks to say she’d read it didn’t appear. I held back my smile. She was probably ignoring me on purpose, trying to drag shit out as chicks did.
Rolling my eyes, I pocketed my phone and jogged towards the stairs to meet my brothers in the den. Despite the Coach’s rules about not drinking before the game that weekend, we’d decided to have a quick tipple before heading off to the movies to see Jaws on the big screen.
Over the last few days, I’d been struggling to comprehend my mother’s bullshit, and so I’d done what I usually did: swallowed those feelings and avoided dissecting the situation.
That’s why I had put Harper at arm's length again. I was a moody fucker when I didn’t understand something, and I refused to ruin the truce we had going on.
I’d done the same with Hudson to a certain extent.
Harper and Hud were the only two people who saw beneath my bullshit, and I needed to get things right in my head before I invited them back in.
So, I had kept my distance.
“Nix, you’ve got a visitor,” Hudson's voice drifted up from downstairs. The hairs on my arms stood on end as a breeze hit me on the stairwell. As I turned the corner and made my way down the last few steps, Hudson was standing with the front door open. I couldn’t see who was on the porch as his broad shoulders and massive fucking head were in the way. I sure hoped it wasn’t Courtney.
And then a surge of panic mixed with excitement thumped through me. I had left her my address; maybe it was my mother? But that strange feeling was short-lived.
As Hudson stepped back, I almost collapsed into a heap as Alex, my half-brother, stood there. What the actual fuck?
Hudson glanced between us with a confused expression as I powered towards them. The frown on my face was so hard it hurt, and I knew I needed to calm down. I didn’t want to scare the boy off before finding out what the fuck he was doing at my house.