Chapter 39
Logan
My phone has been buzzing all day with calls from unknown numbers. Between all the work to finalize the nursery and spending time with Clover and her family, showing her dads around the city, it had been easy to ignore. But now the texts had started.
Unknown number:
Logan, answer the fucking phone
This is ridiculous, you can’t ignore your own family
Logan
LOGAN
Oh, good. My mother had started using burner numbers. A dozen more messages followed before I cracked and answered while everyone was getting ready for bed.
“What do you want?”
A bitter laugh met me. “What do I want? For my own flesh and blood to not ignore me like trash. Where the hell do you get off treating me like that?”
I bit down on a sigh and navigated my way to the kitchen, so I could pace in peace. “I was busy today. Other than that, I haven’t been ignoring you.”
“Bullshit. Why else would my calls be going through to those entitled assholes you call a pack instead of to you?”
I fell silent for a moment. My pack had talked plenty of times about rerouting calls from my family to their phones, but I hadn’t realized they’d gone ahead with it. Apparently, it had been wishful thinking that the peace was because my mother had chilled out.
“What do you need this time?”
“The money you give me isn’t enough. I’m practically living in poverty, while you’re living the fucking lap of luxury over there.
I can’t believe you would be so heartless to the people who raised you, to not give us the same standard of living, when we all know you didn’t earn that money yourself. Stop being so greedy.”
I muted the call when I couldn’t get control of my growl. I went through a round of box breathing while she continued to berate me about all the ways I’d left them to starve after the sacrifices she’d made for me growing up.
What sacrifices?
My family had been quick to use me at every opportunity.
I’d heard a thousand times over that my mother only stayed with my father because she couldn’t make it as a single mother, and she’d added another alpha to the mix to supposedly keep us off the streets.
Instead, they’d always made things harder.
“Mom.” I took a deep breath. “This has to stop. We give you as much in a month as a lot of people make in a year. If you haven’t learned financial responsibility by now, more money isn’t going to help. How many times have we paid off your debts?”
She scoffed. “I don’t keep track of that.”
“Eight. Each of them bordering on seven figures.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Whatever trouble you’ve gotten into, I’ll take care of it, but this is the last time. I have an omega now, and a baby on the way. They have to come first, and your chaos can’t keep steamrolling our lives.”
My mother squawked. “Logan, be serious. You want your own mother to end up on the streets because you knocked up some two-bit tramp? She deserves to be taken care of but not me?”
“Don’t fucking talk about her like that.
I don’t want you on the streets.” I gripped the edge of the counter, my knuckles white.
“Sure seems like you do, though. You let Rick sell the house we bought you. You gave Dan money for his gambling debt that he racked up again immediately. If you’d leave them, you’d never worry about money for one second of the rest of your life. ”
“Those are your fathers!”
“You could live so comfortably if you’d get your shit together, and instead, you all show up with your hands open whenever you get into trouble, expecting me to help you start fresh. I’m done.”
“Logan!”
“I’m sorry. We both know this isn’t how I wanted things to go between us. No matter how much I give you, it’s never going to be enough for you to see me as your son and not a bank account for you to drain. The others have tried for years to make me see that.”
“I knew they were poisoning you against me. Baby, please, I’m your mother.”
Guilt and nausea turned my stomach. Even after all the bullshit she’d put me through, I’d still kept trying.
I thought if I could give her financial security, she would stop letting my asshole fathers push her around, but instead, she had dragged them with her.
Maybe she needed the chaos to survive, but I sure as fuck didn’t anymore.
Looking back now, it was easy to tell that my willingness to bend to them had been a huge stumbling block in developing my friendship with Parker.
“Logan, you ungrateful cunt.” A different voice this time.
“Can’t even be bothered with a hello, Dan? It’s kind of basic courtesy.”
“You’ll get courtesy when you stop making your mother cry.”
I ground my teeth together. He and Rick had been the worst offenders by far.
I hated them. They’d been in and out of my life growing up, sometimes disappearing for years at a time before rolling back into the picture to kick over whatever tenuous sand castle of peace we’d managed to build in their absence.
“I’ll get you out of trouble,” I promised. “But like I told Mom, it’s going to stop. I have a family to think of now, and after I clean up whatever shit you’ve gotten into again, you guys have to be on your own.”
I ended the call, immediately blocking the numbers for my own sanity.
The clearing of a throat had me turning to see Clover’s dad, Pete, hovering in the entrance to the kitchen.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” He offered a sympathetic smile. “Actually, that’s a lie, at least once I figured out what you were talking about. Do you want to talk about it?”
I shrugged and leaned on the counter, bracing my weight on my forearms.
Pete grabbed us both a glass of water, then pulled out one of the barstools and sat nearby, but not directly in my space. “Parent trouble?”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Always.”
Pete gave me a serious look. “I haven’t spoken to my parents since before Clover was born.”
I stared at him for a long moment. Of all of her fathers, Pete was easily the most amiable, and the last of their clan I would have expected to go no contact.
“Why?” I choked out.
“Sounds like similar reasons to you. I spent my whole childhood helping bail them out of their shit decisions. Before I was old enough for a proper job, I collected cans and bottles, graduated to mowing lawns, shoveling snow on the rare occasions it fell, really any chore I could get my hands on that someone would pay me for. Every dollar I made before I met Mike and John went straight into my parents’ hands.
When we decided on kids, it really hit home for me that I’d have someone more important than my parents to take care of. ”
I grimaced. “Sounds painfully familiar, though I definitely got some of the money from less-than-legal means.”
“Such as?”
“I might’ve stolen a few cars. A buddy’s brother ran a chop shop, and it certainly paid better than minimum wage.”
Pete nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sorry you were ever put in a position that made you feel like that was a reasonable option.”
I shrugged, desperately trying to hold back a flood of tears and anger.
“No,” Pete said softly. “It’s not something to shrug off. Parents are supposed to protect their children. Mine didn’t do that for me, and it sounds like yours didn’t do that for you, either. Did they at least say thank you?”
“They never do.”
“Neither did mine. I didn’t even realize it until Mike asked me that same question and I couldn’t remember a single time they had been outwardly grateful for me sacrificing so much of my childhood.”
“So you won’t think I’m a shit person if I cut them off?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I needed him to say it out loud.
Pete surprised me by getting to his feet and standing with his arms open, an offering of affection I couldn’t remember my own fathers offering. He smelled like warm pine sawdust, a comforting, earthy scent.
I sank into his arms and let the dam break.
I hated crying in front of other people, but Pete was a warm, solid presence, without an ounce of derision for my display of emotion.
He simply held me tight. How many times had I gone to my mother for assurance like this, only to be turned over to my fathers for a verbal—and sometimes physical—lashing?
“I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself.
I know how difficult it is to hold your ground against the people who raised you.
It’s not easy now, and it won’t be easy when you go through the next steps, either, but what you told them is true.
You have an omega and a baby on the way.
Clover is lucky to have bonded someone who cares enough about her to lay down those hard boundaries. ”
That only made me more emotional.
“I love her. I don’t want my parents to be part of my life with her.”
Pete gave me another squeeze when I’d recovered myself a little more. “You’re doing the right thing. Your mate and child should always come before parents.”
A whisper of sweet peony met my nose, and I turned to see Clover hovering in the entrance to the kitchen.
I laughed, the sound watery. Like father, like daughter.
Clover beelined straight into my arms when her dad stepped away. “I love you too. I don’t know what you’re protecting us from, but I promise I appreciate it.”
I held her close, breathing in her scent to anchor myself.
“I came to get you for bed.” She nuzzled hard against my chest. “You felt upset in the bond, and the nest feels empty without you.”
Pete was smiling softly when I glanced over to him. “You two get up to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I sucked in a shuddering breath. “Thank you, for tonight.”
“No problem at all, son. That’s what family does for each other.”
I nearly lost it all over again, but Clover hugged me tighter, reaching out to squeeze her father’s hand before leading me upstairs.
I’d known that Clover was giving us a new family with her pregnancy, but I hadn’t realized how much more she could possibly bring into our lives.
Our pack could do with some solid father figures.
We paused outside of Clover’s suite, and I leaned down to kiss her until I felt steady again. She looked up at me with sparkling eyes. “What was that for?”
“Just kissing the love of my life.”
She beamed, her scent sweetening. “Get in the nest, and you can snuggle her too.”
I followed after her, hoping that every day going forward would end exactly that way for the rest of my life.