12. Bay
TWELVE
bay
Pulling my car into the driveway of my house, the first thing I notice is Travis's vehicle.
The second is how nervously he fidgets with his fingers as he rises from my porch step with a pair of crutches and walks to me.
I called him here because I selfishly needed someone to listen and not ask me a million and one questions I don’t have the answers to.
I’m freaking out.
What if Emilio Wildes is my father?
And what if Roger has lied to me my whole life?
I can’t stomach that.
Especially with all the love I feel for Roger, like a daughter loves her father.
His name isn’t Roger, it’s Dad.
Dad.
Emilio, nope.
Nevertheless, what’s his game and why did he seek me out? What the hell did my mom do?
“Hey, Trav,” I greet, rounding the front end of my car and breathing a sigh of relief. “Thanks for coming. I told you I’d come to you?—”
“Better that you don’t,” Travis replies. “My dad is looking for who shot me.”
My brows collide. “You didn’t tell him?” Slowly, he shakes his head. “Why?”
“What was I doing out to begin with?”
Right.
Duh.
“Right…you okay?” He shrugs, and the center of my interest lands on those brown curls and clean-shaven face. How innocent and sweet Trav is by just dropping whatever he was doing—you know, like, healing—to turn up to my rescue.
“I have a complication.”
Travis bobs his head once, immediately accepting that, whatever it is, he’ll be here for me. “What is it? Is Torin bothering you again?”
My eyes drop to his gray tee while gaining up the strength to admit out loud what I’m so afraid of.
I fall across a math problem etched in black with triangles and angles along his shirt. Typical nerd shit for the reliable dude who’s been in my life since I was six or seven. He’s been one of my closest friends that I remember, and he’s never left my side, despite all my faults.
“Bay, you wanna sit down?” His calm voice wraps around me, and I straighten my spine, hoping it gives my bravery a free space to verbally state what happened.
I shake my head and then see Trav open his mouth again when I word-vomit all over his wanting to soothe me. “Emilio Wildes came into the bar tonight and claims he’s my father.”
Travis’s malachite irises widen in sheer horror at my gut-wrenching statement, causing my own stomach to tighten.
He doesn’t respond, which only sets my apprehension to grow to an all-time high.
It’s that bad.
“Say something,” I blurt out, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “I’m freaking out here.”
“How’s that—” I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans and yank out the hair samples Emilio just so happened to have on standby.
To prove a massive point.
“I have DNA.” I can barely hold it between my thumb and index finger. I just want it off me. “It can’t—Roger is my dad.”
“Bay—”
“I mean, fuck, Trav…” I rock my head back and forth to rid myself of that conversation. “He can’t be my father. That’s—no. He’s fucking with me. He wants something.” My palm falls with a thud to my now empty chest. “I’m a nobody.”
“You’re not a nobody,” he mutters, taking a step in my direction. “We’ll…get this DNA test to confirm it.”
Cramming my hand back into my jeans again, I reveal Emilio’s dirty money. “Take this. I can’t?—”
“Bay.” I shift my weight, vulnerable tears burning the rear of my eyes because this is the last thing I need in my life.
It makes no sense. And the more I keep replaying our discussion in my head, the more I realize he's right.
Why would he come to South Shore, a place that throws a hit on him every chance it gets, just to appear and say hey, I’m your dad, let’s go home ?
“Let’s just get the test done and worry afterward, okay?”
I wrap my arms around my naked torso and squeeze. “Yeah…okay.”
“I’ll take care of it.” His eyes flash with confidence, something that makes me feel somewhat comforted, because he’s one dude who would never betray or steer me wrong. “We’ll figure this out.”
This is too big for us to be able to handle alone.
If this is true, my whole world just shifted, and I have a family who relies on me. A whole three heads who depend on my ass not being related to the biggest piece of shit in the universe.
“Bay, you should sit down.”
I rock my head. “I can’t. I swear to God, I’m not sure what’s happening right now.”
“We should call Levi?—”
“ No ,” I clip out, then immediately regret how harsh that sounded. “I mean, I can’t.”
I’ve already lied to him about the red mark on my face and why I showed up with another man’s shirt on my body. I said it was because some asshole spilled a drink on me, but even I knew that was lame.
“Why not?”
Oh my God, Trav. Please stop asking me questions.
“I just need a minute to breathe and...can you keep this between us?”
“Yeah…of course, I will.” He frowns, and it looks so foreign on his face that I become paranoid all of a sudden. “Bay...you’re shaking.”
He reaches for my hand and squeezes my fingers before I glance down at them in his grasp.
“Maybe I should call Levi and have him come over.” I attempt to pull my hands free of Travis’s, but he doesn’t let me go. In fact, he holds tighter. “How about I stay for a little while?”
Hot tears threaten to burn the back of my eyes again. How am I going to bring this up to Dad?
He’s not in the best mental state, and he’s literally everything to me. He’s always put me and my sisters first. He’s worked his ass off for as long as I can remember at the shipping yard, coming home late, listening to my mom bitch about how he’s never around to take care of his kids.
While mom wasn’t the greatest to me, he was. He consistently was. Even when Mom and he separated for a few months when I was maybe eleven, he made sure I had a roof. While he stayed and slept at the docks, I stayed with one of his friends for a short period of time because he didn’t have the money to feed me.
Mom didn’t want to deal with me, of course.
It could’ve been because I was a menace, someone she despised for whatever reason, but he never abandoned me.
However…it all makes sense.
I wasn’t her daughter.
If I am Emilio Wildes’s offspring, why would she wish to raise another man’s child? Unless she is my mother and Emilio and her?—
“You never have to hide from me,” Trav mutters lightly just above a whisper. “I’ll never spill your secret.”
Waterworks…it’s the best way I can describe my immediate breakdown as Travis wraps me in his warm arms, holding me to his chest as I have my mini mechanical brain failure.
His embrace is firm, fitting the rock he’s always been.
And Dad…without him, I’m lost.
I need him to get back to normal.
I need him now.