Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lewis stares for a long beat. Without saying anything, he walks me to the basement door. “Change. I’ll wait here.”
I nod and make my way to my locker in a daze. My father was always this nameless, faceless jerk. That’s what I told myself, to come to terms with his having left us. But this wealthy guy—he seems normal.
My mind is so turned upside down it physically aches. A wave of nausea roils through me, tightening my throat and making my nose burn. I dress and emerge from the basement.
Lewis drives me home. He holds me all night and asks no questions. At some point I drift into a dreamless sleep.
When I wake, the room is lit by bright sunlight streaming through the curtains I forgot to close. Lewis is still holding me, but his head is propped by a pillow, and he’s wide awake.
“Hey,” I say.
He glances down and smiles, but there’s a weariness to his features that makes it look like he got even less sleep than me.
“What’s wrong?”
He closes his eyes and sighs through his nose. “That guy last night.”
“Jeb Kendrick?”
He nods. “I recognized him.”
My arm tightens over his chest. I’m not sure I want to hear this.
“The name sounded familiar, so I checked it out online.” Lewis’s phone lies faceup above the covers. “He’s an ex-pro football player. I looked him up to make sure it wasn’t someone else with the same name, but it’s him. Jeb, the guy you think… he was a quarterback in the NFL for about a decade.”
Tears well behind my eyes. If this guy has money, which, considering his appearance and what Lewis said, he definitely does, he could have helped my mom. Supported her. Does she know this?
I can’t believe she would have dated so many rich guys if she didn’t need the money.
Until Fred, she never loved any of them.
She used them, or they used her—I’m not sure how it worked—but they’re how we survived financially, and I’ve always resented her for it, disturbed she didn’t choose a different path.
I shouldn’t be so hard on her. She was a teenager when she had me. Anyone would have struggled to care for a child and make ends meet.
Now I find out Jeb Kendrick could have helped us all along?
I consider calling my mom, telling her this guy showed up, but I need more time to wrap my head around it. Jeb sought me out. Why would he do that after he’d intentionally stayed away my entire life? A change of heart?
An insistent knock sounds on the bedroom door, followed by a familiar voice. “Gen? Are you in there?”
Cali. Cali! I wind a blanket around my body and sit up.
Lewis quirks his brow. “Problem?”
“Yes,” I hiss. “Cali doesn’t know we’re, we’re—”
“Together?”
“That. Cali’s been sick and I didn’t want to talk about us until things settled down. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but it’s been a little chaotic around here.”
He shakes his head and I slip off the bed, taking the blanket with me. I crawl around the floor, searching for clothes. A muffled snicker sounds from above the mattress and I look up.
Lewis is watching me, chuckling. My breath catches. His hair is rumpled, a lazy grin on his face, his shirtless muscles on full display… This is not the time for him to unknowingly seduce me with his morning hotness!
“Get dressed,” I say, and fish out a sweatshirt from under the bed.
More knocking. “Gen, what’s going on? Are you okay?” The doorknob rattles. Thank God one of us locked it.
A pair of boxers spills over the to-be-folded laundry basket in the corner and I lunge for them.
Tyler’s? How the hell…? He’s sneaking laundry into our basket? Mooch!
I stand on one leg and pull the boxers over my panties. Nothing happened last night—I was too distraught to talk or do anything more than cuddle—but we both stripped to our underwear before crawling under the covers.
The boxers slip down my hips, nearly falling off, before I roll and tuck them in place.
“Is it so bad that I’m here?” Lewis whispers, pulling on jeans.
More pounding on the door. “Gen, I’m getting worried. Open up.”
“Coming!” I call and walk around the end of the bed, squeezing past Lewis, who’s pulling his arms through a T-shirt. He grabs my waist before I can pass, trailing his fingers along the exposed skin between my sweatshirt and boxers. I shiver.
“Sorry.” He grins unabashedly, then shrugs. “Not really.”
“You are much naughtier than you first let on.”
He leans down and kisses my lips. “Only with you.”
I run my palm over the bulge forming in his jeans. That’s right. Two can play this game.
He growls low in his throat and jerks me close.
I slap his hands away—“Not now, not now!”—and open the bedroom door.
Cali is standing in her bikini top and flannel pajama pants, her gaze sliding from me to Lewis. Her eyes go comically wide, her lips pressing together as if she’s cutting off a vocal reaction. She blinks at me and walks toward the kitchen.
Lewis grabs his wallet from the nightstand. “Think I’ll let you deal with this.” He looks down at his phone and frowns.
I throw his earlier question at him. “Problem?”
He rubs his chin roughly. “Maybe.”
“What—”
“Gen,” Cali singsongs from the vicinity of the kitchen. “You coming out?”
Lewis pockets the phone. “Call me after you tell her.” He grins, but it’s shallow, as if the text message he glimpsed really bothered him. He wraps his arms around my waist and hugs me tight. “Let me know how badly she grills you.”
“You could stay, you know.”
He pecks me on the forehead and lets me go, striding out the front door. “Nope, this one’s on you.” He glances back on his way to the car. “Should have told her,” he says over his shoulder.
Dammit. He’s right. “You’re no help,” I call, and he chuckles.
I shut the front door and join Cali and Tyler at the dining table. Tyler’s eyes dart to the front window, his gaze curious.
Cali sips from the Sexy Bitch mug she monopolizes. “So, you’re shacking up with Lewis?”
Leave it to Cali to skip to the damning part. “Yeahhh, well, you know how I said Lewis and I were just friends? Things changed right before you landed in the hospital. I was going to tell you, but with everything going on, the news got lost in the shuffle.”
Cali sets down her mug. “Gen, I don’t care about that. This week has been insane to say the least. I know I said I wouldn’t interfere, it’s just—that girl that hangs all over him; are you sure it’s not going to be a problem for you guys?”
“I don’t know. But he’s pretty amazing, Cali.”
She looks at Tyler, seeking an ally.
Tyler shrugs. “You’re happy?”
Tears well behind my eyes, because when asked that question, I don’t think about Lewis, I think about last night and the man I met. “I’ve never been this happy with a guy before.” And that’s the truth. If it weren’t for my baby-daddy issues.
Cali’s eyes widen. “Then why are you crying?”
I drop my head on the table and cover it with my arm, sensing the pressure of Cali’s hand on my shoulder a second later. “Lewis is great, Cali. He’s not why I’m upset.” I stare up. “I think I ran into my father last night.”
Cali’s mouth parts. A second later, she stumbles out of her chair and returns with a tissue from the bathroom. “What do you mean? I thought you never talk to your dad?”
I wipe my eyes. “I don’t.” I pause. “Cali, I don’t know my dad.”
She squints. “You mean you haven’t seen him for years so you don’t know much about him?”
The truth is so humiliating. “I mean I don’t know who he is. My mom doesn’t either. She never said that, but she’s always acted like his identity wasn’t important, so it’s what I’ve assumed. Like downplaying him was her way of saving face.”
My mom acted like it didn’t matter who my dad was and I assumed she really didn’t know, but she made that weird comment the other day about athleticism running in the family. After meeting Jeb Kendrick and Lewis filling me in on his former profession… Did she know?
It seems unimaginable that she would keep this from me, but so was running into a man I believe might be my father.
When I look back, Tyler and Cali are staring. Tyler’s the first to say something. “That’s rough, man.” He nudges Cali, whose face is frozen and pale.
She clears her throat. “So, what did this guy say?”
“He wanted to talk to me. He knew my mom’s name. Her real name.” Cali knows all about my mom’s French proclivities.
“What’d you do?”
“I passed out.”
Cali and Tyler exchange a look. I wish people would stop doing that.
“I was over-exhausted. Anyway, once I regained consciousness, I mumbled something and ran away.” I shake my head.
“It’s over. I told him I didn’t know the person he spoke of when he asked about my mom.
Even if he didn’t believe me, he had to have figured out I want nothing to do with him.
Chances are he won’t bother me again. It’s just—it upset me. ” More tears spill down my cheeks.
Cali grabs my hand. “Gen, you need to talk to your mom.”
She’s right. But if my mom knew about my father, and it seems likely she did… The betrayal.
My lack of trust didn’t originate with crappy boyfriends.
My mother allowed creepy men into our lives.
Her relationships with them never seemed to last long enough to warrant a frank discussion, and though the men crossed the line, they did so just barely, and never within my mother’s view.
I was young and passive. My inability to speak up didn’t stop me from blaming her, though.
I still blame her to some extent. She brought me up in a world without the security a decent father could provide, and if she did that willingly…
I take a shower and sit outside on one of the lounge chairs relegated to the dirt, with Cali and Jaeger’s tent-home spilling over the patio.
The legs of my lounge chair wobble on the uneven ground, but the clean pine scent of the trees reminds me of Lewis, and that helps calm the storm raging in my head.
I work tonight and I need to get a grip before then, which means clearing up the big fat question I have.
Phone in hand, I click through recents and tap my mom’s contact. The shower didn’t help ease my nerves, but I’m not going to make the mistake I’ve made in the past and put off talking about something important.
The phone rings. My pulse pounds in my ear, muffling the ringtone.
“I can’t believe it,” my mom says by way of answering. “You’re up before noon?”
“Who’s my father, Mom?”
Silence on the other end, then, “It’s not impor—”
“It’s fucking important. I met him last night. You never told me, and I met him. He found me.”
“What?” Her voice is faint.
“Jeb Kendrick. Ring a bell?”
My mother’s sharp intake of air is the only answer I get.
“Who is he, Mom? Is he my father?”
“Oh my God. He promised…”
“Mother, answer me.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes.”
I’m crying again. Tears streaming down my cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice comes out high and quivery like a child’s. I hate that wobbly voice. I’ve worked hard to be strong.
“Honey, I understand you’re upset, but I was protecting you.”
“How does raising me a bastard protect me? Are you some kind of prostitute?” I’m beginning to think I was all wrong about that, but I want the truth and I’m not tiptoeing around to get it. The filters are off.
“Genevieve,” she says, aghast.
“Well, are you?”
“Why would you think that?”
“A call girl? An upscale hooker?”
“No, none of those things.”
“Then how do you support us? No one in our family has money and you don’t work.”
“Your father. Your father has always provided for us. He insisted.”
What?
“Jeb Kendrick was my high school sweetheart.” Her voice is nasally, like she’s crying.
“He left me for his career. It crushed me. My heart, he—I was never…” She pauses, and I hear her blowing her nose on the other end.
“What’s done is done. I found out I was pregnant a month later, but Jeb had already moved on.
“There were a string of women, Genevieve. I heard all about them in the tabloids. He was a rising star. Paparazzi, newscasters, they followed his every move. By the time you were born, there were too many women to count. I didn’t want any part of that.”
She lets out a soft sigh. “I told him about you when you were a week old. He had a right to know, but I had every intention of raising you by myself. He asked me to take him back, but I didn’t trust him—the way he was living his life.
I swore to be the best mom I could, and protecting you from all that was a part of it. ” Her voice is unsteady, raw.
I’ve never heard my mother like this. She is the beautiful, confident man-collector who dabbles in anything French. Not this small-town girl with a broken heart.
“You could have taken him back, Mom. I could have had a father. It’s not like you didn’t parade your own string of lovers over the years. Why did you keep him away?”
“There were other rumors about drugs and addictions. I didn’t want you mixed up with that. I asked him to stay away and he did, but he kept in touch through my lawyer and he always provided for us.”
“He’s married.”
“I know,” she says. “He told me he’d found someone a few years back.
He said he’s clean and that he and his wife have a solid home environment.
They want you in their lives. I asked him to wait a couple of years until you graduated from college.
I worried that the truth would be too much with the stress of school. ”
Jesus. My own mother thinks I’m weak. Putting that aside—“I graduated, Mom!”
“I know! I’m sorry. I was going to tell you, but I was worried.”
“About what?”
“Partly that you’d be angry with us.”
“You mean with you. That I’d be angry with you.”
“Yes.”
“You were right; I’m fucking furious!” I sit up. “How could you keep this from me? He confronted me and I didn’t know who he was.”
“That’s not how I wanted you to find out.”
“Then you should have told me.” My voice catches. She lied to me all these years.
My mother rattles on, unaware of the depth of my internal turmoil. “He’s provided for us comfortably. You only just graduated. I was getting ready to tell you. I wish he had talked to me before he went to you.”
I used to believe my father abandoned me, but I also thought there was a chance he didn’t know I existed. That if he’d known, he would have wanted me.
He let me grow up believing I didn’t have a father. My mother’s to blame too—maybe more so—I don’t know… I can’t think above the pounding in my head. I click off the phone without saying goodbye.