Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
JED
Graham gasps, and my gaze shoots to the front door.
“Shit,” he hisses. “I don’t want to go back with him. Shit, shit, shit.”
I’m out of my seat and on my way to the door before the man gets a single word out. There’s no mistaking who he is: an older, sharpened version of Graham.
Shane’s father.
Shane’s rigid, deathly still. For a man who almost never stops moving, it has my skin crawling.
The man looks past Shane, and his eyes settle on me briefly before moving back to Shane. “I’m looking for my son. Graham Ackerman. I was informed he’d be here.”
What. A. Fucking. Bastard.
He meets my gaze. “Can I come in?” His words are perfectly polite, but they reek of disdain. “It’s torrential out here.” He’s under the small covering of the front stoop, but the wind’s whipping him with rain. It’s the least he deserves.
Shane’s not responding. Still not moving. I step up beside him. “No. And we can’t help you.”
The man’s cheek tics. “I know he’s here. His phone’s location has him at this address, and I saw his car parked on the street.”
“Didn’t say he wasn’t. Still can’t help you. Now, I think it’s time for you to go.”
“You have my son in there.” His words are clipped and hold the authority of a man used to getting his way. “You’ll return him to me. Immediately. The police don’t look too kindly on kidnapping.”
“Last I checked, he was eighteen. He doesn’t want to leave. So he doesn’t.”
There’s a pad of footsteps, and then Frankie is sliding into position on Shane’s other side. “Everything all right, Shaney-babe? Is this old man bothering you?” There’s a wealth of warning in his tone. Frankie’s fangs are out.
The man’s gaze pings between Shane and Frankie, and it’s subtle, but I’ve seen it so many times I don’t miss it. The chin that jerks back a millimeter. The lip that curls up. The gaze that turns downward. Like we’re beneath them.
Disgust.
“I want my son. Now. Or else I will be calling the police.”
Frankie bats his eyelashes. “And what exactly will you be charging us with? Please enlighten us.” His sickly sweet voice is tinged with warning.
“You’ve clearly lured my son here.” His gaze locks on Shane. “I don’t know what lies you’ve told him, what you’ve fed him to get him to come here.” His gaze lands back on Frankie. “But I won’t have him preyed on.”
“Or…” I say slowly and step forward. Because holy fucking asshole. “You can leave, or we’ll call the police. For trespassing.”
“This is ridiculous,” he spits out.
Graham’s father takes a step forward. Frankie and I stay firm, but Shane flinches. And my heart cracks.
He peers over us. “Graham!” he shouts. “Graham!”
I press my hand to his chest but don’t push. I will if I need to. “You’re not welcome here.”
“I’d suggest you remove your hand,” he says quietly.
The unspoken threat doesn’t scare me. He’s a powerful man backed by family and money. But so am I. And he doesn’t get to show up at our door and hurt my man. Shane’s turned into a fucking shell of a person.
I press into him. “Or what?” I whisper.
“Dad, wait.” Footsteps hurry up behind us, and then Graham is pushing his way through.
“I’ll go with you.” Graham glances at me and, damn, the asshole really knows how to destroy his sons.
Those hazel eyes are heavy with defeat. With apology.
He looks back at his dad. “I’ll go, but you have to promise to leave them alone. ”
“What did they do to you?” His gaze flicks from Frankie to Shane.
There’s accusation burning in that stare, and I might not know the specific charges, but I know they’re ugly. This level of hate—for his own kin—has me lost for words. Has me lost.
“Dad. What the hell! They’ve been nothing but nice to me.” He pushes at his dad. “I’ll come home. Please. Leave them alone, and let’s just go.”
“We’ll see about that.” But Graham’s dad steps back.
I place my hand on Graham’s shoulder, and he quickly turns toward me. “You don’t have to go with him. You’re eighteen. You know you’re welcome here.”
Graham’s eyes say everything. He gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. There is no choice here. He has to go. His gaze locks on Shane’s, and his eyes well. “I’m sorry,” he mouths.
Shane is stone-still; those expressive blue eyes vacant. He doesn’t even register his brother’s apology.
“Go,” I whisper.
He swallows and nods, then steps out and past his dad.
Graham’s dad’s attention falls on Shane again. “Come near my son again, and it won’t be just you and your disgusting friends you need to worry about.” He spins on his heel and follows Graham.
My body goes up in flames. The fucking audacity of that prick. In one sentence, he disowned his son, smeared the queer community, and issued a threat—one that I think was directed toward Shane’s mother.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit!” Frankie bites out. “That man is the lowest level of scum. I need to go hit something. Because rage.” He ends on a growl and turns. “Shaney—Shane?”
I shift from where I’d been glaring at the front door—to face the empty space between me and Frankie. My attention snaps to Frankie. “Where’d he go?”
Frankie shakes his head, having no answer. My gaze catches on Frankie’s trembling hands. “You okay, Frank?”
He sends me a weak smile. “Besides feeling like I’m going to vomit?”
Yeah. I get it. Facing a person’s hate is debilitating.
When someone attacks who you are—when they decide you don’t deserve to exist—hate like that doesn’t just hurt.
I don’t think there are words strong enough for the pain it leaves behind.
But I also know I don’t experience half of what Frankie does.
Frankie’s out in a way the world sees. I can hide in ways he can’t.
I quickly duck into Shane’s bedroom, but it’s empty. Shit. My blood shakes in my veins. I have this bone-deep need to get to him. Immediately. I rush through the kitchen—no Shane. To the living room—everyone there but Shane.
“He went upstairs,” Easton says.
I’m already on my way up the stairs, taking them two at a time, before East even finishes. When I get to the landing, the bathroom door is wide open, and I doubt he’d have gone into the others’ rooms. I push open the balcony door.
And there he is.
Huddled on the wooden decking against the wall, rain beating down on him.
My Sunshine—not a ray of light to be found.
The cold rain seeps into my skin, penetrating all the way to my core. I blink past the rain and settle next to him. He doesn’t react.
“Shane,” I say softly, and it gets lost in the downpour.
“Maybe this was the reason all along.” His hoarse words are barely audible. “The reason he left. He knew this was in me all along. He knew there was something wrong with me.”
My heart stalls. No. I reach for him. I need him to know how flawed that thinking is. How wrong—
He jerks away from me, physically shuffles to the side, and creates more distance.
Pain slices through me, tiny cuts perforating my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Fuck. I draw in a slow breath. I couldn’t have ever expected that to hurt as much as it did.
It shows how far gone I really am for him. Too far.
“I’m sorry.” His words are so small, so lost, that more of my heart breaks for him.
Not just breaks. It shatters me. It shatters me to see the man who dove so enthusiastically into this new side of himself, now full of doubts, of regret. It was something I admired so much about him. And his father has tainted it.
He still won’t look at me. He’s clutching his head, those golden curls a dark mess plastered to his head.
“Listen to me, Shane. There is nothing wrong with you. The only person who is wrong is that fucking bastard who abandoned you and your mom. Who was living a double life. He’s an adulterer. A cheat. A nasty human being. And he never deserved to have you in his life. That man only deserves darkness.”
Don’t let him take your light.
But it’s too late. There’s not even a glimmer left in the man sitting next to me.
No smile to hide what he carries inside. Every protective layer has been torn away, rinsed raw by the pelting rain. What remains is the little boy whose father left him, one who grew up believing he was never enough to make someone stay.
The boy who truly believes he’s worthless.
I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to touch him again.
I don’t think there’s anything I can possibly say to fix this.
To fix the broken man next to me. He was already cracked before this, the wounds his father inflicted never fully healed.
And I know, because Shane is endless optimism despite the trials of his past, that he’d still held out hope.
That one day he’d catch his father’s notice, that his father would have a change of heart.
This was the killing blow. That hope…obliterated.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and shoot off a quick text before hiding it from the rain again. He needs comfort; he needs love. It just can’t come from me right now. A hollowness eats away at my chest.
A minute later the balcony door opens, and Shelby’s gaze clashes with mine. She’s got the hood of her sweatshirt blocking her head from the rain as she hurries over to me.
“Can you get him inside? He—” My voice chokes off. “I think it has to be you.”
I know how close he is with Paulie and Easton, but I have a feeling he can’t handle being around a man right now. At least not for the kind of comfort he needs.
She nods. “Of course.”
She slips past me and kneels in front of Shane. He tries to curl into himself more, but Shelby grips his face, forces him to look at her as she says something that gets lost in the roar of the rain.
She touches him.
When I can’t.
Shane shifts, and with Shelby’s help, pushes to stand. She wraps an arm around him, and even being nearly half-a-foot shorter than him, tucks him into her side and helps him inside.
My head falls back against the wall, and I let the rain lash my skin.
I’m sure tomorrow will be better. Once he’s moved past some of his shock and heartbreak. I’m not going to fool myself into thinking we’re going to jump back to how we were, but we can slowly work toward it. I’ll do whatever I can to help him heal from this.
I hope he lets me.
I slide out my phone for a second time.
Me
Do you want me to go home tonight or stay? Whatever you want, I’ll do.
My heart lodges itself in my throat. I’m not sure he’ll even see my text.
My phone immediately lights up. A sliver of hope swirls behind my breastbone at the quick response.
And dies.
Sunshine
Go.