Chapter 36 The Stud and The Cheerleader #2
All I could do was make a face.
“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. “By then, I fuckin’ hated her.
Because she was a vain, selfish woman. She didn’t have anything wrong with her.
She wasn’t bipolar or schizophrenic. She was Lisa Hutchison.
She was Bree. Beautiful. Able to snap her fingers and bring a man to his knees.
And she liked doing that. Especially to my dad. ”
“Are you…er, sure of that?” I asked carefully.
His answer was immediate.
“Fuck yeah. Because you were right about Bree. I have no idea how I didn’t see it.
Mom started to get older, and it wasn’t so easy to find some guy to shack up with.
Or party with. Or take her out to an expensive dinner.
That’s when the petulance started. The temper tantrums. That was when Dad started his turn from loving her and wanting to make it work, to loving her but knowing he couldn’t live with her anymore.
Because, if she couldn’t get the world to treat her the way she wanted to be, she was gonna make him do it.
He might have loved her, but he was a man.
There was only so much he was going to take.
He wasn’t going to dance attendance or grovel.
Then it was her slamming out to go stay with Aunt Elaine for three weeks to ‘teach him his lesson.’”
“Was your Aunt Elaine like that?”
He shook his head while taking another bite of toast, threw it on his plate, chewed, sat back, swallowed.
“She’s married to the same man, now probably it’s been over forty years.
She wasn’t as attractive. But that doesn’t mean my Uncle Shane wasn’t a cowed man.
She snapped, he moved. Sometimes I think that was what Mom was looking for.
What she tried to mold Dad into. She just picked the right and wrong guy.
The right bit being, he loved her, so he let her get away with too much, and took her back every time.
The wrong bit being, he wasn’t going to fold for her.
What he tried to do was do his best to handle her. He failed.”
“That had to be tough, living in that kind of tug of war.”
“It sucked,” he bit.
Oh yeah.
And from what I was reading, Hutch had somehow found a version of his mother in all his exes.
The cheater.
The manipulator.
And the pretty girl.
“She named me Ranger. And Emmett. Dad hated both those names, but he let her do that too. That’s why he called me Hutch,” Hutch explained. “And that’s why I don’t use Ranger at all, and everyone calls me Hutch. Though, also, it’s a fuckin’ stupid name.”
Although I disagreed, and thought it was a kickass name, I was not about to say that.
I understood his play.
“So they got divorced,” I said.
“Yup. Then she got cancer.”
Ah, hell.
“Of course, Dad was all in. This time, it was because this was his only child’s mother.” His eyes locked on mine. “In the end, Mabel, for him, it was all about me. It was always about me.”
I nodded, though with the heavy way he said that, I was concerned.
Not that it wasn’t heavy, just that it somehow sounded more heavy.
“No, you don’t get it,” he said. “Another thing with them, he wanted more kids. She refused. He was a kid guy. An animal guy. A big softie. He had lots of love to give, which was good for me, and good for her, but he had so much, it wasn’t good for him. He wanted more family to give that love.”
More reason for him to have left her.
I didn’t say that.
I just listened.
“So she got sick, and he took her in. He cleaned her port. He fed her broth. He helped her to the bathroom to puke. He got her magazines to read during chemo sessions. It took her five fuckin’ years to die, and he was at her side through all of it.”
It was so unlike Hutch to say something like it took her five fuckin’ years to die, it made me shiver.
“It’s the end,” he continued. “I get leave to go see her one last time. Dad and I are in the hospice, holding her hand. Giving her presence. And that bitch…”
I braced.
“…turns to Dad…”
I braced harder.
“…and says, ‘I can’t die without you knowing, John. Ranger isn’t yours. He’s Derek Johannsen’s.’”
My body locked in shock.
But my mouth breathed, “What?”
“Yeah,” he snarled.
“Oh, Hutch,” I whispered.
“She died about two hours later. We held her fuckin’ hand. Both of us. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t because he didn’t.”
“Right,” I pushed out, only just holding myself together.
“We get her in the ground, and that’s all he can talk about. He wants a DNA test.”
Oh fuck.
This was going to get worse, I knew it.
“I said I didn’t give a shit about a DNA test. I didn’t know who Derek Johannsen was. But I knew who my dad was. Dad wouldn’t listen. So I took it, reiterating that I couldn’t care less. I wasn’t gonna meet this man. He had nothing to do with me. I had a father. I loved him. And that was it.”
“Yes, that was it,” I agreed carefully.
“It wasn’t it, May,” he bit out. “The results came back. Mom didn’t lie.
I wasn’t Dad’s kid. He got one thing good from her.
Me. He had one shot at leaving a legacy of his time on this earth.
Me. She took that away from him. She was fucking dying, and she still cut his legs right out from under him.
She didn’t have to tell him that shit. She did.
She did it just to be nasty. Cancer had eaten her away, she can’t move, can’t even go to the bathroom by herself, but she sure had the energy to gut him. ”
“But your dad knew how you felt about him.”
“Yes. He wrote that in his suicide note.”
The tears instantly hit my eyes.
“No,” I breathed.
“Yeah,” he countered. “Put a shotgun under his chin and blew his head off.”
I latched on to his hand with both of mine. “Oh my God, Hutch.”
“I was back on base. I got more leave.”
I leaned to him, pulling his hand to my mouth, holding it tight, kissing it between saying, “Oh my God, baby. I’m so damned sorry.”
“Me too.”
I dropped my forehead to our hands and squeezed hard, pulling in breath to try to hold it together.
“I saw his play.”
I lifted my head to look at him again.
“He gave his life to her in order to give me what he thought I needed. His note told me he loved me. It told me he was sorry. It told me he was proud of me, that I was born his son, and he would die, and I was still his son. But he didn’t explain why.
So I don’t know if she humiliated him so deeply with that, he couldn’t live with it.
Or if he couldn’t live with having given so much to a woman and her son only to lose everything, first her, then me. ”
“I’m so sorry he got to that dark place, baby,” I whispered.
“I met a woman once,” he started like I didn’t say anything.
Would this ever end?
“We were getting serious,” he went on. “Told her about this Johannsen guy, didn’t get to the dad part. And she laughed.”
I dropped his hand and slammed back into my chair, snapping, “I’m sorry?”
“I think you heard me, baby,” he replied. “She told me we had to laugh about this stuff.”
“What an asshole,” I clipped.
And no wonder it took so long for him to tell me this story if some bitch reacted to it like that.
“Agreed.”
“I don’t…I really don’t know what to say about all of this, honey,” I admitted.
“There isn’t anything to say. Maybe I looked for them, women like my mom, because it was all I knew. Maybe I fell into them, for the same reason. They weren’t her, except maybe Bree. What I reckon is, I found them so I could get done with them so I could save myself from living my father’s life.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled it to my lips again and just left it there, saying nothing, though I was glad he understood this, even if I hated he had to come to the understanding.
His gaze roamed my face, and the bitterness and anger slid from his tone when he said, “Now, I got you. And I do not know what to do with you.”
I kept hold of his hand even as I took it from my mouth, and replied, “I’ll get you there, Hutch.
That there being, you don’t have to do anything with me.
I’m not saying relationships aren’t work.
I’m not saying we’re not going to have to keep our eye on it and keep it strong.
But I’ll pull out the high school basketball stud, cheerleader sex fantasy when it becomes necessary. ”
His body jerked with his surprised bark of laughter before he asked, “What?”
“Don’t tell Abigail I told you, but inadvertently, you rocked Brett’s world.”
His chest moved with laughter.
A good sign.
“I don’t think I wanted to know that,” he said.
“Probably not. However, the point is, it wasn’t about you. Not really. It was about Brett. Their marriage. Keeping it fresh. Alive. Looking out for each other. Finding ways to make it interesting. Finding ways to show he would always be her stud, and she’d be his cheerleader.”
After I said that, he leaned to me, pulling my hands to press them to his chest.
“I wish my dad had a cheerleader,” he said quietly.
Uh-oh.
I was going to have to fight crying again.
“I do too,” I said huskily.
“Anniversary of Mom’s death was a few days ago. My aunt makes a big thing about it. I always find a way to bow out, but I got up in her shit this time.”
“Did she know—?”
“About my bio dad? Yeah. I’ve been up in her shit before about that.
Not that I wanted her to tell me anything about it.
Just that, when she was trying to defend her sister, she tried to defend that, and I don’t give two fucks about that.
What I give a fuck about is how Mom connived to take Dad with her. ”
“Do you think she knew he’d take it that far?”
He shook his head. “No. I would never in my life have thought he’d go there, and I can’t imagine she did either. But she killed something in him anyway. Something she knew meant everything to him. So she knew what she was doing. I firmly believe that.”
“It could have just been guilt,” I suggested.
“Mom never felt that emotion a day in her life.”
He would know.
Therefore, I didn’t say anything.
He sat back in his seat but kept hold of my hands, resting them on the table.
“I never met this guy. Aunt Elaine said I should look for him. But he means nothing to me. He offered up some cells and DNA while fucking a married woman. Maybe he’s a good guy.
Maybe he knows about me and wonders about me.
I doubt it. He was just a good time for Mom, and then he was history. ”
“I don’t have to tell you, that’s one hundred percent your call, and I’ll support you whatever way you play it.”
He squeezed my hands. “Thank you, baby.”
“I’ve been worried about this story,” I confessed. “I sensed it was there. But I’m glad you told me.”
He studied me a beat before he replied, “Mabel, this is what makes me. I got her in me, and I don’t know who he is.”
“So?”
He did one of his slow blinks.
I smiled and hoped it didn’t come off shaky (success!). “As far as I’m concerned, they made you really easy to look at. And for that, I thank them. Other than that, my guy is Jonathan Walter Hutchison’s son. And I want to know more about your dad, but I already know that way works for me.”
He let my hands go so he could hook me behind my head and pull me across the table to him.
It was a hard kiss.
It was a long kiss.
It was a closed-mouth kiss.
And it said everything he needed to tell me.
Then, when it was done, he let me go, whistled and put our breakfast plates on the floor.
Tonks and Hannibal fell on them like they were perfectly grilled, rare, sixty-four-ounce prime ribs.
“Hey!” I cried. “You gave my food to the dogs!”
“It’s cold and my woman isn’t gonna eat cold food,” Hutch said, heading to the fridge for the eggs.
Well then.
Okay.
I grabbed my coffee and brought my other heel up to the chair so I could watch my guy cook.
“You wanna know something?” he asked while cracking eggs.
“Is it about you?”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Yeah.”
“Then I want to know everything.”
He smiled, and it was soft and sweet.
Yeesh.
The man Jonathan Walter Hutchison made was totally falling in love with me.
He went back to the eggs and said, “I eat clean because of her.”
Whoa.
I wasn’t expecting that.
But then…
The ice cream. Candy. Cookies.
The treats that weren’t a treat, I could see that’d bring up bad memories.
He put the eggs back in the fridge, got the sausage, returned the skillet to the range and threw some in it.
“I like what my diet gives me. Sustained energy. Clear mind. Good sleep.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder this time. “But I’m thinkin’ I might find more times to cheat.”
I grinned back, and his was big, but mine was bigger.
Hutch made our second breakfast.
I sipped coffee.
And fifty yards away, in the trees, under the snow and their tombstones, Chisolm and Clementine rested easy.
Because that kitchen was providing what it was put in to provide.
Warmth.
A safe space.
And love.