16. Collins
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
COLLINS
“You okay?” I turn from staring out the window to look at Theo.
“You’re quiet.” His arm is on the side of the door, holding the steering wheel, while the other arm is perched on the center console, holding on to the base of the wheel.
The scruff of his beard is longer than I think it’s ever been.
The hair on his head is becoming so long that I might be able to run my fingers through it.
We left the house at exactly seven this morning.
I had gotten two and a half hours of sleep, and as soon as we got in the truck and started on our way, I quickly dozed off, sleeping for most of the drive until we stopped to eat at a diner off the highway.
Now we have just thirty minutes to go before we get to his house.
I put my head back on the headrest. “Yeah, I’m just nervous.
I’ve never been taken home to meet the parents before.
” I put my hand on my stomach. I’ve been doing this a lot these days.
“Especially with this situation.” I stare at his profile, thinking he really is the perfect specimen of a man.
I’m pretty sure they broke the mold after they made him.
“Collins.” Every time he says my name, I get flutters. “I know everyone thinks they have the best family”—not everyone, I want to correct him, but don’t—“but I really do think my family is the best.”
“Really?” I smile at him. “Tell me why.”
“So my parents,” he begins, glancing at me, “they met in the most unconventional way you could ever imagine two people meeting.”
“More unconventional than how we got together?”
“Yeah. See, my mother was married before my father.” I turn to face him. “To a guy called Eric. They had two kids, my older sisters, Lizzie and Daisy. And then he died in a car accident. After he was gone, she found out he was living a double life.”
The gasp that escapes me fills the cab and makes him laugh. “Shut the front door.” I put my hand on his arm, feeling the silkiness of his skin. “Oh my gosh.”
“He had another wife—well, not actually, since he married my mother first, but my aunt Hailey thought they were married.”
“Your aunt?” I hold up my hand in a circle, making him laugh. “This is some soap opera story.” I push him now, not believing him.
“It really was. When my mother wanted to ask questions about everything, she reached out to Hailey’s brother, and they fell in love. They got married and had my brother and me.” My mouth opens in shock.
“So your mother married her dead husband’s fake wife’s brother?”
He throws his head back and barks out a laugh. “It’s a mouthful when you say it like that. I guess that’s how you put it. You know Sierra’s boyfriend, Caleb? He’s the son Hailey had with my uncle Jensen, so he’s my cousin on my dad’s side.”
“Wow, lucky, I guess, for your aunt Hailey that she didn’t have a baby with him. That would have really spun a wild web.” I look out at the road. “That’s an incredible story. How did your grandparents take it? Did they want to kill Eric again?”
“My mother didn’t know who her parents were.” I squeeze his arm. “Her mother died from a drug overdose not long after she was born.”
My hand goes to my mouth. “She really overcame everything.”
“Pretty much,” he agrees. “She had some drama with Lizzie and Daisy’s grandparents, but then she had my dad in her corner. Married him and had my older brother, Carter, and then me.”
“So you’re the baby?” I rub his arm with my thumb. “What does she do?”
“She’s a social worker.”
“Did she always want to do that?” He nods his head. “I always wanted to be a nurse. But I couldn’t afford school, so I settled for the next best thing . . .” I trail off, wanting to change the subject. “Am I the first girl you’ve ever brought home?”
“No . . .” He takes a second before he says, “I was engaged.” The words hit me like a freight train crashing into a brick wall. “Two days before the wedding, she called it off.”
“What?” I’m shocked that anyone who actually knows him would give him up.
“Everything was booked,” his voice is low, “and two days before the wedding, she was waiting for me at home, sitting on the couch.” My hand falls off his arm.
“Tears were running down her face. She told me she couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t see herself spending the rest of her life with me, so why go through with it?
She called her parents, I called mine, and we called off the wedding. ”
“Do you think she was right?” My mouth is dry, so I reach over and grab the bottle of water he got for me when he stopped for gas and I was sleeping.
“They say everything happens for a reason.” His closest hand grabs mine. “I see that now.”
“Do you still . . .” My throat feels like it’s going to close up. “. . . love her?”
“Absolutely not,” he declares quickly.
“Are you saying that because of your ego or because it’s the truth?”
“If you had asked me this a year ago, when it happened, I would have said it was my ego, but now it’s the truth.”
“You were going to get married to her.” He turns down a street with some houses visible between the trees.
“I was, but that ship has sailed, and I’m not ever getting back on it.” He stops talking as he pulls into a driveway.
“Is this your parents’ house?” The big brown garage door looks like it fits two cars.
“It’s my house.” His hand reaches for the handle of his truck.
“I thought you lived in Montgavin?” He nods. “And you have this house?” The two-story house looks like it’s out of a magazine.
“Technically, I didn’t buy the house in Montgavin. It’s Caleb’s. But I also have a house near the beach. And I own a couple of houses one town over from here.”
I hold up my hand. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I turned eighteen and bought a house with my grandfather. Well, he bought the house, and he just put my name on the deed. It was a fixer-upper. I spent six months working day in and day out as much as I could. Graduated from high school and went to get my contractor’s license.
Started flipping houses. Did that with another fifteen houses between now and then and reinvested the money. ”
I close my eyes. “Oh my god.” I shake my head, fear seeping into me. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes, you should,” he says with his teeth clenched.
“No, I don’t think you understand. I can’t be here.” My chest gets so tight, I don’t think I can breathe.
He gets out of his truck and walks around to open my door. “Let’s go.” He holds out his hand.
“No, you need to take me back.” The tears come without giving me a chance to fight them back.
“Hey, baby.” He cups my face in his hands, his voice soft. “Breathe.”
“You don’t understand,” I tell him. “You don’t understand, I’m not good for you.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“You don’t get it.”
“You are going to get out of the truck, and we are going to go inside. I’m going to sit you down, and you are going to tell me what it is that is freaking you the fuck out.”
“You,” I whisper. “You are freaking me the fuck out.”
“Yeah, I could say the same,” he tosses back to me.
“Let’s go, Collins. We’ll sit down, you’ll tell me what it is, and if you want me to take you home, I’ll take you back home.
But I’m not going to have this conversation with you in the truck.
You need to put your feet up.” He unbuckles my seat belt and takes me out of the truck.
He presses in the code for the door with his free hand, his other hand still in mine, and pulls me into the house.
“I would say welcome to my house. But I don’t want to freak you out.
” He walks directly to the left, where there is a huge couch that would probably fit eight people, and they wouldn’t even touch.
The ceiling opens all the way up to the roof.
“Do you want water?” I shake my head as I sink down on the couch.
He sits next to me. “Okay then, let’s talk. ”
I put my hand on my face. “This is so, so bad.”
“I promise you that it’s not.” He grabs one of my hands and holds it between his.
“Theo, my parents are not good people.” I swallow as I feel the tightness start in my shoulders and move up to my neck.
“Everyone in town knows. They have scammed or stolen something from practically every single person in Montgavin. Haven’t you noticed how, when I’m walking down the street, people are either clutching their bags or sneering at me?
” I watch his face, ready for the disgust to form on it, but nothing changes.
“When I was seven years old, my parents told everyone I was sick and needed an operation to help me survive. They got over ten thousand dollars, and it was gone in two weeks. My father bought fucking cheap metal and glass jewelry and falsely labeled it as 18K gold with genuine gemstones to sell door-to-door. He even had paperwork made to certify the fake gems.” My mouth doesn’t stop there.
“We lived in the fucking woods my whole fourth-grade year. In a tent, practically homeless. They took advantage of my teacher by stealing her identity and racking up four credit cards totaling twenty-eight thousand dollars.” I put my hand on my chest, my heart hammering under it.
“I turned eighteen, and they stole my identity to open credit card accounts.
“They showed up the other night and saw the fans you bought me and tried to take them to go and pawn them.” He lets go of my hand and gets up.
I watch his back retreating away from me.
“They are going to take one look at you, at your truck, at your house, and”—I can’t help the sob that rocks out of me—“they are going to pounce on you like a cat catching its first fucking mouse. I’m not going to put you through that.
I refuse to put you through that.” All he does is look out the window.
“It’s enough that when I tell everyone I’m pregnant, they are going to think I’m trapping you.
Who knows what they’re going to say when I actually have the baby. ”
“I’m going to need you to stop talking now,” he says.
“I’m sorry.” I get to my feet. “You can take me back home, and I swear to you that you will never hear from me again.” I want to throw up. “I will never tell anyone who the father is. I promise I will never come to you for anything.”
“Like fuck.” He turns back around. “I want you to stop talking because I’m this close to going back to Montgavin to find your parents.” I swallow. “And it won’t be a friendly conversation either.”
“Theo . . .” The tear escapes from the corner of my eye.
“Now, this is what is going to happen.” He comes to me. “I’m going to show you around the house.” He wipes the tear away from my cheek. “We are going to get something to eat, and then I want you to meet my parents.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“After that, you and I will have dinner, and we’re going to have a talk.” His voice is tight. “It’s going to be a talk that you are going to have an open mind about.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, confused. “I’m not getting rid of this baby.” I step away from him and hold both hands on my stomach. “I’m not my parents. I will never use my child as a pawn. Not now, not ever.”
“Collins, I have no doubt, not one fucking doubt, that you would die before you brought harm to our child. You haven’t asked me for one fucking cent since you told me about our baby. And you can see I have some money.”
“I didn’t know. I thought you worked for Caleb.”
“I do. I also own half of the company now that I’ve moved there.”
My head falls forward into the middle of his chest. “My parents . . .”
“Your parents are going to have to go through me to get to you,” he declares, his voice tight, “and just so you know, I’m an asshole.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.” I look up at him. “You are kind and generous and—”
“I can let you meet at least ten people who will tell you otherwise. So when we get back to town, we’re going to sit down with your parents and—”
“No fucking way,” I snap. “There is no way they will ever get to you. They can smell money from a mile away. The next thing you know, they’ll be asking you for a loan, and you’ll think, Why not?
Let’s just give it to them. Then the amounts are going to go from a hundred dollars to thousands, that is, if they don’t try to rob you blind without you even knowing. ”
He’s about to say something else, but the doorbell rings. “Well, I think we need to table this discussion for later.” He bends to kiss my lips gently. “That will be my parents.”