Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
“Actually, I do hug my wife.” My arm tightens around Stella.
“Sorry, Felicity. I wasn’t trying to be dishonest,” I say, taking credit for Stella’s claim that we don’t touch.
“I hug my wife, nobody else’s.” Sure, maybe I’m trying to draw a line between me and my father.
He’s on one side, and I am on the other.
We are not the same. Mom always said he slept with his secretary, and Dad always denied it.
I never knew who to believe. I only knew that my father had left.
He left, and he didn’t care that he’d abandoned me.
But Dad doesn’t seem to notice my jab. Maybe because it has no merit, or maybe because he chooses not to. He was always good at only seeing what served him.
Surprising me, he steps forward, holding out one hand. “It’s nice to see you, son.”
I’m not exactly thrilled to let go of my wife, who feels more like a lifeline, more like family than anyone else in this room. She’s the reason I’m brave enough to be here. Still, I let go of Stella and set my hand in his.
“Still playing ball?” Dad grunts. If Felicity keeps up with my games, she either doesn’t share with my father, or he doesn’t bother to listen.
“Am I working as a professional athlete still? Yes.” I peer around my father. “Where did Mason go? We haven’t been introduced yet.” I wonder—not for the first time—if the kid even knows that I exist.
“You finally came to meet your brother,” Dad says.
“Well, I stopped waiting for you to bring him my way.”
Stella coughs and nudges my side with her hip. It’s a wifely nudge that tells me arguing isn’t going to help me right now.
But Dad and I were always good at arguing.
But—crap. Here I am, calling Dad out for not introducing me to Mason, and I haven’t introduced my wife yet. Stella never met Dad before today. He left us before Brice and I were close. So, even Brice only met the man once or twice, I clear my throat. “Dad, Felicity, this is my wife, Stella Everly.”
“You kept your own name?” Dad says. “Probably wise.” He looks Stella over, and I don’t like the curl of his lip.
“What does that mean?” I say.
Dad shrugs. “You’re young. She’s very young.” He shakes his head. “You always made…” He’s still looking at Stella. “Interesting choices. If things go south—”
“Hey, that’s my wife,” I growl. “And things aren’t going to go south.” I curse beneath my breath and earn another nudge from Stella. “I’m not you,” I say to my father. “We’ll be fine. You can be friendlier, or we can leave.”
My father’s lip flattens in a pressed line, and he gives me a hard glare. Something I’ve said hit its mark.
Stella doesn’t let the awkward silence linger long though. She steps up, hand out to my dad. “It’s great to meet you, Mr. Graves.”
Felicity giggles at her formality. “I’m guessing you can call him Peter,” she says with a wink. Maybe the woman has a tic. Maybe every time she speaks it forces her right eye closed. At least she’s being friendly.
“Yes,” Dad says. “Peter is fine.” His gaze flicks back to me. “So, no invite to the wedding? You couldn’t take a second to call your old man?”
“I don’t recall being invited to your wedding,” I say. “The second or the third one.” I’m ready to walk out, to see him again in another five years, when a redheaded little crab comes scuttling through the living room entrance.
Mason.
I came here for Mason. I came here because Stella adored her brother and lost him all too soon. I’m here because she knew I needed to meet mine. I’m not here for my father.
The little boy scurries over to me, his hand stretched out like a pincer. Just when I think he wants to hold my hand, he nips my leg with his claw.
“Mason,” Felicity coos, crouching down until she’s at the same level as her son. The boy looks at his mother, and his freckled face—so much more like Felicity’s than mine or Dad’s—softens. “This is Roman.”
“Roman,” he repeats with a pinch of his clawed fingers.
Felicity pats Mason’s back. “He is your brother.”
Sitting on a couch that may cost more than my cabin, I sip on Felicity’s iced tea and look at Mason, who stares right back at me.
Taking his fingers, Mason traces the tattoo on my forearm—Brother, in Brice’s handwriting. He peers up at me, waiting, asking without speaking.
“It says brother,” I tell him. My body buzzes with a bizarre ease around Mason, a stark contrast to the discomfort I feel in my father’s home.
Mason tilts his head. “I never had a brother,” he says, a playful lilt to his voice.
I know the feeling. And when I pictured a brother, I pictured Brice, someone my age, someone I could be friends with. “Neither have I,” I tell him.
“You like crabs?” His hands are no longer pincers, and his little feet dangle at the very end of the couch.
“Sure. I like crabs.” It feels like the only right answer. “Have you ever eaten a crab?”
Mason sucks in a startled breath, eyes wide.
“We don’t eat any kind of sea life in this house,” Felicity says, sitting across from us. Dad rolls his eyes. Clearly, it wasn’t his choice to humor the boy in this way.
Mason’s brows lower, and he switches his study from me to Stella. “Are you a sister? I never had a sister.”
Stella smiles. “I’m Roman’s wife.” The words sound so easy, so right as she states them.
Mason looks at me as if I must confirm this as truth. “Yep, this is Stella, and she’s my wife.”
Mason pinches my stomach and giggles. I haven’t been around a lot of four-year-olds. I don’t get the joke. But his low-pitch chuckle is contagious, and soon I laugh too.
“We have a gift for you, Mason,” Stella says.
But because I feel to my core that it must be stated before the little guy gets his hopes up— “It’s not a crab. Or anything ocean-related. Sorry.”
“I like chocolate too,” Mason says, leaning his body across my lap and peering up at me.
I clear my throat. “It’s not chocolate either.”
“But it is fun. Would you like to open it?” Stella asks.
In answer, Mason reaches out and pinches Stella lightly on the arm with his clawed hand. I think that means yes.
“One minute,” Stella says, “it’s in the suitcase.”
“I can get it,” I start, but Stella hops up.
“I’ve got it. You stay with Mason.”
Dad sits in the chair opposite this couch, Felicity in the chair right next to him.
He crosses his legs, watching us, both of his sons together.
I’m not sure what he thinks of all this.
Mason is my family, my blood, and I want to be in his life.
My father might think this is a one-time visit—maybe he even hopes for that.
But I’m not going to let that bother me.
I honestly don’t know if he’ll stick around for Mason.
He didn’t for me. But I’m going to. I will be here for that kid until my last breath.
“What’s your second job?” Dad asks me.
I peer up from Mason, who has crawled into my lap. He’s back to tracing my tattoo. “I don’t have one.”
Dad grunts out a humorless laugh. “And you can pay your bills?”
“The Red Tails are the best-paid minors in the league. Baxter makes certain we’re set up well. We’ve got guys headed to the majors every year.”
“You’re too old for that,” Dad says. “You think you can provide on a minor league income?”
“I do just fine,” I say, my words just short of a growl. I grind my teeth together and grudgingly add, “Messi’s in his thirties, by the way. You may have forgotten how old I am—but I’m not there yet.”
Another snort from my father. You think he’d be proud. You think he’d ask anything else. He opens his mouth for more, but I’m saved by Stella.
“Ready, Mason? Your brother picked this out just for you.” She hands him the wrapped soccer ball; in its box, it isn’t completely obvious what the gift is.
My jaw clenches, more unsure than when we bought the gift. I can’t see this little crab kicking around a ball. “I hope you like it, buddy.”
Mason slides off my lap and shakes the present. He tears into the paper, stripping it off one rip at a time. And when he’s finally unveiled the ball, he stares at the thing like he’s never seen one before.
Dad snorts. “Not everyone’s into soccer, Roman.”
Ignoring the man who didn’t really raise me, I take the box from Mason, opening it up and pulling the black-and-white ball from its case.
“It’s a ball,” I tell him, certain now that Peter Graves has never introduced him to one.
“My soccer team signed it. See?” I show him the signatures scribbled over the ball.
“Brother?” he says, pointing to Lucca Cruz’s name.
“Ah—no. This says Lucca. He’s my teammate.
” I tilt my head, looking at Mason’s finger over the ‘L’ in Lucca’s name.
“A teammate is a different kind of brother.” I’m not sure I’m impressing him though.
“It’s a ball,” I say again. “You kick it. Or throw it. Or roll it. You know?” I toss it into the air a couple inches before it lands back in my grasp.
Mason holds his hand out for the gift, maybe seeing something fun in it after all. I set the ball in his hands. It looks so large in his small grasp. Then, raising the ball over his little head, my brother chucks the regulation-sized soccer ball right at our father.
“Heads up!” I yell, but Dad is slow to duck.
Clearly, I didn’t get my reflexes from him.
The ball smacks him square in the face before bouncing off his nose and onto the end table next to me.
A frame on the table crashes forward, landing on its face with a thud—a family photo of Dad, Felicity, and Mason.
I juggle the ball back into my hands and right the photo. Stella’s fingers cover her mouth, while Felicity’s right hand flattens against her chest with the riot. But Mason giggles beside me.
“Sorry about that,” I say, more to Felicity than my father. I’m not the one who hit him in the head. I just provided the weapon.
“Heads up,” Mason says with another giggle. He points at Dad. “Heads up!”
My father rubs his nose, scowling. But to his credit, he doesn’t bark at the boy.
“Do you have a backyard? I could take him out back and play.”
“He doesn’t want—” Dad begins.
“Heads up!” Mason yells through another bout of giggles.
“Do you want to kick the ball around?” I ask my little brother.
“Roman,” Mason says, his small voice suddenly serious. “Do you think crabs like soccer?”
“Uh.” I scratch my jaw. “You know, I bet some of them do.” I stand and hold out a hand to him. “Do you want to try?”
Mason sets his little claw in my hand and pinches—he’s so small, so determined, so infatuated with crustaceans.
And I already love him.