by Laura Ward
My face immediately flushed. Not with embarrassment, but because all the events from the night before flipped around in my brain making my heart jump in response. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Thank God,” he said, backing up his chair and then wheeling himself around me toward the front door. “I was beginning to think your inability to seal the deal was going to rub off on me and ruin my mojo with the ladies.”
“We can’t have that now, can we?”
I followed him outside, shutting the door behind me. I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair to help him down the ramp to the sidewalk. He could get around on his own, but I liked when he let me help because I knew it made his life a lot easier. Plus, feeling useful rocked. I didn’t feel that way often.
It took us half an hour to get to the cafe, but I didn’t mind. We were both quiet, lost in our thoughts. Darren was one of the few people who didn’t expect me to be the life of the party all the time. I could be myself around him, flaws and all, and he accepted me.
We found a table, I got the Exploding Kitten card game, and I briefly explained the rules of the game to Darren while we waited for our order to arrive. Darren watched me in silence as I shuffled the cards before I dealt them out.
“What’s got your panties all twisted up? Besides Ben.” He picked up his cards and I averted my gaze from his hands as he struggled to get them fanned out so he could see what he had. “I mean, that’s assuming you’re even wearing panties.” He stared at his cards and laughed at his own joke before looking up at me. “You’re not going to tell me that you’re ditching him now that you’ve let him hide the salami, are you?”
My face twisted up in disgust. “You really know how to make a girl lose her appetite. Ugh.” I grabbed my stomach and made a gagging face. “Although, my diet thanks you since Ben made me eat cake yesterday.”
“You? Ate cake?” Darren gave me an incredulous look that told me he wasn’t buying it.
“Lots of it,” I admitted. “It was like twelve years of self-control unleashed all at once. It wasn’t pretty.” I looked at my cards, happy to see I had an extra Defuse card to prevent being destroyed by an exploding kitten. “But this isn’t about Ben. Well,” I said, shrugging, “I guess it’s indirectly about him, but mostly it’s about my mom.”
Darren picked a card from the pile on the table between us and put it in his hand. “Did Nikki show up at your house again after another catfight?”
“Kind of. Only the cat fight was after she got there. And it was with me.” I put up my hand to keep him from talking. “Don’t worry. I didn’t hit my mom. I swear I didn’t throw any punches. Only cupcakes.”
Darren’s eyes closed briefly, and his body shook with silent laughter. “I can tell this is gonna be good.”
I played a card onto the discard stack and as we continued the game, I told him about the incident between Nikki and me. Eventually our food arrived, and the pace of play slowed as we ate, and I gave him the entire story.
“Okay,” Darren said, swallowing. “I can understand why you’re pissed off about what she said about Ben, but I don’t understand why you seem so sad.”
I took a deep breath and shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it was because she told me she’s still talking to my father. I’ve always known I was adopted and that he left before I was old enough to remember him. I never missed him because there was nothing to miss, you know? It’s not like he was my bio dad and he never even stuck around to try to be a real dad. I figured he just left and never looked back. But knowing that Nikki is talking to him and he’s still supporting me, even if only with money...it makes me curious. I mean, after I turned eighteen, he didn’t have to pay child support anymore. But he’s still giving Nikki money for me. He’s still paying for my rent at the sorority and...everything else I guess. I assumed that Nikki was picking up that tab. Why would he do that?”
I paused to take a sip of coffee and shrugged.
“I guess before, he was easy to dismiss because it was like he didn’t exist. Now I can’t stop wondering who he is and what he’s like. I can’t help wondering why he still supports me if he wants nothing to do with me.” I pressed my finger onto a stray crumb and rubbed it against my thumb. “I’ve gone twenty-one years without knowing who he was, and it was fine. Now I’m obsessed. I want to know his name. I want to know where he lives. I want to know why he left. I want to know everything. Is that stupid?”
“No.” Darren shook his head, uncharacteristically serious. “It’s totally understandable. Why don’t you ask Nikki who he is or how you can contact him?”
I huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. “She wouldn’t tell me when I was younger and now that we’re not speaking, I doubt I’d have any luck either.”
Darren leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Then you’re going to have to try good old-fashioned snooping. She’s got to have information about him in her house somewhere.”
I paused with a forkful of fruit halfway to my mouth and gaped at him. “Are you suggesting I spy on my mom?”
He took a quick peek at his cards and laid one down that forced me to draw two from the stack. “Not at all. I’m telling you that you have a right to know the truth. And if that truth happens to be in her house, you should look for it.”
Stunned and amazed that I hadn’t thought to snoop before, I reached out to pick up a card. Fuck. It was an exploding kitten. I laid down my Defuse card to stay in the game.
“My mom is at work today. Would you want to...would you want to go with me?” I scrunched up my nose, preparing myself for his rejection.
“Why not? Someone has to keep you out of trouble. Besides, my secret agent skills are legendary.” He nodded toward the stack between us. “You’ve got one more card to pick up, Tart.”
Excitement bubbled in my chest as I leaned over to pick up the next card. Holy shit. I was going to snoop on my mom. I was going to find out those secrets she’d kept from me my entire life.
I flipped over the card and groaned in annoyance.
Another fucking exploding kitten and I had no Defuses left. Darren was going to brag about this all day long.
I laid my cards down in defeat and smiled at my friend. “Let’s go then, 007.”
***
Borrowing Darren’s parent’s minivan with the badass wheelchair ramp was the only way to get Darren around town. My mom’s house wasn’t very big, but luckily it was ranch style. That made getting Darren inside simple. Navigating through the house was another story. It looked as if my mom treated the entire house like it was a gigantic closet. I had to pick up clothes and toss them to the side so that Darren could get his chair through.
“Does she have an office or someplace she keeps paperwork or a computer?” he asked, giving the side eye to a pair of lacy panties that were slung over the back of the couch. I didn’t even want to know what she did on the furniture now that I didn’t live at home anymore. She was bad enough when I was a teenager, but at least she’d kept her X-rated activities on the other side of her bedroom door. That’s why I’d always been banned from her room while simultaneously being thankful I wasn’t allowed in there.
I shook my head. “No. She keeps her laptop in her room and pays all of her bills over the internet.”
“She has to have some paperwork stored somewhere. Adoption papers, a birth certificate, correspondence with your dad...if he’s paying her money, she’s got to have a record of it.”
“Probably in her bedroom,” I said, leading him down the hallway.
We entered her room, which resembled the rest of the house—a mess. Piles of clothes were on her bed and dresser, and her bed was unmade.
I didn’t remember things being such a disaster when I lived at home. Not even when I came home to visit. I wondered if the recent breakup was hitting her harder than usual. Was it that Gary had cheated on her, or that he cheated on her with a younger woman?
“You take the closet, I’ll take the nights
tand,” Darren offered.
“Beware,” I said pointing to the piece of furniture near her bed. “Even I wouldn’t brave the nightstand of Nikki Prescott. I’m not responsible for any STDs you get from digging around in there.”
Darren laughed and wheeled himself around the side of the bed. I heard a drawer open as I entered the closet and glanced around.
Holy crap. There were a shit ton of boxes piled haphazardly from the floor all the way up to the ceiling in some spots. The shelves were jam-packed with more. Knowing my mom, there was a good chance they were all shoes. But then again, there was a chance I was going to find more than I bargained for. I didn’t have grandparents or aunts and uncles that I knew of. And up until yesterday, I didn’t have much of a father either.
These boxes might hold more skeletons than the local cemetery.
I stood in the middle of the closet completely overwhelmed. I reached my hand out a few times to choose a box, but I pulled back each time, unable to follow through.
This was a bad idea. Did I want to know the truth about the man who left my mom? The one who didn’t want anything to do with me?
“Jules. You’re gonna want to come look at this,” Darren called from the other room.
“If it’s my mom’s vibrator, I’m not interested,” I called back.
“Trust me, this will interest you.”
Relieved that I was escaping the daunting task of the mountain of boxes, I left the closet and crossed the room until I was standing behind Darren. The nightstand drawer was open, revealing stacks and stacks of documents. Not a dildo in sight.
Weird. And unexpected.
Darren was holding something that looked like a certificate.
“What is that?” I asked.
He looked up at me, his expression careful. “Your birth certificate.” His hand shook as he handed me the paper.
I took it out of his grasp, my name the first thing I saw. My eyes swiveled back to the top to read the entire thing.
This is to certify that a
Birth Certificate
has been filed for
Julie Elizabeth Prescott
Born on April 13, at Baltimore, Maryland
Father Jed Jacobs
Mother Nicole Prescott
April 14, 1997
I read the paper at least a dozen times before I finally lifted my eyes to Darren’s. I understood the words, but they didn’t make sense.
“Jed Jacobs? Nikki said she was married to a musician, but this can’t possibly be the Jed Jacobs from Excess Wreckage.” I looked to Darren and back at the birth certificate. “It can’t be the same guy can it? She always made her ex sound like a loser. She would have said something if...” I trailed off, my forehead creasing as I stared at the words.
Jed Jacobs was fucking famous. If it was the same Jed as the one on my birth certificate, that was crazy. And unbelievable.
“I can’t even imagine that.” I looked around the house. “If she married Jed Jacobs from Excess Wreckage, you’d think she could have gotten a better alimony payment out of him since he cheated on her.”
Darren was shaking his head and he reached up to touch his finger to the paper where the names were. “No. You’re missing the point, Jules. This is a birth certificate. I don’t know if they were ever married or not since your mom still has her maiden name, but one thing is for sure. You’re not adopted. Nikki and Jed are your biological parents.”
Chapter Fifteen
Julie
The birth certificate went right back into the drawer...after I looked through the rest of the paperwork and snapped pictures of everything with my phone. Darren was right after all. We’d found a ton of correspondence between Nikki and Jed. Most of it was in the form of emails and I wondered if she kept his emotionless responses as some sort of demented form of love letters. Most of what was said between them wasn’t worth more than a trip to the trashcan.
I couldn’t believe how everything had changed. And I still didn’t quite know how I felt about it. The only thing I did know was that I had to talk to Nikki. Today. And I couldn’t take Darren with me.
The ride back to his house was quiet. He didn’t know what to say and I didn’t want to talk about it. I was afraid one wrong word would completely unravel the careful way I was holding myself together.
He didn’t say anything as I helped him out of the van and up the ramp into his house.
“Thanks for going with me.” I kissed his forehead before I backed up toward the front door.
“You okay?” he asked, the first words he’d said since we left my mom’s house. He reached for my hand like he might keep me from leaving.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine,” I managed to say.
“What are you going to do?”
I lifted one shoulder in a laid-back shrug. “I’m going to talk to her. It’s about time she told me the truth, right?”
He nodded his head in affirmation. “Call me after.”
I lifted my eyebrow and tried to contain my smile. “You’re addicted to gossip and drama, aren’t you?”
He didn’t smile, which was unusual. Darren was rarely serious. “I’m worried about you and I need to know you’re okay. Call me no matter what time it is.”
I reached behind me for the doorknob. “I will,” I promised.
“Don’t let her hurt you.”
I nodded as I blew him a kiss and left, but all I could think was that it was too late.
She already had.
***
Bombshell looked the same as I remembered. It tried to be fancy and glamorous with its Hollywood style sign and window display, but it was in a rundown strip mall and they specialized in affordable hairstyling. No one was getting rich or gorgeous at Bombshell, especially Nikki Prescott.
I pushed open the front door and the smell of perms and hair dyes assaulted me, reminding me of my childhood. I’d spent a lot of hours in the salon. Back then, I was grateful to spend time with my mom, for any scraps of attention she would dole out to me.
Now? I was all grown up and armed with the nasty truth of her lies. I was angry.
Nikki was sitting in a chair, her legs crossed, a fashion magazine in her lap. The place was mostly empty. She looked up at the sound of the bell over the door and I saw a small frown flicker across her mouth before she smoothed her expression out.
“Julie,” she said in greeting.
“We need to talk.”
She rolled her eyes and waved her hand as if to shoo me away. “Don’t worry about it, baby. You’re forgiven. Even though you ruined one of my favorite dresses.” She sighed and looked down at her magazine again, her dismissal clear.
I clenched my teeth, annoyed that her first thought was that I was wrong. That I was crawling back to her for forgiveness. “I’m not here to apologize.”
She reached to the shelf beside her and picked up a glass that was most likely filled with alcohol by the looks of it. She took a sip and blinked as if she was bored. “I hope this won’t take too long. I have a client coming in ten minutes.”
“It won’t take long.” I crossed my arms over my chest and approached her. “Why did you tell me I was adopted?”
She froze, the glass halfway to her lips as she glanced around quickly to make sure no one was nearby. “Let’s take this outside,” she snapped.
Without answering, I spun around on my heel and crossed the shop in a few angry strides, yanking the door open with so much force I thought I might tear it right off the hinges. Nikki followed me out to my car and then leaned against it, one hand propped jauntily on her hip and the glass still clutched in the other.
“What’s this all about?” She asked in a way that was meant to make me feel like a ridiculous child begging for an extra dessert, as if the truth was something I didn’t deserve. Like it wasn’t good for me. Or I wasn’t good enough to have it.
“Why did you tell me I was adopted?” I repeated. “I saw the birth certificate in your nightstand. I saw everything.”
Her face flushed with anger and she bit her lip. “You went through my stuff?” She lifted the hand that was holding the drink and peeled her top finger from around the glass to point at me. “You had no right—”
“No. You had no right!” I yelled back at her. “It’s one thing to keep the identity of my father a secret. I could almost understand that if he treated you wrong. But to fucking tell me I’m adopted when you’re my biological mother? How could you do that?” My voice caught in my throat, but I refused to lose my composure in front of her. She didn’t deserve my tears. “Why would you lie about something like that? It’s so fucking demented.” My voice was rising, and my breath was coming in harsh, ragged pulls. My heart was in my throat and I could no longer tell if I wanted to cry or scream.
Maybe both.
Nikki glared at me as if she wasn’t going to answer, but then she opened her mouth with another roll of her eyes. “I was in love with Jed. When I got pregnant, he promised he’d support us if I chose to keep the baby.” She looked down at her glass like the memories were all there, swirling around for her to taste. “I thought that meant he’d marry me.”
“You weren’t even married? Was anything you said true?” When she didn’t continue, I prodded with, “Well?”
She lifted her gaze to meet mine, fury blazing in her eyes as if I was the one who betrayed her. “After you were born, he made it clear he had no intention of being a father, or my husband. He told me all you and I would ever have of him, all I’d ever have, was his money.”
My throat was so thick with disappointment and hurt I could barely swallow. “That still doesn’t explain why you lied to me. Can you even imagine how much it hurts to know that you would say that? That you’d pretend I wasn’t yours?”
She took a deep breath as if she was bored and let it out slowly. “I didn’t want to be a mother, Jules. Jed and I were perfectly happy until I got pregnant. Once I became a mom, he lost interest in me. I was young and hurt. After he left, I actually considered putting you up for adoption.”
