Right there and then on that racquetball court, I decided that I would stop drinking. Maybe not forever, but for the foreseeable future. It was stressing Tina out, and it wasn’t as much fun as I once remembered it being. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like the way I felt.
Dane and I played hard for the next forty-five minutes. We chatted a bit and we worked up quite a sweat. When we were done, we hit the showers. Afterwards I went back to my office to grab my things before heading out to the field meetings I had set up.
The bottle of scotch was still sitting on my desk.
I grabbed it and took it over to Dane’s office where I placed it on his desk.
It would find a much better home with him.
Chapter Twenty
Tina
Blake came home a little after six. I was sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of tea trying to relax. I’d been going over this in my head repeatedly since the conversation with my mother. It was going to be difficult, but I knew I could get through it. I felt like my mother was there with me, her strength, her will—I was a mixture of my parents and I knew their power would always be with me. I was a strong, independent woman. I would work my way through this both for myself and for my child.
Blake saw me sitting there and he smiled at me. “Hey, honey.”
He came in and sat his briefcase down. His lips touched mine and he hugged me softly.
“Hey,” I said. “How was your day?” It was easier to just start with something simple. Then we could build up to the real stuff. I didn’t want to alarm him yet.
“Did you eat, yet?” Blake asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Ok, how about ordering a pizza?”
“Sure, that sounds good,” I said.
“Great, I’ll hop on the horn.”
“Wait,” I said.
Blake stopped and looked at me. He could see the look of concern in my eyes. He stood there watching me, his gaze moving from one of my eyes to the other one. Then he sat down at the table beside me.
“What’s wrong?” Blake asked.
“I have to ask you something,” I replied.
“Ok…”
“It has come to my attention that your family is not exactly who you said they were.”
His face briefly turned white as a sheet. Then he relaxed and smiled. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you going to keep lying?”
Blake immediately leaned back and gave me a harsh look. He was already getting defensive.
“What? When have I lied to you?”
“I don’t know, pretty much the entire time I’ve known you.”
Blake didn’t speak. He stared at me for a moment, his face was completely stone and I could see a world of fear behind his eyes. They kept darting back and forth across my face, trying to determine if I was bluffing or not. Did he think I was making this up to get him to divulge his secret, whatever it might have been? Sorry. I was very serious. And I wasn’t going to let him charm or guilt me into keeping quiet. This had to come out into the open.
“I’m at a loss for words here,” Blake said shrugging his shoulders. He was doing a great job of playing innocent. “I don’t know where this is coming from.”
“You aren’t going to say it, are you? Seriously? You are going to sit there and continue this ruse, continue to lie to me, the mother of your child.”
Blake looked down at the table for a moment. The mention of our child seemed to strike a guilty chord within him, even if it was brief. Then his poker face returned. I was getting worked up. I was furious that he was going to continue this.
“What do you want me to tell you?” Blake asked.
“I want to hear the truth,” I said. It was important for me to hear him say it.
Blake closed his eyes, and for a moment, he looked utterly defeated. His shoulders slumped down and he let out a long sigh.
“How did you find out?” Blake asked.
“Does it matter? Why didn’t you tell me? Why keep this from me?”
“I want to know,” Blake said.
I took a deep breath. “My mother hired a private investigator.”
Blake started laughing. “What? Oh, wow… that is insane,” he said. “That’s—oh, man. I don’t believe that.”
“Is it true?”
“What? Is what true?” Blake demanded standing up. I’d never seen him this angry before. “I can’t believe that meddling bitch!”
“Hey! That’s my mother! And she was just trying to look out for me.”
“What did she find out? I want to hear this.”
I took a deep breath. “If your father in the mob? Your Uncle, too?”
Blake stared into my eyes for a moment and then started laughing his head off. “Wow, that is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Your mother has told you a whopper this time. I can’t believe she hired someone to scope me out. Oh, I’ve never felt this insulted before.”
“So, you deny it?” I asked.
“I’m not even going to dignify it with an answer,” Blake said. “That’s it, I’m out of here.”
Blake walked towards the door.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer; he just walked out the door and got into his car. A moment later I heard the engine fire up and he gunned it down the driveway.
What just happened? Did Blake just break up with me? Or did he just need some time?
I sat there alone in the house that we now shared. It was so quiet, so empty. The remnants of the argument, still fresh in my mind, almost echoing in the air around me. Blake had left. I had no idea where he was going or when he’d return. We’d never had a fight like this.
Was it my fault? Should I have approached it differently? How else would one approach such a thing? I just didn’t know what to do. My thoughts returned to everything that Blake and I had together. We had a great life starting; why did I have to pressure him about this? He would have told me in time, right? Maybe? Or it might have driven a wedge between us that forbid this union, this family from happening before it really got started.
But it had started. I placed my hands on my stomach. Our child was growing more each day. One day soon, we would be parents. And we would have to work together to raise our child properly.
“Dammit,” I groaned. I rushed it too hard. I came at him all wrong and now…. what? Was this the end for us? Would this send us on a downward trajectory?
I rested my head against my hands. What was I doing?
Was it possible that the private investigator was wrong? Could he have been completely mistaken? Or could Blake be totally in the dark about it? I didn’t see how. My mother was certain. She was the most level-headed person I knew. She wouldn’t have come to me with this information if she didn’t have all the facts.
I stood up and paced the kitchen for a few minutes. I wanted to run after Blake and talk to him. I should have just hopped in my car and tracked him down, but it had been too long. Who knew where he was, now?
“Wow, that’s insane,” Donna said when I called her. I didn’t know what else to do. Would Blake be furious for me even mentioning this to her? Probably. But I was too upset to really care. I had to talk to someone, and Donna had always been my go to.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Do I think that Blake’s family could really be in the mob? Absolutely. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there has always been something weird about that situation. You know this. We’ve talked about it at length. The weirdest thing is that Blake refuses to own up to it or even talk about it.”
“Well, he was irate that my mom went behind his back and had him followed and investigated. I figured he would be upset. I’d totally be pissed.”
“Yeah, but you don’t think he is using that as a deflection to avoid coming clean and talking about this? That’s kind of what it sounds like. To storm out the way he did, that kind of signals to me that he did not want to admit some things. But that’s
just my feeling; I could be wrong. I have been before, but it is very unlikely. You know this.”
I smiled. Donna would always have that effect. “I’m glad I called. I just needed your friendly voice and Donna-isms,” I said.
“I’m always glad to be of service,” Donna said. “So, where is he? Any clue?”
“I don’t know. There are a few places I could check, but I think I’ll just leave him be and give him some time. He needs space, so I’ll respect it. But we are far from done having this conversation.”
“Right. You dig in and stick to your guns. I know you can do it.”
“Oh, I’m on it. There is no way he is getting a pass on this. I’m going to grill him hard when I see him.”
I finished the phone call and sat down on the couch. I turned on the television and tried to lose myself in a good story. But my thoughts were plagued by the fight Blake and I had just had. What if, Blake did know nothing about his family’s involvement in the mob? Maybe we’d uncovered something truly shocking to him.
But then, if that was true, what was the big secret that Blake was trying to keep from me?
One way or another, it was time for the truth to be revealed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Blake
“You did the right thing,” Dane said.
He handed me another whiskey on the rocks and sat down at the barstool beside me. I took a few sips, feeling both exhilarated and guilty at the same time. With the stress I had hanging over me, I was entitled to a little bit of release. A man could only take so much.
She knew. Dammit! How could this have happened? Tina’s stupid mother. That woman had it in for me from the moment I started dating her daughter. No man would ever be good enough for her little girl. Both of Tina’s parents were possessive, constantly meddling in their daughter’s life. She was a grown up. They needed to realize that their job of parenting was done and let Tina live her own life. I was going to tell her one day about everything, one day soon. I knew it.
But deep down, I had been freaking out more about it all the time. When was I going to break the news to her? The day before the wedding? The day of? Was I going to employ my family to keep up the ruse and the lies? That was an idea, but then I had to worry about all of them staying in line and making sure they didn’t slip up.
What was I going to do? She knew. Tina knew all about it, but I hadn’t actually admitted to anything, not yet. But this investigator had dug it all up, and who knew what else. Hell, she might have known some things that I didn’t even know.
This was awful. It was definitely not the way I wanted things to go down. And I’d stormed out, like some child. Why? I was trapped. That’s why. I was trapped and I didn’t know how to get out of a very uncomfortable situation, so I’d chickened out, and run for it. What the hell? That was so not like me. I’d never backed down from a challenge in my life. Why was it so different when it came to this? When it came to Tina?
Because I loved her so much. That type of love could terrify you. It could make you jealous, paranoid, and make you act in ways you never had before, because the very thought of losing that love in your life was utterly crippling. I was sure I might die from a broken heart if I ever lost Tina.
I would never let that happen. But then again, I was going about things all wrong if I was worried about that.
After storming out, I drove to Dane’s. Luckily, I caught him at home. We hung out for a bit at his place and I told him what happened. He was supportive and came up with the bright idea to go to Donnie’s, an upscale gentlemen's club he often frequented.
It was probably the last place I should have been but drinking and hanging out with my best friend when I was feeling really down and out, was what I did. I knew the self-destructive, negative nature of such a thing, but I did it anyway.
And it was helping. After a few drinks and some much needed conversation with my friend I was already feeling optimistic about things.
“I should have just owned up to it and talked to her face to face,” I told him after my third drink. We were sitting at the bar, me facing it, and him the other way watching the strippers doing their thing. I was too depressed to care about watching naked women.
“Yeah, you should have,” Dane said. “But you didn’t. You made a mistake. It is possible you know, for the great Blake to make a mistake every now and then. You don’t have to feel superhuman all the time. Just go back with your tail between your legs and beg for forgiveness.”
I stared at him with a goofy grin. “That doesn’t sound redeeming.”
“Who cares about redeeming? Just admit you were wrong and get on with it. Tina is a wonderful woman; she will forgive you. But you’ve got to come clean about it all, which I might remind you, I told you to do weeks ago.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know you did. That’s on me; that’s my fault.”
“It’s all your fault. Now quit being a whiner, and just go fix it.”
I groaned and waved to the bartender to give me another drink. He brought it over, and I just grabbed the bottle. “Leave it.”
He nodded and I sat there cradling a vastly overpriced bottle of whiskey.
“It’s just not that easy. There is like something missing inside of me. There is something there that when it comes to telling Tina about my family, I can’t bear to do it. I just want to protect her from it. I don’t want to expose her to it.”
“She doesn’t need your protection,” Dane said. “Did you ever think that maybe you need protection, instead?”
I looked up at my friend wondering where in the hell he’d just gotten this deeper insight into the human condition.
“Wow, that’s incredibly deep,” I said.
Dane thought a moment and then smiled. “Is it?”
Before I could answer he was waving at one of the dancers who’d just finished her routine on stage. A moment later this beautiful woman, who was still half naked was standing beside us.
“Hey, there,” she said.
“Hi,” Dane replied. “I’m Dane.”
“I’m Heather,” she replied.
“Well, Heather. That was a fantastic dance you just did. I really enjoyed it.”
“Ok, thanks,” Heather replied.
“I would love to get a private dance,” Dane said. “Interested?”
“Sure.”
Dane stood up and took Heather’s hand. She led him off to a private room for his dance. And now I was alone at the bar, with my bottle of whiskey. It figured. As soon as Dane was around nude women, any problems that I might have needed some help with just disappeared.
“A good friend indeed,” I joked.
I poured myself another drink and thought about what I needed to do next to fix this mess.
* * *
Where was I?
I woke up in a bedroom that I did not immediately recognize. My head was throbbing. I discovered this the moment I tried to open my eyes and move. It wasn’t happening. I held my hands to my head and tried to hold it lightly, hoping the pain would steady. I felt like my brain was tender and swollen, as if it was banging against the inside of my skull.
Oh, how much had I drank? I needed to stop doing this to myself. It was just causing me more problems.
I tried again to lift my head and then I looked around at my surroundings. There was something familiar about this, but I didn’t know what, right off. What time was it? Did I stay out all night? Tina would be wondering where I was, and I didn’t have a good explanation right now.
Moving required a great effort, but I somehow managed to roll out of the bed, before I realized I was not in the bed. I was on the floor beside the bed. I’d fallen out? Ok… weird.
I pushed myself up off my knees and staggered to my feet. The room was still spinning somewhat, and I had the odd feeling of déjà vu, as the last memory before I passed out the night before was the ceiling spinning around above me, and the interruption of the ceiling fan that threatened to take me on some type of journey with it.
Now I was in a strange room and I was dealing with a massive hangover. Or was I still drunk? I honestly couldn’t tell right then.
Then I realized that I was not in a strange room. I’d been there before, I thought…
Or was it just remembering the night before? Ugh… I could remember nothing about what happened after I was sitting at the bar by myself. What had I done? Did I drink the entire bottle of whiskey? Was that how I blacked out?
I heard a shuffling in the bathroom. A moment later a beautiful, naked woman walked out. She saw me and smiled.
“Good morning,” she said. “How are you today?”
I couldn’t speak. What the hell had happened? What did I do? No… there was no way…I couldn’t remember… but… no… I would never have done that…
“I…I… “
The words would not come out of me. There was no way I did what I thought I’d done. I was shaking my head, tears threatening to roll through my eyes.
“Are you ok?” The woman asked.
I was aware of the fact that she was still naked, and she was walking closer to me, genuine concern on her face.
My mind froze, but my body would not stand still. I felt vomit coming, but it never did. I had to get out of there. I had to leave. This wasn’t right. Whatever happened, I had to erase it all.
I ran out of the bedroom, across the living room, and then out the door of an apartment. Once outside I realized that I was in an apartment right across from the strip club Dane and I had been partying in the night before.
Dane… where the hell was he? I had to talk to him. I had to find out what happened. He’d tell me the truth; Dane never lied to me, not about anything big.
His Secrets Page 20
