Fragile Illusion: Stag Brothers Book 3

by Lainey Davis

  I've got a piece of my glass in the damn MOMA for fuck's sake. I'm not sure why I care so much what this guy thinks of me. I see assholes like him all the time. Emma and I have 3 weeks of this left and then we're going to part ways. She and I are about as different as two people can be. I don't see us hanging out socially after this whole thing is said and done.

  I'm about to turn around and walk back to her room, make sure she's safe to walk to the car, when I see something that makes my blood run cold. I feel my throat closing, my heart racing, the muscles in my limbs spasming as I clutch the wall.

  My father is lying on one of the beds in the ER.

  I stand opposite his room, staring at his form on the bed. I know it's him, even though I haven't laid eyes on him for over a decade. He sank into a depression and buried himself in a bottle when our mom died, leaving us home with only Tim to parent us. But you don't forget what your dad looks like. Momentarily breaking my trance, I huff out a laugh, noticing my father and I have the same hairdo and facial hair these days. I hope my fucking beard doesn't look like his, though. Christ, I can smell the urine on him from across the hall.

  I'm clutching the wall, breathing heavy, staring at him, when a nurse comes walking down the hall. "Oh," she says. "Hello! Are you here to take Ted home?"

  "Excuse me?" My eyes go wide. Take him home?

  "You must be related to him," she says. "You look exactly like him." She sighs. "He's what we call a frequent flyer. We never see any family in here with him."

  That shakes me back to consciousness. "Yeah, because he fucking walked out on his family and drank away our livelihood." I punch the wall, not caring that I'll have bruised knuckles and won't be able to shape glass today. Fuck. I haven't let myself feel angry at him for a long time.

  "I'm sorry, sir." The nurse grits her teeth. She must see a lot of angry family members here in this department.

  "I'm sorry…Robin, is it? You don't need to be hearing that from me."

  She nods and makes her way down the hall. Lord. What am I supposed to do now? I can't just fucking walk out of here now that I know my fucking father is lying across the hall from Emma.

  "FUCK!" I let myself scream just once. Hardly anyone is around at this time of day. Nobody even looks at me, except him.

  He opens his eyes and turns his head my way, and our eyes lock. I stand, breathing through my nose, staring at the man who walked out on our family, who forced Tim into a role he shouldn't have had to worry about until his own son was born. I've thought about this moment, about what I would do if I ever saw my father again. In some versions of my fantasy, I beat the shit out of him. Sometimes I cuss him out, screaming in his face until my veins throb and my voice is raw. Most often, I make eye contact and then walk away.

  Today, faced with the reality of seeing him, I stand frozen and silent. Staring.

  "Son." His voice is hoarse, wavering. It snaps me back into full consciousness.

  "It's Thatcher," I spit at him, still shouting from across the hallway.

  His eyes flare for a moment. "You think I don't know which one you are?"

  "I think you don't think about us at all," I shout back at him, and a passing employee shoots daggers at me with her eyes. I step closer to my father's room, hovering in the doorway. "I think you lost the right to speak to me casually when you walked the fuck out of our lives."

  He closes his eyes. "I know I don't deserve your kindness right now."

  "You're fucking right you don't." I make to walk back toward Emma's room, but his next words freeze me in my tracks again.

  "I'm dying, son."

  As I stand there breathing deeply, the thin metal frame of the dividing wall supporting my full weight, Emma emerges from down the hall. She gives me a watery smile and makes her way toward me, tentatively. "Sorry about earlier," she says. "Who's this?"

  I don't look at him. I take Emma's elbow and guide her toward the exit. "Nobody," I tell her. "Let me take you home."

  Sixteen

  EMMA

  Thatcher tries to lift me into his truck and I swat away his arm. "I can get in the damn truck by myself," I growl at him. But it's hard to climb up into the cab with my muscles aching. I'm exhausted, and realizing I need his help after all just pisses me off worse. My body feels like I got hit by this truck rather than lifted into it. "This is why I don't tell anyone," I say, resting my head against the glass. "Now you think of me as some victim."

  I expect Thatcher to come back at me, for us to argue and fight about how he does or does not treat me, but he just stares ahead as he crosses the bridge to take me to my apartment. I close my eyes eventually, resting for the short trip, until he parks outside my door. I climb out of the truck and turn to thank him for giving me a ride, but he's already gotten out of the truck. He surprises me by following me up the steps and inside my duplex.

  "I can…uh…take it from here, I'm pretty sure."

  He sighs. "Cheswick, can I come in?"

  I wrinkle my brow at him. "I guess so? You know I'm just going to go to bed, right?"

  He nods and follows me up. I toss my stuff on the counter and stare at him. He leans against a column with his hands in his jeans pocket. "The guy at the hospital? That was my father."

  "Your dad?"

  He shakes his head adamantly. "Tim is my 'dad.' That guy was my biological father, who walked out on us, left us all for a bottle of booze when my mom died and he couldn't handle…all of it."

  "What's wrong with him? Shouldn't you go back to the hospital and sit with him instead of me?"

  Thatcher sinks into the couch and I join him, looking at him expectantly. He leans his head back against the wall with enough force that it rattles the pictures I have hung there. "He just told me he's dying. I haven't seen him in over ten years."

  I don't really know what to say to this revelation from him, so I slide closer and grab his hand, giving him a squeeze. His skin is warm and smoother than I expected from someone who works with his hands all day. "Tell me more," I say.

  Thatcher begins to talk, telling me about the car accident that killed his mother, how their grandmother moved in afterward to help with the needs of 3 young, motherless boys, and how Ted Stag drank more and more, helped less and less, until he lost his job. The boys were a handful, and Anna Stag wasn't always up to the work of parenting 3 angry Stags. Eventually Ted drifted away from their house, not to be heard from again. The Stag brothers lived on a life insurance payout and social security checks that Tim apparently had to cash using slightly-nefarious deception so nobody official became aware that the boys technically had no legal guardian at home.

  "That's a really heavy burden your brother took on," I say. I hear echoes of my father's voice booming through my head about "lazy" people who "game the system" to receive handouts, who abuse safety net services. Then I remember what my mother said about Thatcher in the hospital.

  "Holy shit, Thatcher. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just need to apologize for what my mother said to you. My god, that was inexcusable." I pull his hand to my chest, pleading with him. I'm overcome with embarrassment. He's pouring his heart out to me, took care of me after I had a seizure at his family dinner party, and my mother called him a caveman.

  He laughs, a bitter sound. "She's not wrong, is she? I'm the son of a deadbeat, I'm covered in ink, and I'm having inappropriate thoughts about her daughter."

  I flush at this last bit, but choose to ignore it. "Thatcher, I can't tell you how sorry I am that you were put in a position where you had to endure someone speaking to you that way. I try and I try to distance myself from my parents, but sometimes…"

  "They always come back to fuck with us, don't they?" He reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. The gesture surprises me as much as his words of understanding.

  "Yes," I whisper. And then I just stare at him for a long time. We sit in quiet together, just feeling each other's heartache. Finally I can't stay awake any longer and I tell him, "I really need to go to bed now."
r />   "I'll be here when you wake up," he says.

  "Don't be ridiculous," I start to argue with him. He touches a finger to my lips to shush me. I bite my lip and my eyes go wide.

  "My family has been blowing up my phone for hours," he reminds me. "They're never going to buy it if I don't stay here and take care of you. Alice is going to drop off some food later, in fact, after she serves lunch at Stag Law. Go on and sleep. Wait. Tell me your Wi-Fi password, and then go sleep."

  Seventeen

  THATCHER

  While Emma sleeps, I pace her living room. I try to sketch out some ideas in my notebook, but I keep thinking back to my father in that bed. Dying, he said. How many times had I prayed for him to just go on and die? To be finally and definitely gone from our lives versus choosing to leave us for some other sort of life?

  I'm itching to get back in my studio, but my family would give me endless shit if I left Emma here after having a seizure. When Alice texts me that she's outside with some food, I leap up and open the door so quickly, it startles her.

  "Hey, sorry about that." I pull the takeout containers from her before she drops them. "Want to come in?" Should I be inviting Alice into Emma's house? I don't really know the etiquette for fake-fiancé personal space.

  "Just for a minute," Alice says. "I want to write down info about the food for Emma."

  Alice pulls out a notepad and starts taking notes on each container. She seems to have brought an entire week's worth of meals, all sorted and arranged. "Jesus, Alice. This is so much food!"

  Alice nods. "Don't you eat a bite of it, either. It's not for you. Hands off." Alice has baggies of herbs and toppings for tacos, fresh bread to go with soup, chicken parm with sauce in a separate container and..."Alice! Did you make pasta from scratch today?"

  "Yes. I'm writing Emma a note that she should probably eat the noodles first. They'll be really good today. Let me tell you, Juniper really enjoyed those at lunch! The Stag Law staff all ate very well today." Alice finishes her manual of notes and sighs, smiling.

  "Ok, I have to get back to the office. I want to give Petey a squeeze, but I wanted to talk with you about this weekend."

  "This weekend?"

  Alice rolls her eyes at me. "Do you ever open your computer? There was a whole email chain."

  "Who was on the chain?"

  Alice bites her lip. "Well, it was mostly me and Juniper and Ty. But you and Tim were included, I swear! And if you give me Emma's email I can loop her in."

  "Loop her into what, Alice?"

  "Ty and Juniper wanted a Stag Weekend. Instead of a bachelor party or bachelorette party? Get it--Stag? Thatcher, I absolutely know you were with us when we started planning…anyway! Obviously Emma is invited, but I wanted to find out from you if she would be feeling up to going."

  I'm about to tell Alice Emma will, in fact, not feel up to a weekend away with the Stag clan, which means I should probably stay home with her to help her "recuperate," when a woman with voluminous blond waves, stiletto heels, and an impeccable manicure opens the door to Emma's apartment.

  "Well, well, well," she says, looking at me. "So it is true." The woman tosses a cardigan over one of the stools at Emma's counter and then stands in a model pose in the middle of the room, crossing her arms and glaring at me. Alice looks back and forth between us, speechless for the first time since I met her.

  "Can I help you?" I have to tread lightly here, because I have no idea who this woman is but can't let Alice know that Emma and I are basically strangers.

  "When Mom called me hysterical crying because Emma is apparently engaged to a 'street fighter,' I had to come see for myself what all the commotion was. I am going to murder her just as soon as she gets her ass out here. She knew I was planning to announce my engagement to Logan this weekend! She just had to steal my thunder. As per usual."

  Alice raises an eyebrow and opens her mouth to speak. I can tell she's about to launch into defense mode, so I place my hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Al, why don't you go back to work and hug your baby and let me handle this, ok? I'll call you when Emma wakes up and we will talk about the weekend." I usher Alice out the door. I'm pretty used to this sort of treatment from "upstanding" citizens. Sure, they all want a piece of my rogue artwork for their great room, because some critic called my glass "haunting and de rigueur." But none of them want to mingle with me outside of a gallery space. Which is fine with me, because these people drive me crazy.

  I close the door behind my sister-in-law and stand opposite the intruder. "I assume you're the perfect sister?"

  She snorts and flings her hair back over one shoulder. "I'm Veronica Cheswick, yes. And don't think I didn't Google you. I know you were seen last week, leaving a club with a woman who was not my sister, so don't feed me some bullshit line about being desperately in love with Emma. What's your game, Stag? Why is she set on spoiling my engagement announcement?"

  I am taken aback to realize other people look at pictures of me online, leaving clubs with the women I fuck. What the hell else is out there about me in cyberspace? Alice is right--I need to open my computer more often. I pull it together, though, and retort to Veronica. "I can assure you Emma had no intention of spoiling your engagement announcement. She and I have kept our relationship on the D-L because, as I'm sure you saw during your research, my own brother is getting married and neither of us wanted to take away from his moment."

  I can tell Veronica doesn't buy it entirely, but she starts tapping her foot and looks around. "Where is my sister, anyway?"

  "She's in bed," I say, and then, feeling bold, I add, "where the hell does she usually go after a seizure?"

  Veronica sighs, and a look of concern crosses her face. "She hasn't had a big one for awhile," she says, her voice quiet. "Mom is hysterical, and deflecting by freaking out about how it will look if Emma marries someone with tattoos and facial piercings."

  "What the hell does anyone care how it looks if Emma's happy?"

  This pulls a laugh from Veronica. "Oh, my. Thatcher Stag, you have a lot to learn about the Cheswick family." She picks up her sweater. "Tell Emma I stopped by and please have her call me when she's out of her fog." Veronica heads back out the door. At the last minute, she turns around and says, "She gets really, really sore after a big seizure. I brought her some Tiger Balm." She hands me the tiny tin of ointment and clacks out of Emma's apartment.

  When Veronica leaves, I exhale deeply and sink into the couch. This tiny lie to get my brother off my back is becoming a huge, heavy web of confusion. I just want to get back to my life where I spend my afternoons creating amazing fucking artwork, my nights partying hard, and my mornings sleeping it all off. I am grateful to Veronica for at least distracting me from my father for a few minutes.

  Thinking on what she said as she left, I text Juniper to ask if she knows any massage therapists who make house calls. I figure if I'm about to spring a weekend out of town with my family on Emma, the least I can do is butter her up first. I set up an appointment for tomorrow afternoon and then I decide it's been too long since I slept. I kick back onto Emma's couch and fall asleep in seconds.

  Eighteen

  EMMA

  I feel so much better when I wake up. My muscles ache, my neck throbs in particular, but my head is clear. My relief is overwhelming, almost like I needed to have that seizure to feel normal again. I hadn't even realized I felt it building. I stretch and look at the clock. Five pm. I have basically been asleep for an entire day since having the seizure, which means my inbox will be full and I'll have about ten messages from my mother in my voicemail. I decide to shower, find food, and then tackle my phone.

  After marinating in the hot water for much longer than usual, I wrap a towel around my head and walk into the kitchen. One of my favorite perks of living alone, I decide, is the ability to sit stark naked at my counter and eat without worrying about getting food on my shirt.

  I whistle, marveling at how clear my head feels, and walk to the sink to fill the coffee pot.
While I turn on the water, I happen to look toward the living room and I scream.

  I drop the pot to the tile floor, and the glass shatters as I keep screaming.

  Thatcher Stag sits up on my couch, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and then staring at me, open-mouthed. "Shit," he says.

  "What the fuck are you doing here?" My voice is shrill and, having nothing in my hands, I move to cover my breasts and crotch.

  "Don't move," he says, walking toward me.

  "Don't come near me!! I'm naked."

  He keeps approaching. "I can see that, Emma, and I'll try to look away, ok, but there's broken glass and you're barefoot."

  I start looking around, wildly, unsure how to proceed here. Thatcher steps into his sneakers and walks toward me. "Woah," he says. "You have red pubes."

  "Fuck you, Thatcher!" This is like a nightmare.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says, walking toward me and averting his eyes. "I just…the women I sleep with don't really ever have pubic hair. So…"

  "Can you spare me the sexy storytime?"

  He nods, keeping his head turned. As he approaches me in the kitchen, he reaches toward my head. I stiffen, but he's pulling the towel off my hair. "Here," he says, his voice surprisingly gentle. "You can cover up with this." He walks toward the fridge, where I have the dustpan and broom wedged between the appliance and the wall, and I hastily wrap the towel around my body. I stand stock still as he stoops to clean up the glass.

  "What are you still doing here?" I whisper.

  He pours the fragments into the trash and squints, looking around the kitchen. "I think I got it all," he says, "but just to be safe." He picks me up effortlessly and carries me over to the hall, placing me down as I stare at him with wide eyes. "I told you I'd be here when you woke up," he says, shrugging. "Go on and get dressed. I have to tell you what happened."

  Five minutes later, when I'm safely dressed in sweats, Thatcher reminds me that my parents were rude, tells me how my sister stopped by to complain and maybe gloat, and he shows me the feast Alice left. Since there's no way I can eat all this before it goes bad, and since I've just about gotten over my humiliation at Thatcher seeing me naked, I decide to share the chicken parm and fresh pasta with him. He did, after all, hang out while I slept to make sure I was ok. Twice.