by Lexi Ryan
She stops in the doorway. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
All I can do is watch her leave. I listen to her steps down the stairs and then the click of the front door.
“I thought you were in Louisville,” I say, without turning to my father.
“I came home for a quick meeting this morning,” he says. “Why wasn’t the alarm system on? Did you even lock the fucking door? How did that man get in here?”
I straighten. Dad and I don’t talk. Not to each other. We talk around each other, about each other, but I feel like he hasn’t looked at me since he joined us at the hospital on New Year’s Day. But he’s looking at me now, and there’s disgust all over his face. I’m in nothing but my boxer briefs, and I feel exposed.
“It’s my fault,” I say.
“And you being in Mia’s bed this morning? Is that your fault, too?” When I open my mouth to answer, he holds up a hand. “And her sleeping in your bed before? Is that your fault, too?” He drags a hand through his hair and exhales heavily. “Jesus, it’s a good thing Gwen isn’t here. She’d lose her mind.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t lock the door. Please don’t blame this on Mia.” Don’t fire her. Don’t take her from me. God, I want to beg it. But it’s selfish, and when I tell Mia the truth, she’s not going to want to be here anyway.
He sighs. “She does her job and she’s good at it, so I haven’t said anything, but he was your best friend. Did you forget that?”
I back up a step. “Don’t pretend you know what we’re going through.”
He narrows his eyes and points a finger at me. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost someone they loved?”
“I think Mom was dying in your bed and you were fucking around with Mia’s mom.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted that I know, but he doesn’t look surprised, only resigned.
“It’s not the same,” he says, his jaw hard.
“How? Mom wasn’t even dead, and you were screwing someone else.”
Now he’s the one to take a step back, and his face softens. “It’s lonely to watch the woman you love die. It makes you feel helpless. Powerless. But Isabella Mendez made me feel like a man again when that was what I needed most. She comforted me. But I’m guessing you know all about a beautiful Mendez woman giving you just what you need.”
“It’s not like that with Mia.”
“You’ve been sleeping with her.”
“But it’s not just sex.” I swallow hard. “I love her. I’ve loved her . . .” I drop my head and stare at my bare feet. “Always.”
“And you think I didn’t care about Isabella? That I’m just an old asshole who fucks around on his dying wife? Sometimes we love the people we shouldn’t exactly when we shouldn’t.” He tilts his face to the ceiling and draws in a long breath. I’ve never seen him like this. Vulnerable. Human.
“Then how is your story so much more forgivable than mine?” I ask, and when the question slips from my lips I realize just how much his reaction to the last few months hurt me, just how much I needed him to swoop in like a worried father and not judge like a disappointed employer.
He steps forward and places a big hand on my shoulder. “Because you’re better than me. Don’t you get that? I was lonely and grieving for a woman who was still breathing. I’m not proud of what I did, but you’re better than me. You’re not the one who does drugs or gets in trouble and needs his dad to call in favors to keep him out of prison. You’ve always earned what you had. Proven yourself. I didn’t know what to do with a son who couldn’t handle grief when I could never handle it either.”
I close my eyes and focus on the weight of my dad’s hand on my shoulder. The day of my mother’s funeral, I stood by his side as people walked by to pay their respects, and he kept his hand on my shoulder. It grounded me. Reminded me I hadn’t lost my whole family. His quiet sign of strength helped me find mine, and it does the same now.
When I open my eyes and meet his steady gaze, I say, “I was driving the car that hit Brogan and Nicholas Mendez.”
The blood drains from my father’s face. “Don’t say that.”
“I was driving the car. I don’t remember it. Not at all. But Coach found me in the front seat of his SUV after midnight. There was damage to the front. He’d seen the news so he put two and two together.” Dad stumbles back, and I take a breath. “He covered it up. He was trying to protect me, but I couldn’t live with myself.”
Dad shakes his head. “Don’t say that out loud again. You understand? Never say it again. Don’t speak of it.”
I can’t make that promise now. I never should have made it the first time. “I’m so sorry.”
“Who knows?” he asks, and I feel like I’m watching him age before my eyes. He seems to shrink into himself, the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes suddenly more prominent.
“Trish was in the car. She remembers it. And then Coach knows. He was trying to protect me, but I hate that he did.” I take a breath. It feels so damn good to have said it aloud. “I wish he hadn’t.”
“Mia?” he asks.
I shake my head, and guilt knifes through my gut. I made love to her before she knew the truth. I need to tell her. I have to find a way.
Dad’s phone buzzes, and he curses when he looks at it. “I’m late for my meeting, and then Gwen will cut off my balls if I don’t get back to our suite.” He slides his phone back into his pocket and his shoulders sag. “But I can stay if you want me to. I’ll get out of the meeting, make up some excuse for Gwen.”
“No. Go on. I need to think anyway.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything rash,” he says, and when I just look at him, he adds, “At least not until after we have a chance to talk this out together. I lost your mom.” His voice grows thick and weakens until he has to swallow to finish. “I can’t lose you, too.”
I nod. “Then we have to find a way to make this right.”
Mia
Dad’s silent on the drive back to his trailer. He took a cab to the Woodisons’—thank God for that moment of good judgment. Since I met Arrow, I feared the day my father would learn how I felt for him. I let that fear dictate my choices, and now that it’s happened in one of the most mortifying scenarios imaginable, I’m ashamed I let it rule me for so long. But more than that, I’m ashamed I’ve passively accepted my father’s addiction.
Parking the car in the gravel in front of his trailer, I cut the engine and take a long, slow breath. “I’m not my mother,” I tell him.
He lifts his chin. There are tears on his cheeks. “You’re just like her.”
Kids play in the empty lot across the street, laughing and chasing each other with water guns. It could be a picture from my childhood. “I work for the Woodisons, true, and I’ve fallen for Arrow, but I’m not her. I didn’t cheat on my husband or leave my family behind. I took a good job with a wealthy family so I could pay for my school and take care of you.”
“You let him ruin you.”
He still won’t look at me, and I swallow back the hurt. “If you think my only value was in my virginity, then I guess you’re right.” I take another deep breath and watch the kids play, their bare feet flying through the thick green grass. “I’m really smart, Daddy. I know you know that, but you never would admit that it mattered. And I sing. I’m good at it, and it makes me feel alive. I’m a lot more than an unmarried girl who gave up her virginity to a sweet boy who made her feel special.”
“I know that.” His voice is low and quiet. “Why do you think I wanted more for you than to be their servant?”
I press my palm to my chest and squeeze my eyes shut. “There’s no shame in working your way to a better life. I’m proud of the work I do. I don’t want to do it forever, but that’s exactly why I’m working so hard. So I can have better down the road.”
When he finally turns to look at me, another tear slides down his cheek and slices through my heart. “I’m so sorry.” He scrunches up his nose and draws a breath in throug
h his teeth. “I panicked. I never should have gotten my gun. Don’t hate me. You’re my Mia. I can’t lose you, too.”
My eyes burn and the world goes blurry for the heartbeat before the tears start rolling. My dad’s a lazy, misogynistic drunk, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love him, and I’ve needed to know that he loves me too.
“This can’t go on.” I reach over the console, take his hand, and squeeze it. Tears thicken my throat. How is it we can know something for years, but it only seems real when we finally say it out loud? “You’ve got a problem with alcohol, and we need to get you some help.”
“I’m fine,” he says. His lower lip trembles, and he looks so much older than his fifty years.
“No you’re not, Daddy. You haven’t been fine since Mom left. And it’s time to do something about that. It’s time to sober up.”
He holds my gaze and shakes his head. “I already tried AA. Nic had me going before he . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut and exhales slowly. “It didn’t work.”
“Let’s get you to bed,” I say, because I don’t want to argue. Not today. I promise myself I’ll try again tomorrow, but this morning my heart aches too much to carry on like this.
I get him in the house and tuck him in, then I search for liquor bottles—under the bed, behind the toilet, under the sink—and dump everything I find. I clean the kitchen and tidy the living room and kiss my sleeping father on the forehead before I leave.
When I go out front, I see Sebastian’s car at his grandmother’s trailer and decide to tell him that Dad’s promised to stop drinking.
The screen creaks and rattles as I knock.
“Come on in,” Sebastian calls.
I step into the trailer and smile at the scent of chocolate chip cookies. The trailer is almost identical to Dad’s, though this one’s been better maintained, and where Dad’s feels small and cramped, this one feels warm and cozy. This one reminds me of how Dad’s was before Mom left—always a blanket on the back of the couch and the smell of cookies in the air.
Sebastian sits at the kitchen table with a manila folder in front of him. The folder is open to a thick stack of papers, but he’s holding a single page and staring at it like he’s trying to interpret hieroglyphs.
“What is that?”
Sebastian’s head snaps up. “Mia. I didn’t know it was you.”
I step forward, and he drops the paper on top of the pile and closes the folder.
“Nothing.” He steadies his gaze on the wall behind me.
“Is it about the accident? Are those the police reports you said you’d get me?”
“I didn’t know you’d be here. I wanted to look through them first.” He grimaces.
“Let me see it. Let me see the one you were looking at when I walked in.”
“Mia.”
“You found something, didn’t you? You figured it out.”
Standing, he unzips his backpack and slides the folder inside. “Let this go, okay? Nothing good is going to come of digging any further than you have.” He pushes through the screen door, and I follow him onto the front porch.
“It’s Coach. Emmitt Wright hit Brogan and Nic.”
“Shh.” He does a quick look around us to make sure no one heard me but we’re alone. “Stop talking. Right now. Just stop this while you’re ahead.”
“He did it.” I know it’s true, because I can see it in Sebastian’s eyes—that horror, that need to protect someone who’s protected him. I imagine I’d see the same thing in Arrow’s eyes in this situation. He’d feel trapped by the truth. He’d be torn between his innate sense of justice and the man who’s been all but a surrogate father to him. He’d be a mess, and—“Oh my God. It was Coach, and Arrow knows.”
“Coach hit a deer.” Sebastian stands and throws his backpack over his shoulder. “His car was damaged because a doe jumped out in front of his car on New Year’s Day morning. He even filed a report. Let this go.”
“You’d already tested the blood, hadn’t you?” He was too sure, too confident when he took me to the shop. “You knew something was off about the accident long before I started raising questions, and you’d already tested the blood.”
He shakes his head and turns away from me, heading toward his car. “Let it go.”
“I’m not going to stop, Sebastian,” I say, my feet crunching in the gravel as I follow him. “I’m not going to let this go. I can’t have the whole world believing my brother was responsible for what happened that night. Keep it to yourself if you must, but I’ll find out eventually anyway.”
“Fine.” He yanks his backpack open and pulls the folder out of it. “Take it, Mia, but I don’t want anything to do with this. Do you understand?” He climbs into his car and pulls away.
I take the file to my car and sit in the driver’s seat before opening it. The accident report for Emmitt Smith is on top. When I first scan it, I don’t see anything that would upset Sebastian, but then the words jump out at me. The officer noted the deer had been shot prior to the collision.
Why would Sebastian be so upset to see the deer was shot before Coach hit it? Maybe it was injured and that was why it ran into the road.
Or maybe the deer was a cover-up.
I drive to the BHU football facility and park in the side lot next to Coach’s Cherokee. I stare at it for a long time.
If the deer was a cover-up, he wouldn’t have scrubbed the underside of the car or put deer blood there. Even if he took it through a car wash, there’s a good chance trace evidence would remain.
I know what I need to do.
Arrow
I’m totally naked when Mia rushes into my room. I’m just out of the shower and my skin is still damp, my hair still wet.
She throws the door shut behind her and wraps her arms around my neck, presses her body against mine. She rises onto her toes to kiss me and threads her hands into my hair.
“Mia,” I say against her mouth. “What are you doing?”
She reaches a hand between our bodies, unbuttons her jeans, and pushes them from her hips along with her panties. “Arrow.” My hand is fisted at my side and she takes it, opens my palm, and guides it down her body, over her stomach and between her legs.
I don’t know what’s gotten into her. This is nothing like last night. This is frantic. This is the greedy kind of lust that isn’t ever about sex at all. She’s looking for escape, and I give it to her.
I cup my hand between her legs and drag my open mouth down the side of her neck. She arches into me, the cotton of her tank brushing against my chest.
“Arrow, please.” She lifts a leg and wraps it around my hips, trying to pull me closer. She’s still half clothed, and she rubs herself against my cock.
“Mia, slow down.”
“It’s over,” she says, lifting her eyes to meet mine. “I know who did it.”
At those words, all the blood in my body goes cold, and at the same time, I want to pull her closer. I want to put my mouth over hers so she can’t say it out loud, to silence her and protect our last seconds together.
I step away.
“Arrow.” There’s so much sadness in her eyes. “I need to say goodbye.”
“What do you mean?”
“Make love to me one more time. I have to do something, and I . . . Please. Just let’s take right now. This moment. Because when I . . . I have to do what’s right, and you might never forgive me.”
Those words are a fist to my heart. “I could forgive you anything, Mia.”
“One more time. Please.”
“No.” I take another step back. “Talk to me first.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “I have to turn him in. I’m sure it was him and I have to . . .”
What’s she talking about? What does she think she knows? “Who?”
“Coach.”
One word that says she knows more than she should. “Mia—”
“Coach was on Deadman’s Curve on New Year’s Eve. Coach hit Nic and Brogan.”
I should have told her the truth before. I should never have waited. But no choice seems right when each means someone gets hurt. Or worse. “Mia—”
“I have to turn him in. There’s still blood under the car. Not deer blood. Human blood, Arrow. I climbed under there myself and took a sample to the lab at BHU. I got the call this morning. Coach told the police he hit a deer, but it’s not deer blood. He did it, and I have to turn him in.”
I shake my head, my mind running too fast and in too many directions. “You don’t.”
“Everybody’s been talking. You’ve heard them. They’ve been running their mouths about my brother for months. They think this was Nic’s fault.”
Where do I start? “Slow down.”
“I knew how you’d feel.” She folds her arms and draws in a ragged breath. “That’s why I wanted to say goodbye. I owe it to my brother. He’d cleaned up, and they all ran their mouths like he hadn’t. I owe it to him and everything he did for my family. I need to tell the police who was responsible for what happened that night.”
I want to pull her into my arms and hold her one last time. Because she was right when she burst in here. Everything changes after this. I could kiss her, hold her close, and taste her lips one last time before she hates me. I don’t let myself. “It wasn’t Coach.”
“I’m sorry, Arrow. I know how important he is to you. But we’re talking about my brother, and I just . . .” She starts pacing, her arms wrapped tight around herself.
I have to grip the bed to keep myself from wrapping her up in my arms, to keep from begging her to forget whatever it is she knows. It had to come out, I realize that now, but I wish it didn’t have to happen like this. “It wasn’t Coach,” I repeat.
“I wish he hadn’t covered it up. It was dark, and they were fighting in the road like freaking idiots. I have to do this for my brother. Everyone thinks he was involved in drugs again, but he wasn’t. He was clean. I have to turn him in.”
