“Um, well—” Whittier stumbles for an answer. She’s embarrassed by the question.
“And this isn’t telling you what you need to know about this situation?” Rhea gestures toward our circle of family members.
“So, um, yeah. This is weird,” Whittier continues. “Rhett told me that Brooks wanted me here. That you two wanted us together. He promised me that ring and a wedding and a life. The life. So, um, I came with him so I could do that. So I could win Brooks’ heart, I guess.”
“And you thought that Brooks would want that too, even if he hasn’t seen you in three years?” Rhea is staring blankly at Whittier, as if she’s waiting for a light bulb to go off and Whittier to realize how stupid that whole plan actually sounds.
“Two years,” Whittier corrects my mom. “So, I visited once his freshman year. So, yeah, I, um, so—” Whittier fumbles for words again.
“Whit, it’s okay,” I offer. Kiernan’s face goes blank. “As you’ve noticed, Rhett tends to manipulate the women in my life.” Even though Whittier came here with ridiculous intentions, I can’t blame her. She’s drowning right now, and it’s painful to watch. Whittier’s face calms as I speak. She doesn’t deserve to be Rhett’s pawn any more than my mom or Kiernan did.
“You were duped, and even though it’s completely illogical for you to think we ever had a chance, I can see why you did when you were under Rhett spell.”
“Yes, Whittier, we’ve all been there.” Kiernan offers with a smile. She is so empathetic. Always concerned for others, even when they’re trying to hurt her.
“You all are fucking insane!” Rhett exclaims. “You’re talking like I’m playing some kind of game!”
“You are an asshole,” Bo snaps.
“Excuse me, son, I suggest you watch your tone,” Rhett snarls.
“Or what? You cut me off? I’ll be fine. The game is over, Rhett. You lose,” Bo says coldly.
“The ring,” Rhea commands again, holding out her hand. Rhett removes it from his pocket and hands it to her. “This belongs to you, darlin’,” she says as she turns and hands me the box.
“I don’t understand one thing, Dad,” I begin. “Why Whittier? Why now? Just so I wouldn’t marry Kiernan?”
“We’re broke, darlin’,” Rhea responds before Rhett can. There’s a collective gasp among all those present. Which I forgot included John, Monica, Blaire, Bateman, Rhodes, and Blake.
“How? I don’t understand.”
“Your dad has spent all of his retirement and endorsement money on his…” She pauses. “What is the term? Baby mamas?”
More gasping, jaws hitting the pavement and eyes popping out of people’s heads. My heart sinks to my stomach. Rhett’s face loses all of its color.
“Dad, is that true?” I ask him. Not that I expect the truth from him. This is the man who always told me to be careful, never fall in love, and never have unprotected sex for fear of entrapment. He expected me to live my life by a set of rules when he was breaking those rules all along.
“It is, Brooks. We were going to tell you, but it just wasn’t the right time with the big game coming up,” Brett replies. My brothers knew. Everyone knew except me. The bile rises in my gut again. Anger takes over all of my senses.
“How many?” I ask as the anger continues to surge. I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. I don’t care about the money. It's the hypocrisy. Kiernan’s tiny fingers interlace with mine and she leans against me as we await the answer. Feeling her touch calms me.
“So far? Nine,” Rhea responds calmly.
“Nine? Are you fucking kidding me, Dad?” I exclaim. “All the years of your fucking speeches about avoiding love and making sure I was being safe so I didn’t get trapped by a jersey chaser! You are such a fucking hypocrite!”
“Son,” Rhett begins.
“I am not your son!” I snap.
“I fucked up,” he continues, ignoring my piercing words, but I can see the hurt on his face. Finally some genuine emotion is exuding from this charade of a man. “As I told you before, there are girls in every city. In every hotel. And the most audacious girls make their way to your hotel room door. I was weak. I came up with those rules so you boys would avoid my mistakes.”
“So, you wanted me to marry Whittier for the money, didn’t you? To bail you out of whatever shit you’re in. You don’t care about her, or me. You’re saving your own ass. You don’t hate Kiernan, she just isn’t rich enough.”
“That’s low, Rhett,” John finally speaks.
“How many, Dad? Really. Full disclosure here.”
Rhett sighs in defeat and rubs his hands over his face. He knows he’s lost. “I have nine current paternity suits. Your mom knows about those. If those are positive, they will cost us millions. But I’m also still paying child support on six other children who haven’t turned eighteen yet.”
“Jesus Christ!” I exclaim just as Bo shouts “Holy shit!” and Brett mumbles, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Is that all? We have like fifteen half-siblings?” I push for more information. I can’t believe he would do this. How could he do this to my mom?
“And there are three women we’ve settled with,” he concludes with a sigh.
I shake my head. “I guess it all makes sense now. Did you guys know?” Brett and Bo both shake their heads.
“We knew about the nine pending. I didn’t know about the rest,” Brett murmurs. Bo nods in agreement. This bomb was dropped on us all. They’re stunned like I am.
“Mom?”
“I knew about some,” she concedes. “I knew about the three we’ve paid off. I knew about a couple of the ones we’re still paying for. The drinking helped numb that pain. It wasn’t just you boys growing up. It was the cheating and a scandal that broke my heart. It was hiding behind a smile when I was dying inside.”
This is the real reason she lost her shit. The real reason for everything. She drank to forget Rhett’s indiscretions. She missed us, but she wouldn’t have spiraled so far if it weren’t for fucking Rhett McCarthy and his overused dick.
“Fuck, this is insane,” I sigh as I rake my free hand through my hair. “Baby, I am not like him.” I’m so worried about what Kiernan is thinking. This can’t help her insecurities about being an NFL wife.
“I know,” she says. Her hand squeezes mine. Her eyes tell me that she’s okay. She isn’t saying it just to keep me calm at the moment.
“There’s more,” Rhea states matter-of-factly. “Rhett, he needs to know all of it.”
Rhett shakes his head vehemently. He doesn’t want to discuss this any further.
“There can’t be more!” I exclaim. “Are you getting divorced? Tell me, Dad, now.”
“No, not more kids,” Rhett goes on and pauses. He’s mulling over this current situation. When he realizes there’s no way out, his eyes soften in defeat.
“Yes, your mother has served me with divorce papers, and rightfully so. But, I need to tell you something else. About Kiernan.”
“Me?” she asks in surprise. Oh God, if she is my half-sister I am going to throw up.
“Sort of,” he replies.
“Darlin’, you do need to hear this,” Rhea offers. “This explains fully why Rhett is the way he is.”
Rhett smiles at Rhea. Rhett is finally coming clean, and I know whatever he says will be the truth if my mom says it is.
“When I was in college at LSU I fell in love,” he begins.
“We know, Dad. We’ve heard the story of how you and mom fell in love several times,” I interrupt. I’m too pissed to hear any more of this. I thought he was going to be honest.
“No, let me finish,” he says. “Her name was Lisa. She was a volleyball player at LSU. She was amazing. She was beautiful, charming, athletic, and smart. She was fun.”
Rhea doesn’t look surprised by Rhett’s words. She doesn’t even look upset.
“Okay,” I urge him to continue as I look to my brothers. They’re as intrigued as I am
. Again, you could hear a pin drop. There are thousands of people walking around this stadium and campus. But we’re in our own little bubble. Everyone is listening intently to Rhett now.
“I met her during freshman orientation, and it was love at first sight. We spent every waking moment together for three years. She was at every game and I went to as many of her games as I could during the week after practices. She was a pre-med major and had her heart set on becoming a pediatrician. She loved kids. I knew I was destined for the NFL.” He sighs. “She wanted a life, a family, the white picket fence. My dad knew I couldn’t give her that with the life I was about to lead in the NFL. So he introduced me to Brooks Winthrop and his daughter, Rhea. Rhea was a southern belle who had been groomed to be a housewife. Very similar to Whittier.”
“Ouch, Dad,” I snapped.
“It’s true, darlin’,” Rhea defends Rhett. “That’s how we were raised in the South back then. I had hopes and dreams, but we were born to be mothers and homemakers. Marry for status, if you will. A marriage to someone like Rhett was a big deal back then. To my family. To our community.”
“What happened to Lisa?” Kiernan asks quietly. She looks terrified anticipating Rhett’s answer. She is Lisa in this story, I realize.
“Well, at the beginning of our senior year, my dad met with her to determine her intentions. She had her own goals, and he didn’t think they aligned with mine. Think of it as the original version of the New Orleans encounter,” Rhett goes on. “Anyway, he talked her out of our relationship like I did with you and Brooks. I didn’t think she would quit on us as easily as she did. That broke my heart, and it was never able to be repaired. I thought she would fight for us. Last I heard, she was a pediatrician in Texas. She’s married. They have a couple kids, and I think she may be a grandmother already.”
“You didn’t really fight either,” Rhea says.
“That’s true. I was miserable for a long time after that. I never truly forgave my father. I had a terrible senior season, which is why I slipped all the way down to the sixteenth pick to the Vikings. My junior season I was predicted to go as high as fifth to Denver.”
“I didn’t know that either.” I shake my head.
“So anyway, my dad pressured me to marry Rhea. Papa Winthrop gave me Clara’s ring and after about, what, three or four months I proposed?”
“Yes, that’s about right,” Rhea concurred. “We were engaged before the bowl games your senior year. We married that summer and I was pregnant with Bo almost immediately.”
“So, on it went for many years. On paper we were perfect. An LSU power couple, and the sweethearts of the NFL. Don’t get me wrong, I did love your mother. Just not the way I loved Lisa. I respected what your mother did for our family, but my broken heart never healed. I filled it with random women over the years. Rhea was just thrust into a terrible situation that was out of her control,” Rhett continues.
“Mom, did you love Dad?” Bo asks.
“I did. Not in that ‘one true love’ kind of way, but we had kids together and there was love there. I had a true love as well. Calvin Carter was my high school sweetheart. He was a redneck. A hardworking man who always had dirt under his fingernails. He was destined to run his family farm. My dad thought he was below our family station, so we were never allowed to officially date,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Wait, this sounds like a business transaction, not love,” I respond.
“It was, for both of us,” Rhea says. “I put up with Rhett’s cheating and lying for our family name. He tried to fill a void left by the love of his life with the company of other women. Neither of us were happy.”
“But, publicly we lived a good life,” Rhett chipped in.
“That’s true. The public persona was picture perfect,” Rhea concurs.
“So, how did you keep all this quiet?” Bo asks. My brothers clearly didn’t know about this until now either.
“Money. Lots and lots of money,” Rhett replies. “Which is why Whittier was an ideal candidate if you were hell bent on getting married one day.”
“But we don’t love each other,” I say.
“You may not,” Whittier huffs.
“Sorry,” I offer. “So Dad, I’m still confused. Why are you trying to push me away from Kiernan if you know how my story will end if I leave her? You and Mom were both separated from the loves of your lives and hated it. Why would you want that for me? For any of us?” I gesture toward my brothers.
“Jealousy,” Rhea interjects.
Rhett nods. “Besides the money that Whittier could bring to the table, I’m jealous. Kiernan is your Lisa. She’s perfect for you, just as Lisa was perfect for me. I guess if my father controlled my life, I wanted to control my sons’ lives too. Why should you get the perfect ending if I couldn’t? I’m an asshole. A conceited, jealous, heartless asshole.”
“True,” Brett mumbles. “Did you sabotage my relationship with Kim?”
“Oh, I remember Kim!” I exclaim. Brett met her in New York. He was visiting Bo in the city during his first year at Johns Hopkins. She was fantastic. If I remember correctly, she was from Oregon or somewhere out west, and was also working at Johns Hopkins. She had a great sense of humor and loved watching football. They had a chance meeting in New York, which both credited to fate, and dated for several months. Brett even brought her home for the holidays.
“That would have never worked. When she came to Edina, she made it clear she had no intention of moving to Minnesota. She was a West Coast girl,” Rhett began.
“Colorado, Dad,” Brett interrupted.
“Whatever, that isn’t the point. You would never have returned home,” Rhett concluded.
“Fucking, Christ!” Brett exclaimed. “I knew she didn’t just have a change of heart. She avoided me like the plague when we went back to Baltimore.”
“Sorry, bro.” Bo pats him on the back.
We all shake our heads in judgment of my father and his manipulation of our lives. We were the puppets and he was the puppet master, pulling our strings. We just allowed it to happen for all these years. The thought sickens me.
“Well, we sure do family therapy with the best of them,” I try to joke.
“Rhea, Rhett,” Kiernan pipes up. “I can’t speak for your sons, but I can tell you that I appreciate your honesty. These last few months, well last several months, have been trying. The most trying of my life actually. But I would go through everything, everything,” she emphasizes even though they don’t know about the incident on Halloween, “again to be with this man. I love him. He is my Calvin or my Lisa, or maybe even my Kim. Those feelings are real. I can’t picture my life without him, and I don’t want to. I’m sorry you two didn’t have the choice to love who you wanted to, but it would be great if you gave us the chance to do what you couldn’t. There are a lot of things to work out. I can understand that. But if we can leave Florida in a better place with our families, that would be a good start. Right?”
There is a silence between everyone for a moment. We’re all mulling over the information Rhett and Rhea revealed. This is so much more than anything I ever suspected. I have eighteen half-siblings for one. Two, my parents never were never in love with each other. They had mutual love and respect for a time, I guess. Three, my mom is sober. Four, Rhett lied to keep her away from me. Five, my parents are getting divorced and they’re broke. I’m losing track of all the things that just happened.
“My head is spinning,” I finally say and rake my hands through my hair.
“Mine too,” Bo agrees as he rubs his temples.
“Ditto,” Brett adds.
“Mom, Dad,” I begin. “Kiernan is right. I do think I would like a relationship with you at some point. But not at the expense of my relationship with her. She is my number one. She is my reason. You need to decide, Dad, if that works for you. John, Monica, I’m so glad you are here. I’m happy to get to know you more.”
“Same, sweetie.” Monica smiles at me.
&nb
sp; “I think I need some time to digest this. I want to spend Kiernan’s free day at the beach and relax. We can discuss all of this when we get back home. Okay?”
Everyone nods, including all of my friends, who now know every intimate detail of our lives. Luckily, they aren’t the type of assholes who would sell our story to E! for a quick buck. They’re assholes, but they’re my assholes, and we love each other through all the shit.
“Let’s go, babe,. I grab Kiernan’s hand.
“A word before you go, darlin’?” Rhea asks.
Kiernan nods. She hugs John and Monica, turns to my brothers and hugs both of them. She smiles at Rhea. Blaire hooks her elbow and they stroll away in front of Bateman, Blake and Rhodes.
“Take this,” Rhea holds out the box.
“Mom,” I pause. “I’m not ready for this yet.”
“Yes, darlin’,” she smiles, “you most certainly are. She is remarkable and deserves this seven carat Harry Winston. Don’t let that one get away.”
I take the box. I open it and the brilliant diamond catches the light. Maybe I am ready. I want to see this on Kiernan’s finger sooner rather than later. I want to make her mine, officially and forever.
“Thank you. I’m glad to have you back.” I kiss my mom on the cheek. “Boys, Whittier.” I nod and walk off to meet my girlfriend. There’s a lot to process, but I feel like this is what we needed to move forward. There is no more hesitation.
Finally, our future, together, is brighter than the diamond ring in my pocket. Then I get another idea. These next few weeks are going to be full of grand gestures, before I cap them off with the perfect proposal. A smile spreads over my face. I grab my phone and text Troy.
“Bro, I need a new tat. You got time next month?”
“Anything for you, man. Finally finishing that shield?”
“Someday. I need something else first though, and I need it soon.”
“Sure thing. Stop in and we can get it done. Congrats on the big year by the way. I heard you declared. I’m gonna add you to my list of celebrity tats.”
Exception (Cambria University Series Book 1) Page 31
