Chapter 8

Kat . . .

Charging through the school, my heels dug into the floors, their clacking echoing down the hallway as I made my way to the main office. This was the fourth time this year I’d been summoned to Jared’s school either to take him home or to meet with the principal about his behavior.

Everything was fine before last summer. Or somewhat fine. I should never have let Thomas take him. Jared had been off the rails ever since, and I knew why, but he refused to let me help, and I was at my wits’ end. Thank goodness that bastard was in jail now.

But even so, the damage was done, and my son was different. He was more like his father than ever now.

I barged through the heavy wooden door and entered the office, stopping and immediately scanning for Jared.

Seeing him and another boy sitting in the chairs along the wall, I couldn’t help but lash out.

“Bullying?” I burst out. “I’m absolutely disgusted. What were you thinking?”

Jared stared ahead, looking bored and ignoring me.

“It wasn’t bullying,” someone grumbled, and I looked to the kid a couple of chairs down from him. “Josh Rutgers is such a baby.”

I’d never seen the kid before, but I gathered he and Jared were in this together.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

He smiled, holding out a hand. “Madoc Caruthers. You’re my brother’s mother, huh?”

Brother’s mother. Caruthers. “What?”

I took in the blond hair, the demanding blue eyes, the expensive shoes and brown leather jacket, the stylish roll to his jeans . . . Oh, Christ.

“Like, how old are you?” he asked, giving me a nice, long once-over that was completely inappropriate. “Were you ten when you had Jared?”

“Caruthers,” I repeated, ignoring his flirting as I walked over to the boys. “Is your father Jase Caruthers?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“No,” I snapped and turned away, looking to Jared. “Get up.”

He rolled his eyes and stood up, following me up to the receptionist’s counter.

Shit. They were friends. How did I not know that?

Mrs. Bauer, the principal’s assistant, saw us and stopped what she was doing to approach. “The principal had to leave for a meeting,” she informed me. “But Jared’s suspended for three days. He’s responsible for staying caught up on his work while he’s gone. You need to sign this.”

She pulled out a paper and pushed it in front of me with a pen.

I picked up the pen and started scanning the document. “What happened exactly?”

“A guy was messing with Tatum Brandt,” Madoc answered, coming up to the counter to stand next to us. “So Jared and I sent him on his way.”

“The boy was merely asking her to the school carnival,” Mrs. Bauer clarified. “And these two proceeded to steal his clothes while he was in the shower and hang them on Miss Brandt’s locker with a very vulgar message written on the underpants.”

She said the last part in a horrified whisper, and I heard Madoc snort next to us, doubling over and laughing as I felt Jared smile next to me.

I turned to him. “Why would you do that to Tate?”

“Because he likes her,” Madoc interjected.

“Shut. Up,” Jared growled.

Anger filled my chest, and I swallowed it down, because I knew it was exactly what Jared wanted. What was the matter with him? He lived for confrontation these days, and our arguments were a constant occurrence. I had no idea what to do with him.

The bottle of rum I had at home flashed in my mind, and I swallowed again, the dryness in my mouth like sand. I signed the paper quickly without even reading it.

I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of here.

“Madoc,” a deep male voice called.

I froze. No, no, no . . .

Madoc turned around at my side. “Hey,” he replied in a casual tone. “I swear I didn’t do it.”

The pen shook in my hand, and I could feel the heat of his eyes on my back.

I hadn’t seen him in so long.

“Oh, of course not,” the man responded. “It’s never your fault.”

His voice was getting closer, and I closed my eyes for a moment, not wanting to turn around, but I knew there was no way I’d get out of here without him seeing.

In the five years since we’d ended things, a lot had changed.

But not enough. The anger still festered within me, time having healed nothing.

“Nope, never,” Madoc responded. “Everyone should have a kid like me.” And then he turned back around, winking at the middle-aged receptionist across the counter.

She scowled, tsking at him, and pushed another paper—I assumed for Jase to sign—forward. Madoc must be suspended, too.

“Just take them home,” she instructed. “Be back on Friday.”

I saw Jase’s black suit out of the corner of my eye as he stepped up to the counter, Madoc between us. He pulled the paper closer, as if reading it, but then I felt his eyes fall on me.

Damn it. I locked my jaw and steeled my eyes, so he wouldn’t see how nervous I was as I glanced over at him.

His eyes narrowed, and he seemed to stop breathing before quickly turning away, picking up the pen to sign the paper.

Yeah, I wasn’t expecting this either, College Boy.

We’d done a great job of avoiding each other the past few years. I knew which pubs to stay out of, and he knew to avoid High Street, since that was where I worked.

And even though I was no longer dirt poor and struggling, I made sure not to frequent fancy restaurants or the country club, where I might see him. And since Jase led such a blessed life that he didn’t ever have to step foot in a grocery store, pharmacy, or McDonald’s, we hadn’t crossed paths.

Except for once on the street while watching the Fourth of July parade, and that was two years ago.

He signed the paper and handed it over to Mrs. Bauer, and then I saw him look our way again.

“Jared?” he said, peering around me, surprised.

My son turned his head to look at Madoc’s father, and I glanced between them. Jared didn’t remember him, did he? We were careful.

Unless Jared had run into him at Madoc’s house, since they were friends.

Jase regarded him, though, as if he was seeing him for the first time.

“Yeah?” Jared asked, sounding annoyed.

But Jase simply turned away. “You’re both getting suspended together.” He handed Mrs. Bauer the pen, talking to Madoc. “How come I’ve never met your friend before?”

“Probably because he’s at our house more than you are,” his son shot back.

I smiled, taking too much pleasure in that comeback. Madoc might not be giving Jase the hell Jared gave me, but it was something, and I liked knowing someone in his life was holding him accountable.

A cell phone rang, and Jase pulled his out of his breast pocket, checking the screen. Tapping a button, he slipped it back into his pocket. “May I please have my stepdaughter, Fallon Pierce, as well?” he asked Mrs. Bauer. “Might as well pick her up while I’m here and save Addie the trip.”

The receptionist gave him a look, her mouth twisting in annoyance. “Of course,” she finally grumbled.

Heat covered my skin, and I wasn’t sure if it was Jase or the mention of a stepdaughter. I knew he’d remarried quickly after his divorce from Madoc’s mother years ago.

Very quickly, in fact.

Yeah, men like him didn’t know how to be without wives to handle their houses and kids and schedule the fucking gardeners and caterers. All so they can have everything and sacrifice nothing.

But it wasn’t me. He had his dirty fun with the trailer park girl. He couldn’t marry her.

I ground my teeth together and swung my purse over my shoulder.

“I’m going to go wait in the car,” I heard Madoc say as he grabbed his father’s keys off the counter.

“Yeah, me, too.” Jared plucked my set out of my purse.

But I shot out my hand, snatching them back. “Absolutely not,” I snapped. “You don’t move a muscle without my say-so. You got that? And you will apologize to Tate as soon as she gets home from school.”

“I’m not doing shit,” he bit back and turned around. “I’ll be in the parking lot.”

“Jared!”

But all I could do was watch as both boys walked out of the office, leaving Jase and me alone.

“Genetics is amazing, isn’t it?” Jase commented at my side. “Jared hasn’t seen his father since he was a baby, and yet there’s so much of the man in him.”

I darted my eyes to Jase, my nostrils probably flaring. “You don’t know Jared or anything he’s been through, so don’t act like you do.”

Spinning around, I walked out of the office, trying to get far away from him.

But he was on my heels instantly. “Well, I’m wondering if you even know him.”

I clutched my purse strap, fisting my hand around it to keep it from shaking.

“And what do you mean ‘what he’s been through’?” he asked. “He hasn’t seen his father, has he?”

I charged down the hallway, his familiar scent of sandalwood, angelica, and something else I couldn’t place washing over me like an ice-cold martini. I licked my dry lips.

“Kat?” he pressed when I didn’t answer. “Please tell me you weren’t stupid enough to let that man near him.”

I refused to answer. Jase was out of my life, and I wasn’t sure why he felt the need to act concerned. He might not be a criminal like Thomas, but they were both neglectful fathers. He had no right to judge me.

A young woman, about Jared and Madoc’s age, came down the stairs, catching us right before we walked out the door.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked, clutching her backpack straps at her shoulders. Her eyes moved from Jase to me, and then back to Jase.

“I needed to pick up Madoc, so I thought I’d grab you, too,” he answered.

Ah, the stepdaughter.

Her green eyes turned annoyed behind her glasses. “Awesome,” she bit out. “Moron screws up, and I have to go home, too.”

Jase sighed and pushed open the door for her. “Just get in the car.”

She strolled outside and he looked to me, gesturing with his arm. I walked through the door and stopped at the top of the steps, watching the kids in the parking lot. Jared’s face was buried in his phone, while Madoc made faces like a five-year-old at his stepsister.

“They seem to get along well,” I mused, not caring I sounded sarcastic. “I heard you remarried a couple of years ago. Congratulations.”

He let out a long breath, descending the stairs with me. “Life moves on, I guess. How about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

I stared at him, with his face like stone and his voice almost bored like he was asking me if I’d tried the new restaurant on High Street yet.

He almost looked calm.

But then I noticed that he wasn’t breathing again.

I tilted the corner of my mouth up, letting out a small smile. “Like you said, life moves on.”

•   •   •

I held my pen in my hand, sitting curled up in the dark living room in the chair. Music played from the stereo, and I covered my legs with a blanket, staring at the words on the paper, the beautiful oblivion of the rum heating my veins and clouding my brain.

He was never mine. I knew that much all those years ago, so why the hell did I let him in? My chest ached with a sob I wouldn’t let out, my eyes burning with tears. I swallowed the lump in my throat and picked up my drink, forcing it all down my throat.

I never learned how to be someone. Who was I without him?

His life had moved forward in our time apart. His father had passed away last year, and Jase now ran one of the most successful law firms in the country. Many mornings I woke up faced with him in my newspaper and, as always, he won everything he went after. Nothing had ever distracted him, least of all losing me.

I, on the other hand, remained still. I’d rarely dated, and I hadn’t moved forward in a long time. My heart was still broken.

And that was proven after seeing him this afternoon and completely falling apart as soon I’d gotten home. Jared charged for his room, slamming the door, and I made for the freezer, pulling out what was always in there, and chasing the promise of escape. I could forget him every night.

Or remember him. If I drank enough.

I clutched the diary in my hand, holding it against my knees, and dug my pen into the paper.

“I wish I’d never met him.”

“Who?” a voice asked. “My father?”

I popped my head up and saw Jared leaning against the door frame between the living room and the foyer, staring at me with his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, your life would’ve been better if you’d never met him and I’d never been born, wouldn’t it?”

I glanced back down at the words I’d written. Had I said them out loud?

Looking back up, I shook my head. “That’s not what I was talking about.” I closed the diary, leaving the pen inside when I set it down on the end table.

He continued to watch me, and I heard rain begin to fall against the window as the clock chimed on the mantel. What time was it?

Taking a quick look at the clock, I saw it was after eight. I hadn’t made dinner, and he hadn’t eaten anything, having been up in his room since one this afternoon.

I combed my hand through my hair, my stomach churning at how disgusting and pathetic I was.

My voice was barely audible. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He strolled over to my side and gazed out the window, through the shimmer of rain. The shadows of the leaves outside fluttered across his face, and he seemed much older than his fifteen years.

Jared hadn’t had a hard life the way his father or I did. He never wanted for much, and there was always food in the refrigerator and decent clothes on his back. And there were times when I was a good mom. He wasn’t always alone.

Unfortunately, though, Jared learned at a very young age that while he could’ve had it worse, he also could’ve had it a lot better. Tate’s dad was a single father, after all. How come he could be there for his kid, and I couldn’t?

His father abandoned him and abused him, and his mother was so busy making up for her lost youth that she neglected him.

His eyes darkened as he stared out the window and narrowed his brow. All I could feel was the distance between us. I couldn’t remember the last time he let me hug him.

“You should go over there,” I said quietly.

“Where?”

“Tate’s.”

That was what he was seeing when he stared out the window. Her house sat right next to ours, and she was the only thing that ever made him happy.

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he ground out. “Get me out of your hair?”

“What?” I leaned up, putting my feet on the ground and staring at him. “Jared, no—”

“Tate can screw off and go to hell,” he growled, cutting me off. “I hate her.”

I shot out of my chair, but I was too fast. My mind fogged over, and my balance teetered suddenly. I grabbed onto the back of the chair for support.

“Jared, what’s the matter? What happened?” I pressed. “You need your friends.”

But he just glared ahead. “Not her. She’s just like everyone else. Doesn’t give a shit about anyone but herself, stupid fucking cow.”

And the he spun around and headed out of the room.

“Jared!” I yelled, chasing after him, but my knees wobbled, and I felt like I was falling. “If this is your friend Madoc’s influence,” I choked out, trying to swallow the acid creeping up my throat, “I don’t want you hanging around him anymore!”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” he laughed and opened the front door. “Why don’t you fucking wake up for a change, huh? He’s not the bad influence. I am.”

He stepped onto the porch, and I grabbed his arm, pulling him back around.

“Don’t touch me!” he bellowed, his eyes dark and his breathing heavy. He yanked his arm away, and I stood there, my blanket falling off my arm and my work clothes wrinkled.

Fear wracked through me, and I was frozen. I couldn’t speak.

His eyebrows dug in, and he looked like he was going to hit something. Or someone. For a moment, I almost let out a cry. It was like looking at Thomas all over again.

My stomach shook, and I just wanted to fold. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of my kid.

And it was my fault.

The times he’d been pushed off to his grandparents or friends and my never being there, the neglect, the way I never put him first . . . I’d never been his mother, because I never made the choice to. I grew up with him, not for him.

I could barely speak, my throat swelled with so much with pain. “I wish . . . ,” I whispered, letting my eyes fall. “I wish I was a better mom, Jared.”

He was silent for a moment and then spoke up, his voice low and calm. “And I wish you’d just go away.”

I shut my eyes, feeling the tears spill over as I heard his steps travel down the porch and disappear. When I opened my eyes, he was gone, and I couldn’t see him through the rain and darkness.

I let the blanket fall completely, and I turned around, my steps faltering as I walked back into the house.

What the hell have I done? Why had I given Jase so much power over my happiness? What if Jared ran off and left me, because it was nothing less than what I deserved?

A ringing pierced the silence, and I jerked my head to the left and right, trying to follow the sound.

My phone.

Jared.

I ran to my purse where it lay on the table by the stairs and pulled out my phone. But before I pressed Send, I caught sight of the number on the screen and my heart skipped a beat.

What?

He hadn’t called since . . .

He never called. Not since a few weeks after we ended things, but I never answered. Not the first time he called or the tenth time. After a while, he got the message. He let me go.

A spark of want flared in my veins. So long . . .

Slowly pressing Send, I rested my back against the wall and slid down, bringing the phone to my ears as I bent my knees and fell to the floor.

There was silence, but probably because I was supposed to say something, and I hadn’t yet.

I wouldn’t.

I heard a breath on the other end, and chills ran over my skin.

“I still think about you,” he said, his voice quiet and pained. “Every day. So many times every day.” And then he let out a breath. “It was harder than I let on, seeing you today, and I know I shouldn’t be calling, but I needed to hear your voice again. I’ve never stopped missing you.”

Tears filled my eyes, and everything in front of me blurred. “It didn’t stop you from marrying again.”

He was silent for a moment, and all I could feel was despair. I didn’t know if it was him, me, or both of us, but the tale had become too twisted to set right anymore. We knew that much.

“I’d hurt you so much,” he admitted. “I used you and tore you apart and made you unhappy, and . . . I thought if I stayed away you’d be better off. I thought if I married someone else, I’d forget you and what I did to you and Maddie and my son, and my fucking heart wouldn’t hurt so much. I should’ve come for you, but why would you want me anymore? You had to hate me, right? I could barely stand the sight of myself.”

I clenched my lips tightly to keep from crying out loud.

“That’s my greatest regret,” he went on, his voice cracking with sadness. “I regret cheating on my wife. I regret never being there for Madoc when I should be, but you . . .” He drifted off. “I wish I could go back to that day at the garage and see you again with your messy ponytail and your warm, beautiful eyes, with that grease stain on your neck that I kept wanting to touch . . . and I wish I would’ve left when you told me to leave.”

I hugged myself, pressing the phone to my ear and letting the tears fall as I listened.

“I wish I could’ve left you like that and never taken your life from you and never hurt you. Just left, because I’d be happy knowing you were going to be better off for it. That the fire in your eyes would never have died.”

My chin trembled, and my chest shook. A sob escaped, and I brought my hand to my mouth, covering it to muffle the noise.

“I wish I could do that,” he continued. “But that’s the fucking thing, you know? If I went back to that day, saw you in that thin white T-shirt, and your breathing so nervous, because you were afraid of me but still had the courage to fight back . . . No matter how much I’d want to, I’d do nothing differently.” His voice grew stronger. “Nothing. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I’d dive right back in, even knowing how badly everything would end, because you’re the only life I’ve ever had, and I couldn’t not have you.” His voice shook, thick with tears he wasn’t letting out. “I’d crash and burn a thousand times just to have you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and broke down, hanging up the phone and finally letting it all go.

I still loved him, and it was so difficult to figure out why, if we could be so good together, why were we so terrible together, too? How could something be so right and so toxic at the same time?

But as I sat in my dark house, the buzz of the alcohol making my limbs heavy, I realized that maybe I was my own worst enemy. And maybe Jase was his. We weren’t toxic together, because even apart we were miserable.

And we weren’t a mistake. Maybe it was everything keeping us apart that was a mistake.

Jase Caruthers couldn’t fix me, and I couldn’t fix him. Plain and simple.

We just weren’t right for each other yet.

Maybe in another life . . .

•   •   •

“Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Can it wait until we get to the track?” Jared asks, sounding stressed. And then he raises his eyes from James’s shoes, making sure they’re double knotted. “Are you riding with me?”

“No, she’s with me.” Madoc grins. “I’m making her drive.”

He and Kade pick up the cooler and plop it down on the porch, heading back in to gather the GoPros and camera bag.

“Dylan!” Jared bellows to her somewhere in the house. “You need to leave! Jax wants you to do more practice runs before you’re up!”

“Ugh,” she groans, walking in from the dining room. “I’ve been doing practice runs since I was twelve. I think I got it.”

Madoc tosses something to Kade, nearly hitting me in the face, and Tate, Fallon, and Juliet all rush back down the stairs, one of them kissing me on the forehead as they pass.

I close my eyes and ball my fists. “Can you just stop for a minute?” I bark. “I have something I need to show you.”

“Well, then, hurry,” Jared snaps, finishing James’s shoe.

“I found this book,” I tell him. “Or it was sent to me, I mean. I’m pretty sure it’s about Mom and Dad. It’s like their love story or something.”

“What?” Tate asks, scrunching up her face in confusion as she puts on her sunglasses and Fallon sprays sunscreen on Madoc’s and Kade’s necks as they walk by.

“Look.” I take out the hardcover and hand it to Jared, opening to the bookmarked page so that I can point to the names that are eerily close to my parents’. “Kat and Jase.”

Tate comes over to look at it, but Jared couldn’t look less interested. He hands the book back and pats his jeans, probably for his keys and wallet.

“And they have sons, Jared and Madoc,” I point out. “They live in a small town in Illinois, she had a baby with some asshole, he’s married, their sons are friends, and Jared is in love with the girl next door who he picks on every day at school.” I glance at Tate and then back to Jared. “Did you really do that?”

Jared just laughs to himself, pulling his phone off the charger in the nearby living room and sliding it into his back pocket. “Who would write a book about our parents? It doesn’t mean anything.”

Everyone gathers the rest of their things, pulls on shoes, and heads for the front door.

“Let’s go!” Jared yells.

I groan under my breath and grind my teeth. Damn it!

I have to spin around and head to the porch, calling after him as everyone drifts across the lawn. “Did you tell Mom that women were high-maintenance bitches that needed to be walked more than once a day?”

Everyone suddenly stops and Jared freezes. I hear a few gasps, and I think there’s a snort from Kade.

I see the muscles in Jared’s back tighten through his T-shirt, everyone is absolutely silent, and I’m tempted to smile.

Yeaaaaaah. I have your attention now, don’t I?

I’d read a few more chapters while I was at Jax’s, and things between Jared and our mom only got worse over the next year. He said some really interesting things as the arguments escalated, too.

Slowly, everyone turns around to face me, and Jared stares at me, looking stunned, while Tate gives him a horrified look.

“Jared, you didn’t,” she says.

But he can do nothing but rush to his own defense. “I was like sixteen!” he bursts out, breathing heavily. “Jesus Christ, I was probably drunk!”

He charges over and takes the book away from me, opening it to a random page and scanning.

I hold out my hand. “Give it back.”

“Like hell!” he barks.

“I can tell Tate what you called her behind her back when you were fifteen,” I say loudly. “Now give it back.”

He shoots his worried eyes over to Tate, who simply cocks her head to the side and puts her hands on her hips, looking a little pissed. He then glances at Dylan, who looks half-amused and half-embarrassed. Knowing the man Jared is now, it’s hard to believe he was ever cruel—or ended up winning Tate when he treated her like crap back then—but Dylan rolls with things better than anyone I know. It is kind of entertaining to realize your parents aren’t perfect. And hey, even better to have that pointed out in front of everyone.

He scowls and hands the book back. “Quinn,” he starts, trying to explain. “I was a huge asshole in high school, okay?”

“Yeah, no duh.”

And then Jared twists his head to the side and glares at Juliet. “Did you do this?”

She snorts, and I realize he’s thinking the same thing I was.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, playing with him. “I totally wrote it. You know you had it coming, right? All the years you guys spent disrespecting women”—she flashes a look at Madoc—“never dreaming that someday you’d have a daughter, a sister, and a niece, whom you adore. It was totally me. Payback is slow but sure. Mwahahahaha!”

Tate and Fallon laugh at her side, and Jared focuses back on me. “Quinn . . .”

But I just roll my eyes and shake my head, walking around him. “Forget it. It’s fine.”

Nothing has changed in how much I love my brothers, and I know he went through a lot growing up, but damn . . . what a little asshole!