Page 118 of Addiction

He looks away, shaking his head as if he’s disgusted with himself. “Why did it have to be now? Why is he here now?”

“Who? That Rodriguez guy?”

He closes his eyes. “You know him?”

“Doesn’t everyone? His face is on all sorts of ads when it comes to medical crap. The question is how do you know him? Was he a patient of yours or something?”

He runs his hands through his hair and it’s clear he’s still in distress. I don’t understand what is going on, but I can tell he is finding the situation hard. Taking his jaw in my hands, I make him look at me. “Listen. You can tell me anything, remember?”

“But this could change everything,” he whispers as a tear slides down his cheek. “You won’t see me as me anymore. You’ll see me through different eyes.”

I shake my head, letting him know he is wrong. “You are mine, Wade. I will never be able to look at you in any other way than what I already do. You’re mine.”

“He could change everything.”

“Then help me understand. How do you know Dr. Rodriguez?”

His eyes scan mine for a few seconds before he swallows and finally says, “He’s my father.”

A feeling I can’t work out covers my body, but his words haven’t changed anything. I don’t see him through different eyes like he thought I would, but it has opened me up to so many questions.

His father is Dr. Rodriguez, one of the most popular and powerful surgeons in America. How did I not know this? How did everyone not know this?

He pulls away from me, sitting on the ground and resting his back against the car as I stand looking at him.

“I’ve not seen him in years. The last time was the day of my brother’s funeral—the day I was forbidden to go. I was exiled. Treated like some criminal while my mother just stood there and watched.” He sniffs, brushing his tears away with the back of his hand. Wanting to be close, I sit beside him.

“I knew he hated me, but I never realized just how much until Jonny died. The hate I got from him then was worse than it had been before. And my brother was no longer there to fight my corner. Dad knew I was on my own, and he made it clear I was no longer his flesh and blood and far from welcome.” He shakes his head and looks at me through watery eyes. “I never got to say goodbye to my brother, Asher. He never let me say goodbye.”

Motherfucker.

I cup the nape of his neck and press my forehead against his, hating seeing him so distressed. How could he do that to him? What had Wade done that was so bad that he stopped him from saying goodbye?

Unexpected guilt suddenly hits. Wade hadn’t been allowed to go to his brother’s funeral yet there I’d been, drinking my life away and deliberately choosing not to go to Dad’s. I’ve taken so much for granted. It sickens me.

“Have you two not had any contact since then?”

“I stopped talking with him long before my brother died. Jonny had been the one to liaise between us if it were needed, but my dad washed his hands of me when I was a teen and made it clear I was no longer welcome in his household.”

“Why?”

He looks at me and murmurs, “Because I’m gay.”

My chest tightens, and I have to contain my anger. This conversation right here has somehow put everything into perspective. Here you have two people in very different situations for the same reason. Where I ran from my sexuality because I feared what people would think, Wade was open and proud about who he was and lost his family because of them.

“He cut you off because you’re gay. Why?”

“Because the wonderful Dr Rodriguez, who everyone in Minnesota and the US believes is a great man, surgeon and CEO of a top hospital is the biggest homophobe out there. He refuses to see patients if he knows they’re gay and I can’t prove anything, but I know a couple of his patients that died on his operating table were in a gay relationship or married.”

My eyes widen. The fuck?

“You think it was deliberate?”

“As I said, I can’t prove anything, and I know all sorts of things can happen when in surgery, but they went in for a routine surgery and died of unexpected cardiac arrests.”

“Jesus.”

“Dad is very clever. I knew what lengths he would go to get what he wanted. He knew how to humiliate people in front of others and make it look like a joke. He had everyone wrapped around his damn fucking finger, so even if I did have proof, he’d still come out smelling of fucking roses. No one can bring down Dr. Daddy Rodriguez.”