Whatever.
Connor got out, cupping his ribs when they burned at his fast movement, and retrieved his duffle bag from the back seat. It had been thrown up on a mountain of equipment and now radiated the stench of seaweed. That wasn’t going to be avoided here; the ocean breeze was already imparting a salty greeting. It was good, though. It was one part of home that he liked. When he was younger, his dad would bring him to work when there was no babysitter free, so Connor had spent a lot of his childhood in the water. Summers had been surfing, kayaking, going out with fishermen’s sons on boats, and as Connor got older, wealthy tourists’ kids on their yachts. It hadn’t all been bad… Connor dragged his gaze from the distant ocean to the front door. Longing curdled to apprehension. None of the good had ever been in this house.
The front door opened and his mom stepped out onto the porch. She was in her fifties now, but she looked young with her wide grey eyes and hair that shone black with no hint of greying. She wore a cardigan and cupped her elbows as if she were chilled. From behind her came a hulking man in excellent shape. He placed both hands on her shoulders in what Connor guessed was a reassuring gesture. That was Edith’s new husband, Trevor.
Connor hadn’t gone to the wedding, even though they’d bought him bus tickets, and Trevor had said in a phone call he couldn’t wait to meet him. Connor hadn’t been against the remarriage by any means. Not even when he discovered that Trevor had two sons, one a year older than Connor and one a year younger. What pissed him off was that they all moved into the house together.
There was to be no boarding school a thousand miles away for his mom’s new children.
Connor skipped the wedding. He used the travelling expenses to buy vodka, tried to get drunk, and before they’d been married even a day, his mom had gotten calls from the principal about Connor’s behaviour. The whole situation was made worse because Connor couldn’t even get drunk in the end, no matter how much he binged.
To this day, Connor didn’t know if he’d skipped the wedding because he was angry or because he knew he’d ruin her day by showing up.
Trevor was bigger in person.
Connor placed the duffle strap onto his shoulder and started toward them. There was no point in dawdling around in the rain, was there? His dad wasted no time putting the Jeep into gear and taking off down the muddy road. Connor climbed the stairs, examining his mom’s fretting expression, thinking that maybe she was grabbing her elbows in anxiety and not coldness. She didn’t meet his eyes.
“Connor,” she finally spoke, her voice packed with trepidation. Trevor gave her shoulders a squeeze.
“I’m Trevor,” her new husband greeted. He guided her gently to the side so that he was the one facing Connor and then offered out his hand. Connor worried as he took that large, calloused hand that his was about to be crushed. Trevor didn’t grip him hard. A gentle smile accompanied one tiny squeeze, and then his hand was free. “My boys—Nick and Laurence—are out getting some takeaway for dinner. They should be home in about an hour. Why don’t we head in? I’ll show you to your room.”
Connor followed them in, frowning but trying not to be too bitter. “I was here a few months a year. I remember where I slept.” Not “my” room. Where he slept. Did his mom catch on? He didn’t know. She was busy fussing with her elbows again. It was warm inside, and there was no excuse for it this time. It was nerves.
“Ah.” Trevor’s friendly smile became pained. “Well, actually—”
“One of your kids got it?” Connor didn’t need a second to guess. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t hurt. This was why he’d been lobbying to stay with his dad and not mom and her new family that had permission to actually live in the house with her. She’d always been a terrible mother; he wasn’t expecting it to change. “I figured. Did you build a shed for me? Is there a basement to lock me up in, maybe?”
Trevor’s smile faded. “We did up the old storage room upstairs. It was a quick job, so—”
“You mean the cupboard?” Connor looked at his mom. “Why didn’t you just tell Dad there was no space for me?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. Oh, Connor knew that look. He knew she’d tried that already, but while she would have objected and fought, his dad would have answered with a resounding, unyielding no. There was no changing his no into anything else. Never was.
“There wasn’t anything else we could arrange on short notice,” Edith said, her voice high-pitched and unhappy. “Trevor worked all night to make it liveable, so you can at least be thankful for the effort that went into trying to make you comfortable.”
“Right,” Connor said. “Thanks, Trevor, but I’m not sleeping inside a room the size of a coffin.” He strode past them into the living room. “I’ll just take the couch.”
“You can’t take up the living room.” His mom followed him closely. “We’ve prepared a room; you can use that. Enough with this attitude. You haven’t even been in the house two minutes.”
Connor flopped down onto the couch and sighed. “You can have the cupboard, Mom. I’ll sleep in the bed with Trevor.”
His mom’s face went red. He knew the casual remark enraged her.
Before she could explode, Trevor put his hands on her shoulders. “I can talk to the boys. I know they’ll object, but Laurence can stay in Nick’s room until we sort out another arrangement. That way, you can have your old room back.”
“No,” his mom objected. “It’s not fair that they have to lose out because of Connor’s—his—behaviour.” She saidbehaviourlike it was a dirty word.
“Suppose you planned on me never coming here again, didn’t you?” Connor asked. “Didn’t think not having that extra room would ever be a problem.”
“That isn’t—”
“You didn’t even worry about me spending Christmas alone at the dorm, so this is news to nobody.”
Trevor’s brows pinched tight together. His mom was pissed.
“You told us you weren’t coming home for Christmas on Christmas day!” she shouted.
Connor didn’t shout back. His anger had never been a loud thing; it was something that seethed and boiled under his skin. It didn’t explode out of him unless it had the potential to ruin his life, then he lost his temper and got himself accused of hate crimes. Apparently. “You didn’t send me any money to get the bus, didn’t ask me did I have a way of getting down—but again, that was the point of sending me so far away, wasn’t it? Driving to see me would never be an option.”
