Page 6 of Silver Player

This is one of my checks against him. He makes me feel inferior, as if I’m not good enough for him. Not pretty enough, bouncy enough, peppy enough.

“I don’t want to give Billy credit where he doesn’t deserve it, honey, but it’s not like he knew he had a child until today.” Damn Theresa for keeping this a secret so long and letting me be the one to unmask the mystery. Sadie had a right to know and a lot sooner than this week, as well as under better circumstances.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need him.” Sadie rolls to her side, placing her back to me. Unfortunately, there might be nothing further from the truth.

4

Specimens

[Billy]

“Want to talk about it?” Clyde’s voice interrupts my thoughts. He lowers himself to the chair opposite my desk while I stare at the computer screen before me. I’d like to tell Clyde I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I do, and so does he.

“So you heard all that?” I nod in the direction of the door.

“You want me to pretend I heard nothing? I can do that.”

I close my eyes and scrub two hands over my face. “I just…I don’t need my family to know anything yet.” That’s the last thing I need.

Do you know how hard it is to be the third son? The fuckup? Giant went into the military, was medically discharged with honor, and returned home a hero. James worked search and rescue for almost twenty years, saving lives daily. Charlie, my younger brother, serves as the town’s mayor. Me, I just like to party. Good times all around and drinks for everyone. I won’t even discuss my sister, Mati, who I love most, but she’s the princess as the only girl and baby of the family.

My dad thought I needed the military, and then he called me a mama’s boy, as Mama stood against the suggestion. The family business of brewing beer wasn’t any more of an attractive offer than the military because it involved working under a man I admired and disappointed. My grandfather Pap was the owner in name only back then. My father was the man in charge and a slave driver as I worked in the brewing facility throughout my teens. But I didn’t want to work directly under George Harrington Jr. even if beer drinking is one of my favorite pastimes. When it was decision time—military, family business, or college—I chose college even though I wasn’t very studious and nearly flunked out. I quit instead.

Forget that I run a successful business on my own. Forget that Rachel left me through no fault of mine.

Fathering a child out of wedlock and keeping her a secret for sixteen years—forget the fact I didn’t know she existed—will be icing on the proverbial Billy is a fucktard cake.

“I don’t really know what to say,” I tell Clyde, feeling his eyes on me.

“Whatcha doing?” Clyde nods at the computer screen, but he can see a good selection of the listings. I tilt the screen in his direction. “Paternity tests?” His eyes squint. “Do they sell those in the pregnancy test aisle?”

He’s trying to be funny, but I don’t find any humor in this issue.

“She can’t be mine,” I state.

“Yet you’re googling paternity tests.” Clyde raises one bushy eyebrow at me.

“I don’t know what to do.” My first thought was to deny her existence. She can’t be my kid, like I said. But this growing uncertainty in my chest, like the root of a tree spreading, makes me wonder. What if.

What would I do with her? What does she want with me? Where is Trixie? Why didn’t she tell me?

The last question is the one I’ve been asking myself for the past couple of hours.

“You need an attorney. You have some rights here.”

I blink back at Clyde.

“I don’t know what to do with a kid,” I stammer, and the tree root sensation tightens within me as if clawing at my internal organs, constricting my airway, and squeezing at my heart. I rub at my upper chest as I did earlier in the day when that blasted bookstore owner stood before my desk.

Damn, Roxie is hot when she’s pissed.

Which I should not be thinking, considering everything else going on.

“I don’t think any father knows what to do before he becomes a father. But dads have rights, Billy. You need to know what yours are in this case.” He pauses a moment. “I always thought I’d be a good dad.”

I glance up from the computer screen, which I’d been absently staring at, and watch as Clyde gnaws on the corner of his lip. A strange sense of loss fills Clyde’s eyes, and he quickly looks away from me. I’m not an emotional guy, but we’ve reached a sensitive subject for my bartender friend.

“Want to talk about it?” I tease, hoping to lessen the heaviness in the room. I fold my hands before me on the desk and pose myself as if I’m a knowledgeable psychiatrist.