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Fuck. No one could make a guy feel guilty and remorseful like his mama could. “No, ma’am,” I admitted.
“Then this is your problem to deal with.” She held her chin up in that way that told me nothing was going to change her mind. I felt as if I were basically dead to her now. “We cannot help you. If your father was here, he’d say the same thing.”
I swallowed, lost. But I whispered, “Okay,” because how the hell was I supposed to argue with my mother when I’d been the one to fuck up?
I started to turn away, only to pause, remembering one thing. “My checking account.”
Mom flushed bright pink, but quickly cleared her throat. “We were behind on bills. You were in jail. We thought we’d have time to pay it back before you got out.”
I stared at her, not sure what to think or feel about that. I’d been offering to help them for months, most of that money had even been saved expressly to help them, so I shouldn’t be mad they’d finally accepted it, even though I needed it now more than I’d ever needed it before. But it still felt like a theft to me. I’d worked for that money, hours of sweat and blisters and sore muscles, only for them to take it behind my back without even letting me know. It was almost as if they’d betrayed me.
But I lifted my hand and nodded, saying, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. After putting Dad out of work and losing you guys more than I could ever repay, it’s the least I can do.”
I just didn’t know what I was going to do with myself now.
Mom nodded briefly, not making eye contact. She started to shut the door, before pausing and saying, “Take care of yourself, Beckett.”
Then she shut me out of her life forever.
Darkness wrapped around me as the cold November air seeped straight into my lungs and froze my very soul.
My parents had forsaken me.
Chapter 17
BAILEY
“What the hell?” I shrieked, making a comatose-looking Beck jump out of his skin.
He swerved around to blink at me in a daze, and I had a feeling he’d completely forgotten I was there, standing on his parents’ dark porch with him.
“How could she just—your own mother! Oh my God. That sucked ass. I was just kidding about the meat cleaver to the heart bit, but that…” That had definitely been a meat cleaver of a blow straight to his heart.
He said nothing; he just stared at me until he turned away robotically and walked off the porch, down the front steps and moved stiffly toward his truck. But he stopped when he reached it, as if he’d forgotten how to lift his arm and open the door. He just stood there, hands at his sides, facing the damn driver’s side door. Pepper, the collie, even came up and sniffed his fingers before licking his knuckles and begging for attention, but he didn’t respond.
I had no idea what to do. I didn’t deal with emotional shit. But Beck’s zombie mode was freaking me out. I could only handle it for about two minutes before I whispered, “Beckett?”
He turned his head, and his head only, to look at me.
I swallowed, uncertain, before I asked, “What are you going to do now?”
He contemplated me ten seconds longer, looking straight into my eyes with that zoned-out dead stare before his shoulders crumpled and he shook, lowering his face into his trembling hands.
His chest heaved as he tried to console himself, but his agony just seemed to grow exponentially. When his knees gave out and he started to slump to the ground, I leapt forward to catch two handfuls of the front of his hoodie. “Whoa there. Hey.” I could barely keep him on his feet so I nudged him against the truck, propping him up so he could lean a
gainst it heavily.
“Why don’t I drive?” I offered lamely. He didn’t argue or agree, so I said aloud to myself, “Yes, Bailey. That’s a brilliant idea. Why don’t you drive?”
After manually taking Beck’s arm, I walked him around to the passenger’s side. I only had to open the door to get him to mechanically climb inside, thank goodness, because I had no idea how I was going to stuff him in there if he hadn’t been willing.
Then I hurried around to the driver’s side. I’d driven some of my brothers’ trucks before, but it always felt like I was sitting up in a tractor-trailer, steering a damn train when I did. Same deal in Beck’s truck, I had to adjust the seat way forward because there was no way my short legs could reach the pedals from where he’d set it.
Then I started the engine and glanced over at my rider. He looked drained and beaten and completely out of touch with reality.
“Put your seatbelt on,” I said quietly.
He did. So I geared the engine into drive and got us the hell off his parents’ property.
