AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, well. Like you said, I’m getting soft.”
“Definitely. On that topic, remind me that I owe Sara a million beers for making you that much more tolerable since you’ve been together.”
“Yeah, I’ll remind you in nine months, hopefully.”
I chewed both lips back, making probably the stupidest face in the world as I tried not to let anything slip. I’d kept Sara’s secret for all of eight minutes but it felt like a tornado pummeling inside me.
The second they were gone, I had to let it out.
“Julian’s going to be a dad,” I blurted, my hands thrust in my hair. I broke into a huge grin as Aly gasped.
“Oh my God. Your mom’s going to freak out!”
I laughed because she was completely right about that.
“Holy shit,” I murmured to myself as I floated over to a chair. Aly tried to sit in the one next to me but I caught her by the hips and pulled her onto my lap, sitting her sideways so I could see her face. I didn’t even care that she was laughing at me. I needed to hold her while I processed this. It was honestly bigger news to me than when Julian bought the Empires. Way bigger. “Man. He needed this,” I finally said, grinning progressively wider as I nodded to myself. “He really did. He’s been waiting to be a dad for a long time.”
“Seriously?” Aly giggled. “I mean I remember him always being good with kids, but I also remember him saying that he was ‘a hundred percent never having children.’”
I smirked at her completely accurate memory. “Yeah, well. I think he changed his mind after our dad died.”
Aly’s face fell.
“Oh.” She took my hand in both of hers, quiet for a second. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Yeah,” I said, frowning as I remembered what Julian was like after my dad died. What my whole family was like. I was so lost in the memory that I didn’t register Aly tipping my face to hers till I was looking in her big eyes. “What?” I murmured.
“I feel bad,” she said straightaway.
“For what?”
“For not being there when your dad died. For not knowing your grandpa died right after.”
I winced when she mentioned Grandpa. He had cancer so we were all prepared for his death. The one we weren’t expecting was Dad. From what we knew, he was perfectly healthy. If anything, he was just stressed about his siblings fighting over Grandpa’s will. It was during this time – all these nights that our family spent in hospice with Grandpa – that Dad would pull me aside and talk about Aly’s father.
“This is why I’m grateful for Charlie Stanton,” he’d say. “He’s visited Grandpa more than your aunts and uncles have. He sends flowers. He’s been here for me the way my real brothers and sisters haven’t been, and that’s why you, me – all the Hoults will treat him like blood. Always. No matter what.”
It was conflicting to hear. In my heart, I knew something was off about Aly’s dad, but at the same time, it was hard to defy my father. He was the smartest man I knew, in terms of business, love and family. The love he had for my mother was the goal I’d set for my own life.
Unless I found someone I wanted to love the way Dad loved Mom, then I hadn’t found anyone yet.
“Honestly, I think I learned what family was from yours more than mine,” Aly murmured, gazing down at our entwined fingers. “In some ways, I can’t blame my dad for idolizing your family so much. You guys were perfect.”
“Until we weren’t.”
Aly paused and looked up at me just in time to catch the grimace on my face.
“I know something happened after your dad passed… but I don’t know what it was, and I feel horrible asking.”
I shook my head. “Don’t. We weren’t exactly open about it. It was a fucked up time. It wasn’t the way Mom wanted people to see us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dad died after a fight with Julian,” I said, my heart beating fast as the words came out. I forced myself to peer up at the look of pure shock on Aly’s face. “Nobody knows about this. Most people think Julian went away because he was depressed. They definitely didn’t think it was because Mom blamed him for Dad’s death.”
“I remember my mom mentioning that Julian took a job overseas at one point,” Aly said, her gaze drifting off as she dug through her own memories. “I remember her saying how smart he was. For getting a change of scenery to help get over things. She said she’d always wanted to go to Sweden. That’s where he went, right?”
“Yeah. Everyone spins everything we do into something cool or glamorous,” I laughed, though it was more annoying than funny. “But the truth was that for a good five years after Dad died, we were barely a family anymore. None of us were talking for awhile. Not to Julian at least.”
