AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My mother, and my best friend. He was the love of my life,” he slurred.
“Come again?”
“Earlier,” he said, struggling to raise his head to me. “You asked me if something happened to someone important to me. My mother died, and the only man I’ll ever love left me because of it.”
The second half of his confession didn’t make any sense. Probably the gin talking. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t my problem. “Maybe there’s someone you can call—”
“We killed her, and my father doesn’t even know it.”
Don’t do it. Don’t fucking care, Leland.
“He loved her,” he went on belligerently, “and we took her away from him—”
“So why don’t you go home and tell him all of this? I’m sure you two can work it out, be there for each other.” Even now I couldn’t take hearing about how much Franky loved her. I’d need a hard fucking and a bottle of Jameson to knock me unconscious tonight.
He huffed, tossing back the imaginary contents of his glass, scowling at its emptiness before shoving it aside. “Are you always this blunt and abrasive?”
“Yep.”
“Maybe that’s what I need. I have no one else, and those that are paid to care…” He trailed off pensively. “They’ll just tell me what I want to hear. I could never tell them the truth anyway.”
I barely caught that last part.
“Look, I’m sure you didn’t kill her. Either way, I’m not the person you should be tell—”
“Isn’t that part of your job description? To listen to me?” He swayed before catching himself. “I fell in love with my stepbrother, and that secret killed our mother,” he confessed in a hushed voice.
“What?” I gasped. That couldn’t be right. “Does your father know?”
“No. He could never. We’ve broken his heart enough. He lov—”
“Yeah, I know. He loved her.” I sighed. “Look, I’ll get you an Uber home.” I strode to the opposite side of the bar where I had my cell phone charging, glancing back in time to see Cole steady himself again. He’d almost fallen off his stool this time. In his state, he was liable to be mugged and dumped at the curb rather than driven all the way home.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, the events of the day weighing on me. I could ride in the Uber with him, then have it take me home, but the chance of running into Franky was too great, even at this late hour.
I cursed this fucking night, my life, and the whole Kincaid clan. I’d worked non-stop for two years to be done with all things Franky. Turned myself inside out until I wasn’t even recognizable to myself. I’d built so many walls around me that not even sunlight could get in, only to find myself faced with our shared past again.
“I have no one else.”
Cole’s saddened voice echoed through my head again. He didn’t have me either. We were strangers, even if we sort of weren’t, and if he knew the truth about me and his father, the truth that would surely blow the lid off the false image he had about his family, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me.
But Selene had been kind to me once. She’d mothered me, filled my cup when all the while I’d been sleeping with her husband. I owed it to her to make sure her son made it through the night unharmed. I could do that, but that would be it.
“Up you go,” I said, after cutting the lights off and setting the alarm.
Outside, I nearly buckled under Cole’s dead weight as I lowered him into our waiting Uber, and again thirty minutes later when having to help him out of it.
My elevator picked the perfect night to be on the fritz, and by the time I got Cole up the four flights and into my apartment, I was in need of a lung transplant.
I let him fall face down onto my bed while I wheezed obnoxiously, folding over and gripping my knees.
Massaging my lower back, I considered what to do next. My studio apartment consisted of one large room with an attached kitchenette. I’d have to knock down a few walls to expand my bathroom if Cole needed to use it.
Cole’s phone rang from an inside pocket, and I backed away, instincts telling me it was Franky. I could almost feel him in the room now.
The backs of my knees met my futon, and I collapsed onto it as the ringing stopped and then picked up again. He was probably worried. Well, too fucking bad. I’d done my good deed for the night. I wasn’t looking for extra credit.
Next came a ping, probably a text or voicemail notification. I ignored it, kept ignoring it, and also ignored the following six times it rang.
