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“Then I’ll go ask your mother,” he replies, and I crush my eyes shut.
“Okay, fine. Make it a quick favor.” I stand up and walk toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to ask what it is?”
“Something stupid. Something reckless. Or something selfish. I’m guessing one of those three?” He grips my shoulder and whips me around. I’m the same height at him, twice as broad.
“I’m getting kind of tired of your attitude, son. Show your father some respect.”
“Oh, I would. If I had a father. I would.” I stare him down, watching the twitch in his sharp jaw.
“Xan,” Del called me and I stepped around Jason feeling pretty good about myself and that I’m no longer the little boy he can use as a whipping post. I’m not afraid of him anymore and he knows it.
I lean over the bar to meet Del. “Maybe you shouldn’t?” She whispers.
“Shouldn’t what?”
“Help him anymore. I don’t like it, Xan. You can’t be getting into trouble anymore.”
Millie.
Shit.
I reach to my back pocket for my phone, but it’s gone. I spin to Jason. He’s gone too.
“Mom,” Del says. I slam my hand down on the bar and curse, startling a table of older women watching baseball.
“Delilah, call Briggs. Tell her something came up.” I don’t wait for her to answer and I’m smashing through the front door.
The black car is gone so I wrench open the door and head for my mother’s house.
By the time I screech up to the drive, Jason’s standing outside in a staring contest with Zeke. Thank God he’s home.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Zeke hollers at Jason and I join him on the step. Zeke speaks to me without taking his gaze off Jason. “Tabby is in there with Mom. She saw him.”
“Goddammit.” I spin and head in to do damage control. Tabby isn’t as well versed in this as we are. Usually it’s Jet and Pris. Jet keeps him back. Pris distracts Mom. Tabby hides. Zeke disappears. Del plots. I clean it all up.
I hear Mom inside hurling insults at her own daughter. “You are all ungrateful heathens. Satan has you all. Hell has you all. Move you little bitch.”
I hear the crack of skin on skin and take the stairs three at a time. Tabby is holding her cheek and Mom’s eyes flare with fire she only has for Jason. I take her by the shoulders and push her back into her room, kicking the door closed in Tabby’s face.
“Mom,” I say shaking her and the same hate she had for Tab is directed at me. She never wanted us, but Jason didn’t believe in birth control. The Lord was in charge and it was Satan’s work to stand in the way. Mom only wanted him. She was obsessed with him. Devoted to him in a way that terrifies me as an adult. He had that way with women. When they loved him, it was all consuming.
Mom raised her hand to me but I’m faster. Stronger.
“Stop,” I say firmly as she lashes out again. “Mom, stop. He’s not staying. He never stays. Stop. Just fucking stop.”
I roar at her and she freezes still. Exhaustion claws at me and I want to let her go. To let her go to him and be done with it. With her. With everything.
But her going to him doesn’t end well for us. He brings out the worst in her. I’d rather have her stoic and hating me than what she becomes when he’s here.
All I have to do is get Tab through school. Send her to a fancy university on the East Coast and then I can let this die. She can let him destroy her all over again. Once Tabby is out.
Heavy boots clomp on the stairs and Zeke pokes his head in the door. “He’s gone.”
“How did you get him to leave?” I ask as Mom begins to wail, still clutched in my arms.
“I gave him my bank deposit from the shop.”
