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Easton looked surprised. I had to focus anywhere but on his eyes. They reminded me too much of Gabriel’s, of the shit that kid had been through because of me. I could have taken care of him, at least financially. The house they’d lived in was all right, but my son deserved better than that.
I ran both hands through my hair, pulling on the ends. Damn it, I needed to toughen back up. Where was the steel exterior I’d formed that everything bounced off? I felt it all: the guilt. The anger. The regret. The emptiness. The wonder.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Exactly what I have been doing. I have no rights to him anymore, and I have nothing to give him.” I pushed my glass away in disgust, and then, on second thought, I reached for it and drained the contents.
“I disagree. It isn’t the stuff that money can buy that he needs from you.”
I glared at him. “I could teach him how to hack and steal from his family. Or how about this? I could show him how to piss away everything. How to treat the people he cares about like garbage. You want me to give him a lesson on how he should act toward Holly?” Bitterness was all I had left.
“I meant baseball, or yeah, you could teach him whatever it is you know about computers. The legal stuff.”
“Baseball? Why the hell would I show him anything about that bitch? So she can break his heart, the way she did mine?” I pounded my fist on the table. How dare he even suggest such a thing? That damn game was everywhere I turned, and I was sick of it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I gaped at him. “What do you have to be sorry for? I fucked you over, remember?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. I see it now, the change from the moment they said you’d never play again. It was so subtle, Drew. I thought you were handling it like a champ. Far better than I would have. I know it doesn’t change anything, but if I could trade places with you, I would in a heartbeat. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have the thing and the person you love most stolen from you in a split second.”
“You know what it’s like to have what you love stolen. I did it. I took it from you.”
Easton’s expression turned sympathetic, and I hated the pity I saw there. “Carter Energy was important to me, but nothing compared to what baseball was to you. I can start over if I want. Or help you fix SPE. I have Mulaney. The only thing you took from me that really hit where it hurt was my brother, but he’d been slipping away for a long time. It was so gradual; I didn’t realize how far gone you were. I should have tried harder with you.”
“Why was it your responsibility to help me?”
“Isn’t that why you took the money? Because no one was paying any attention to you?”
Hearing that from Easton’s lips was like a slap in the face. I’d been so petty.Childish. But that had been the crux of it. I’d wanted their attention in any way I could get it.
“I’m sorry about the money. About Carter Energy,” I said quietly, meaning it. “I can’t give back what I took.”
“If you could, would you?”
It was a simple question, and any way I answered, I knew it wouldn’t change how he felt. He’d already forgiven me.ThatI couldn’t understand and wasn’t sure I could accept.
“All of it, plus interest.”
We stared at one another, and it was just like the day he’d saved me from getting my ass kicked. No questions. Didn’t matter that it had been my fault. He had my back, and he had this entire time. I’d just been too absorbed in my own self-pity to see it.
“Want another one?” he asked, holding up his glass.
“Nah.” I’d had enough. There was still a lot of shit I had to straighten out before this day was done. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Drew
We walked backto the apartment, neither of us in a hurry.
“You and Dad, and then Mulaney. You were a clique I was never a part of. The three of you made all the decisions and already had your minds made up before you asked me. It pissed me off. Most of the time, I felt Dad would rather have had her as his daughter than me as a son. I still feel that way.”
“Dad cares for her like a daughter, and I swear sometimes they share a brain. They love this business equally, and it’s a common ground they’ve had since she was a kid. She’s pestered and picked his brain, showed way more interest in the business than you or I ever did. Of course he liked that.”
“What he did was wrong. He should’ve talked with us about making her CEO,” I said insistently.
“Maybe, but that was no excuse for you to insinuate the two of them were having an affair.” He gave me a hard look. “If Mama knew, she’d be furious with you.”
