“If I tell you, you gotta promise you’re not gonna feel bad or try to talk me out of it. My mind is made up. Okay?”
Sarah tilted her head, confused. She already felt bad for him. That was a given. This was huge, and she knew how much Sydney cared about Carina. She’d been his first everything. But trying to talk him out of it?
She nodded. “Okay . . .”
With a deep breath, he began. “She’s never been able to deal with you in my life, Lynn, even from a distance. We’d been having other issues too, but that was the biggest one. It’s why I hadn’t come around in so long. Last year, when I cancelled my trip out here last minute, it wasn’t because of my car issues. It was because, when I told her about the trip, things got hairy.”
Sarah remembered how disappointed she’d been when that happened, but she never for a second questioned his reason.
“After another huge argument we had a few weeks ago,” he continued, “she gave me an ultimatum: her or you.” He shrugged with a small smile. “Of course I chose you.”
Chapter 4
Angel
Both Alex and Angel threw their gym bags in the backseat of Alex’s truck. It’d worked out for Angel that the team photo day was today. They had to show up that morning. Between that and then waiting for their turn for all the individual shots, they’d been there until almost noon. Sarah, Syd, and Luna had gone out for breakfast because Syd would be heading out after. Angel missed out on being around the guy and wouldn’t get to be there to see him off.
If Sarah picked up on Angel’s sarcasm when he expressed his regret over missing out, she didn’t show it. He was certain she’d at least chuckle when he laid the disappointment on a little thick, but, instead, she sounded weird. Almost down. He hated to think she was feeling that sad about Sydney leaving so soon.
“I need a favor,” Alex said, starting up his truck.
Angel turned to him. “What?”
“I need you to cover for me this weekend at the restaurant. You’re off, right?”
Frowning, Angel pulled his phone out to check for any new messages from Sarah. “Yeah, I’m off. So’s Sarah,” he said, meaning they would’ve had the weekend off together, but it was rare that Alex asked him to cover for him, so he’d likely be working now.
“I’m only scheduled to open Sunday.” Alex glanced at him then straight ahead again. “Saturday I’m scheduled all day, but Julio said he can cover for me that evening. He just can’t come in until two, so both days you’d only have to cover for me in the mornings. You’d be free both nights and early.”
That didn’t sound so bad. “Yeah, I can do that,” he said, glad he and Sarah hadn’t made any real plans yet. “You and Val taking off for the weekend or something?”
Angel remembered overhearing Sarah and Val talking not too long ago and Val saying she was hoping to make a trip up to Havasu before the summer was over.
“No,” Alex said quickly. “That’s another thing. Don’t tell Sarah you’re covering for me. Valerie thinks I’m working all weekend.”
Frowning, Angel looked away and out the window. He got that his brother and Valerie weren’t exclusive. They never had been as far as he knew, and their relationship had always been a bit explosive. Normally, Angel didn’t get involved in his brothers’ love lives, but it sucked that this was Sarah’s cousin he was messing with. “I’m not gonna lie to her, Alex.”
“I’m not asking you to lie,” Alex said as Angel turned to meet his brother’s soured face. “Just don’t mention me at all. Say Dad asked you to come in, period. She doesn’t have to know you’re covering for me.”
“Can I ask you something?” Angel said, curious who Alex would go through all this trouble for.
“No,” Alex said simply but firmly, making Angel laugh.
He wanted to ask him why he’d lie in the first place if he and Valerie weren’t exclusive. If he wasn’t her boyfriend, then he was free to do what he wanted. What was the point of trying to cover it up?
But before he could, the message indicator blinking on his phone got his attention. He clicked on it and saw it was a message from Sarah.
Something’s come up. Melanie’s gonna cover for me tonight at the restaurant, and I won’t be able to see you before your practice either. Maybe after?
Immediately, his laughing mood was squashed. Something came up? Had she actually given up hours at the restaurant to hang out with Sydney longer? Somehow he didn’t think it’d take a whole lot of persuading on Sarah’s behalf for Sydney to decide to stay another day. Maybe more. Angel had seen the way Sydney looked at her yesterday and seen the way he held her in his arms when she hugged him. Angel may as well have been invisible those first few moments they embraced. If it had been anyone else, Angel would’ve blown a fuse. Hell, even with it being Syd, her longtime best friend, Angel had still felt close to losing it.
Alex said something to him as he began to text back, but Angel was too caught up in what he was texting to listen to him.
What came up?
He sent it and stared at his screen impatiently, his knee shaking rapidly as he waited. Luckily, she responded quickly.
I’ll tell you about it later. I gotta stop texting now. I’ll call you in a few hours.
A few hours? It was almost noon. Sydney must’ve decided to hang out longer. The idea that Sarah might’ve asked him to hang out longer and was now blowing him off for Sydney brought back all those old feelings of unease he hadn’t felt in so long.
Alex said something again and Angel turned to him. “What?” he snapped.
He hadn’t intended to sound so irritated, but it couldn’t be helped. He was beyond irritated.
Alex peered at him then frowned. “Look. If you’re gonna get all weird about not telling Sarah, then forget it. I’ll make some calls and see if I can get someone else to cover for me.”
“Nah.” Angel shook his head. “I’ll do it. I just won’t mention you at all.”
“You sure? ’Cause you’re getting all pissy about it.”
Staring down at his phone still, Angel shook his head again. “Not at you. I didn’t even hear what you said.” He waved his phone at him. “I was reading a text.”
The scowl on Alex’s face morphed into a smirk. “Trouble in la-la land?”
Angel rolled his eyes, looking out the window. “Her best friend’s in town, and she took the day off from work.”
Alex was quiet for a moment, and Angel glanced in time to see him do a double take then saw his brows jump. “The dude from back home?”
Clenching the phone in his hand, Angel glanced away from his brother. “She lives here now, remember?” he said, avoiding the topic of Sydney. He wasn’t in the mood to discuss this, especially because he already knew Alex’s take on it. “This is her home.”
“You know what I mean, ass,” Alex laughed. “This is the guy she grew up with, right? No wonder you’re getting all stupid about technicalities. So what? She took the day off to spend it with him?”
“I dunno,” Angel muttered, continuing to look out the window and swallowing hard, but he refused to give his brother the pleasure of seeing how much this bothered him. Alex was already having too much fun with this.
“Well, I can’t say I blame you,” Alex continued, his tone a little more serious now. “I don’t know why you allow that shit.”
“Allow it?” Angel asked even more irritated now. “What am I supposed to say? I forbid you to hang out with your friend?”
“Friend.” Alex scoffed. “What guy puts that much energy or spends that many years hanging onto a friendship with a chick unless he’s hoping to eventually get past the friend zone? I hate to say it, but I will ’cause your dumb ass needs to hear it. He’s probably in love with her.”
“He’s got a girlfriend, Alex,” Angel said, trying desperately not to buy into what Alex sounded so sure about. “Has for years.”
“And he’s still driving all the way down here to spend time with Sarah?” Alex looked at him, ev
en more disgusted. “How long did you say she’s known this guy?”
“Since they were kids,” Angel said, attempting to look more interested in his phone so Alex would just drop it.
“Like Sof and Eric,” Alex pointed out.
“No,” Angel turned to him, feeling the irritation peak. “Not like Sof and Eric. They’ve never had those kinds of feelings for each other.”
“Well, maybe she hasn’t,” Alex said, turning onto their street.
“That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
Angel was glad they were almost home because he was done having this conversation. He started taking off his seatbelt so that the moment Alex stopped the truck he could jump out.
“All I’m saying, bro, is I’d keep my eyes and ears open,” Alex warned as he pulled into their driveway, his playful tone long gone. “There’s no way I’d be driving this far to see a chick who has a man unless I was seriously hoping to get something out of it.” He shrugged, and even after they stopped, Angel didn’t jump out of the truck like he’d planned. Instead, he stared at his brother and waited for him to finish. “Maybe he really is just her friend. But if forbidding her to see him, which is what I’d do, is out of the question, I’d for sure not allow too much time alone with him. If I were you,” he said even more seriously, “I’d get her on the phone right now and ask to meet them somewhere. Don’t be stupid. Don’t give that asshole this much time alone with her.”
Alex actually got out of the truck before Angel did. Angel sat there debating if he should call her. She’d said she couldn’t be texting. Were they at the movies or something? He let his head fall back and groaned. Alex was right. How stupid was he? Breakfast and then a movie? That was practically a date!
~*~
Sarah
The remorseful expression on Sarah’s mom’s face was not what Sarah had expected when she dropped the news about her dad looking for her. Luna’s expression only got worse as Sarah filled her in on everything Sydney had told her he’d said.
With her heart beating wildly, Sarah kept waiting for her mom to interrupt her and tell her it wasn’t true, but she didn’t. Instead, she brought her hands to her mouth and shook her head.
“It’s not true, is it?”
Her mom motioned for her to take seat at the kitchen table where she sat, but Sarah refused. “No, first tell me if it’s true,” she asked, her heart rate spiking as the feelings of betrayal sunk in.
Had her mom really made such a selfish decision and kept it from her all these years?
“It’s complicated, Sarah.”
“What’s complicated?” Sarah demanded, the warm tears blurring her eyes. “Either you lied to me or you didn’t.”
“I was protecting you, honey. Sit down and I’ll explain.”
Sarah stared at her mom, remembering she’d decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. She tried her hardest to compose herself because there was still the possibility that her mom did have a good reason for depriving her of the opportunity to knowing her father without at least giving her the choice. Maybe all those years as a child she’d secretly wished her father would magically appear and save her and her mom from their struggles were not all for nothing.
She took the seat across from her, almost afraid to know the truth. What had her mother been protecting her from that was so bad she was probably never going to tell her about it if she hadn’t found out on her own?
Her mom reached out for Sarah’s hand, and Sarah gave it to her, needing to feel the comfort of her touch. She began telling Sarah about growing up in a slummy neighborhood, her domineering stepfather, and how she’d become rebellious and reckless at a young age. She met Sarah’s father at a club she wasn’t even supposed to be at because she was underage—a minor even. But in that neighborhood, just like all the liquor stores that sold alcohol to minors, the clubs were known to let underage girls in as long as they dressed the part and at least looked older. Her mom had said she and her friends did, so they easily got in.
“It’s also why, when I first met your father, he wasn’t aware of how young I was. He was twenty-two, and I wasn’t even seventeen at the time. I lied and told him I was eighteen. He bought it, and we started seeing each other. I had to be sneaky because my parents, but especially my stepfather, would never allow it. There were also things I didn’t know about your father. He dealt drugs and had been in a gang for years. Before I found all that out, I thought I was in love, and we became intimate. Months later when I confided in my mom that I was pregnant and wanted to keep you, my stepfather had your father arrested for statutory rape. It was only then that everything about his past surfaced. He had arrest warrants for things he’d done years earlier: theft, burglary, and vandalism. I knew then he was the not the kind of man I’d want in my life or yours, and I was actually glad he went to jail, though I did agree to sign paperwork stating that it all had been consensual.”
She took a deep breath and then a drink from the tea she’d been sipping on when Sarah first approached her with the news of her father looking for her. Suddenly Sarah needed something to drink too. As much as she felt better now that she knew more, she was still trying to make sense of it all. Her mother could’ve still told her the truth.
Sarah stood up, unable to sit anymore, and told her mom she was getting water. Her mother seemed grateful for the break. On her way back to the table with her bottle of water, Sarah’s phone rang. She sent it to voice mail when she saw it was Angel. No way was she interrupting her mom now, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to explain it to him quickly. She’d just have to call him back when she and her mother were done.
Setting the bottle of water back down on the table, Sarah remained on her feet, feeling too antsy to sit as her mother continued. Basically, her mother’s stepdad had told her the only way she could continue to live with them was if she gave up the baby for adoption because they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Sarah’s mom refused and moved out when Sarah was born. A few months after Sarah was born, her father, who was now out of jail, tracked her down at her friend’s house where she was staying temporarily. He wanted to be a part of her and Sarah’s life, a fact that had Sarah suddenly choking up again.
“I knew it was a bad idea to continue with him. He lived a dangerous life, and I didn’t want any part of it, but he promised me he was straightening out. He’d been out for months and since then had found a job doing construction. He even had his own apartment and wanted us to come live with him.” Her mom shook her head with a puckered brow. “I was young, naïve, and desperate. I knew I couldn’t stay with my friend much longer. Her family had agreed to let me live there just until I could get set up at a shelter for teen moms. Living with him at the time seemed like a better alternative, so I agreed.”
What her mom told her next broke her heart. After only a few months of living with him, she found out that not only was he seeing other women on the side but he wasn’t actually working and he was still dealing. When she confronted him about it, he asked her if she really thought he could afford all the things he’d been buying her and Sarah with a so-called construction job—one given to someone just recently released from jail. As for the other women, his only response to her mother had been that they meant nothing to him. Then he was arrested again.
“He used his one phone call to call me.” Her mother paused for a moment to ponder that. “He told me to pack my things and move out because we were going to be evicted soon anyway. He hadn’t paid the rent in a couple of months, and there was no way he could pay now. He told me to leave the furniture but to make sure I took all the bags in the closet. In hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise because I’d already begun to try and figure out how to leave him. I did have some money put away, but I didn’t have enough for an apartment. Then a few days after checking into the hotel and going through the things in the bags from the closet so I could try and pawn them, I came across the money he’d stashed separately in them—almost twenty thousand in cash total
.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open. Her opinion of her dad kept going back and forth.
He was a good guy.
He was a bad guy.
With every revelation her mom gave her, she had more questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt her mom. Luna continued as Sarah listened intently
Her mother had no choice but to use the money to try and set up her and Sarah in another apartment, but she soon got word from her mother, whom she checked in with weekly, that Sarah’s father had called her from jail to let her know there’d be people looking for her. They wanted the money, but he claimed to have rightfully earned it, and he wanted her and his baby girl to use it. And so life on the run began.
Sarah felt almost ashamed that hearing that her father, the ex-convict and drug dealer, had always referred to her as his baby girl warmed her.
Through the years, her mother stayed in contact with Sarah’s grandmother via mail, and Sydney had been right about the packages being sent to his place because her mother didn’t want to leave a trail to where she lived.
“What was in the packages?”
“Clothes, sheets, blankets—anything your grandmother thought I might need. She even sent school supplies for you.”
“Why? Didn’t you have the money?”
Her mother smiled. “Honey, twenty thousand may sound like a lot of money, but you have to remember I found it when you were just a baby. It went fast. With us having to move so often, even though I did my best to make it stretch, it only lasted a few years.”
Her mother reached out to her, looking in her eyes. She looked exhausted as if having to relive all this had drained her. “So many times I thought about telling you. When you were younger, I was afraid of setting a bad example by telling you how rebellious I’d been. The last I heard about how long he’d be in jail was fifteen to twenty years. But I had no idea if he was out, and even then there was always the possibility he’d get arrested again. His whole family was bad news. I did plan on telling you when you were eighteen, but then the whole thing with me going to jail happened and then your ordeal and trial with the coach began. When everything settled down and we were all finally at peace, I just got to thinking maybe it was better you didn’t know. Your life, even with all the drama, was—is—turning out so well, and you seemed so happy with Angel I just didn’t have the heart to stir things up again.” Her mother sighed with a frown. “Looks like he’s taken that out of my hands.”