Coming Clean

  Oh, man, I hoped he wouldn’t put up much of a fuss about my not sleeping with him anymore. I’d come up with a plan for that, though. Well, Shaw had. I was relieved he was taking the lead on that one. Katya was right; I belonged in the bed I shared with Shaw.

  As we got ourselves ready for the day, Shaw and I worked together like a well-oiled piece of machinery, despite all of the inappropriate touching that was threatening to make us late. We showered together, brushed our teeth together, he handed me the jewelry he thought would complement my suit, and I picked out the tie that I thought would complement his. Breakfast worked much the same way, with Shaw getting the bowls and divvying out the cereal while I got the spoons and poured the milk. It was exactly how I’d always wished it would be.

  I didn’t even get upset when his cell rang, interrupting my time with him. He’d looked at the caller ID, mumbled something about not recognizing the number, and then sent the call to voicemail. It rang again, almost immediately, and Shaw repeated the action, tucking the phone into his pocket afterward with no intention of answering it. The next time it rang, he cursed.

  “Shaw, it’s really sweet that you don’t want to take a call while having breakfast with me, but no one is that persistent unless it’s an emergency. Answer it.”

  Peeved by the annoyance, he fished it back out of his pocket and stabbed at the green button on the screen. “Matthews,” he barked into the receiver. And then, “Yes, Shaw Matthews. Who is this and why are you interrupting my breakfast?”

  I grinned because grumpy Shaw was still a sexy Shaw.

  “When?” he asked the unknown caller. After a pause, “Where?…How bad?…What’s that got to do with me?…Just do it….Why not?” And then a frustrated growl before, “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it. I’m in San Diego. Can’t somebody else handle it?…Nobody?…Typical…No. Figure it out on your own.” And then he disconnected the call, abruptly getting up to take his bowl to the sink for a rinse.

  “What was that about?” I normally didn’t ask about his business calls because they didn’t concern me. Now, however, they did.

  His back was still to me when he answered. “Seems Jerry and Clarice have gone and gotten themselves into a car accident. If I had to guess, I’d say an extremely drunk Clarice was behind the wheel.”

  I nearly choked on my cereal. “Oh, my God! Are they okay?”

  He moved around the kitchen, drying his hands on the towel and then going to retrieve his jacket from its place over the back of the couch as he filled me in. “Jerry didn’t make it. Clarice isn’t far behind. Apparently, she’s on life support. They need the next of kin to come in and sign a bunch of paperwork so they can pull the plug. Apparently, that’s me.”

  What was it about news like this that made something inside of us put ourselves into the other person’s shoes, to experience his grief when it wasn’t ours? For just a moment, I did that. I imagined the loss of my own parents, how devastated I would’ve been, how I would’ve crumpled to the floor in a heaving mess of tears if I’d been the one to get that call instead of Shaw. But it wasn’t my parents; it was Shaw’s, and he wasn’t devastated or crying or showing any emotion whatsoever.

  “When do you leave?” My voice was small when I asked the question, as if I was already paying my respects to the recently departed. I supposed in some way I was.

  Shaw’s eyes still didn’t meet mine, though I didn’t know what I expected to find there if they did. “I’m not going.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not going? Shaw, you have to go.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “But they’re your parents.”

  Finally, he stopped and faced me. Full-on rage that I didn’t take personally rolled through his chiseled features and behind blue eyes that turned a stormy gray when he was this upset. “They were never my parents. Where were they when I watched a man get murdered right in front of me? Where were they when I came home drenched in brain matter and blood? Where were they when I was hungry, scared, cold, and practically living on the streets? Where were they any of the times I needed them? I’ll tell you where they were. My alcoholic mother was passed out drunk and my con father was plotting his next scheme. So I’m not going. They can rot in hell for all I care.”

  “But Shaw, your mother isn’t—” I stopped, trying to think of the appropriate way to say the next word.

  “Dead?” Shaw provided for me. He propped himself against the back of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest. “You can say the word, sweetness. It’s not going to hurt my feelings. And maybe she isn’t dead yet, but she’s as good as. Someone else can figure out the legal part of it. I’m sure there’s a plan in place to take care of these things once the government gets tired of paying the bill.”

  “Shaw, you can’t…You can’t just leave her there like that.”

  “Why not? She’d do it to me. Christ, those two have left me for dead all my life.”

  This was so not a healthy way for him to process this. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  He straightened, standing tall and defensive. “And what about the countless number of wrongs they’ve done? Do they add up to a right? Because I’ve gotta tell ya, I’m having a hard time following the math you’re doing here.”

  I went to him and took his face in my hands. My heart was utterly shattering for him, for all the ways he’d been made to feel like he didn’t matter because to the two people he should’ve mattered the most to in this whole world, he simply didn’t. None of that was going to change now, but how Shaw handled this situation would make all the difference in the world. “You’re not that person, Shaw. You’re not them. But if you don’t do this, if you don’t go to Detroit and face this, you’ll never have closure and it will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

  Taking my wrist, he pulled my hand free, turning to kiss the palm so I’d know his caged anger had nothing to do with me. “No offense, sweetness, but I don’t need closure, and I certainly don’t owe them a damn thing.” Stepping away, he picked up his attaché, coming back to give me a chaste kiss. “I love you. See you at the office?”

  “Yeah. I love you, too.” Throwing in the towel on the battle in order to win the war, I let him leave.

  This was it, that thing lurking in the shadows of our happiness. Shaw’s past with his parents was like a plague on his soul, the spot on the proverbial wall. And if he didn’t exorcise that plague, if he didn’t scour that spot, the walls we’d built to keep our family happy and safe would never come clean.

  As soon as he left, I pulled out my cellphone and dialed a soldier whom I knew fought on the side of good, a specialist in this field of battle.

  Shaw

  Fucking Jerry and Clarice dying on me like that. I had way too much to do to deal with their shit. I meant what I told Cassidy. I wasn’t going. She’d tried to bring it back up at lunch, but I’d shut that topic down. My only concern was her, Abe, and making Striker the best sports agency it could be. Likewise, the phone call I’d gotten this morning was all but forgotten as I threw myself into my work and took care of business in plenty of time to make a prompt appearance at Dr. Sparling’s office for our appointment.

  When I’d entered his office, Jeremy was alone, customary cheesy smile in place. Today, he was all business in the front and party in the back with his mullet hairstyle. He was wearing canvas deck shoes without socks, a pair of white linen pants rolled up to bare his ankles, a matching sports coat with the sleeves pushed up past the elbows, and a baby-pink T-shirt underneath.

  “Hey, Doc. Crockett and Tubbs called. They want their wardrobe back,” I told him with a chuckle.

  He looked down at himself, taking a minute to get the Miami Vice reference before returning the laugh. “Huh, I never even noticed. I’ll just call it retro chic,” he said with a wink.

  Or about thirty years too late, I thought to myself. “Where’s Cass?” I asked, surprised I’d beaten Miss Punctuality to our session.

  ?
??She won’t be joining us today.” He sat in his normal chair, smiling up at me.

  “What do you mean, she won’t be joining us? Is she okay?” I started to pull out my phone to call her, but Doc Sparling stopped me.

  “No, no, no, she’s fine,” he assured me. “This was her idea. Please, take a seat.”

  I was confused as all get-out, but I found my spot on the couch and waited for him to get down to explaining what was up.

  At my questioning look, he said, “Cassidy thought you might benefit from a little one-on-one with me today.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, though didn’t I already know the answer to that one?

  “Well,” he began, crossing his legs. “She’s filled me in on the dynamics of the relationship you have with your parents, and she’s concerned about how it might be negatively impacting you as a whole.”

  I rolled my eyes because of course she was. Before the strides she and I had made lately, I might have been pissed about her telling my business like that. But I’d gotten used to being exposed as of late. Her intentions were good, although unnecessary. “It’s not,” I said, simply.

  Jeremy leaned forward in that way he did that made me feel like he was getting into my space. “Shaw, you just got a phone call regarding your parents’ well-being. Your father has passed away and your mother isn’t far behind, yet you don’t want to attend to the matter. It’s a classic case of avoidance.”

  A short burst of humorless laughter came out of me. “So the therapist who’s gone out of his way to not fit the stereotype is now getting clinical on me, huh?”

  It occurred to me that I’d probably just proven his point by addressing the fact that he was changing his M.O. rather than calling bullshit on what he’d said. It must have occurred to him, too, because he frowned in this pity-filled way, choosing not to defend himself and instead charging forward with his analysis.

  “You’re avoiding dealing with this issue because it brings back unpleasant memories.”

  With one leg stretched out and an elbow on the armrest, I propped my head up with two fingers at my temple and my chin resting on my thumb. “No, I’m avoiding dealing with it because I give as much of a damn about them as they gave about me.”

  He wasn’t going to be dissuaded. “Shaw, your past is affecting your present and will continue to affect your future until you face it. The relationship issues between you and Cassidy are due, in large part, to your issues with your parents. And they will persist until you gain some sort of closure.”

  How the hell did my parents kicking the bucket have anything to do with Cassidy and me? Besides, he was way off base. Cassidy and I were fine and dandy now.

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Doc. Because Cassidy and I have resolved all of our issues.”

  “No, you haven’t, not all of them. You’ve simply put a Band-Aid over the wound. But this isn’t some knee scrape, Shaw. This is a severed artery. Your severed artery. And whether you realize it or not, it’s affecting your relationship with Cassidy. Right now, you’re bleeding out under the skin. If you don’t stop it, if you don’t repair the artery and restore the flow, you’re going to have to keep putting Band-Aid after Band-Aid over that wound until eventually, you won’t need Band-Aids anymore at all because your relationship will be dead.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, man? Fucking severed arteries, bleeding out, Band-Aids? I’m starting to think maybe I need to make a trip to the emergency room. You wanna call nine-one-one or should I?” I patted down my body, looking for the crimson pool that should’ve been staining my clothes and found none.

  Talk about your graphic metaphors…

  Dr. Sparling looked as frustrated as I’d ever seen him before. “Abandonment issues, Shaw.” More clinical bullshit.

  “I don’t have abandonment issues, Doc,” I said, mocking him, “because my parents were never there to abandon me in the first place.”

  “By not being there, they were abandoning you,” he said, qualifying his assessment. “And you may not realize it, but you were doing the same thing to Cassidy and Abe.”

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s what you’re telling me?” My leg started to bounce and I could feel my blood pressure rise.

  “No, I’m saying it’s learned behavior. You weren’t taught any differently.”

  I shrugged. “So I’ll unlearn it.”

  “I wish it were that simple.” He shook his head, saying, “Shaw, you’re going to have to fix your issues with your parents or you’re going to keep having issues with Cassidy. That’s the bottom line.”

  “And the only way to do that is to go to Detroit and pull the fucking plug?”

  “In a sense, yes,” he said, sitting forward with urgency. “If you’re angry with your mother and father, tell them you are. Tell them what you’ve become, who you’ve become, without their help or their love. Brag about yourself, about how you overcame the crappy hand you were dealt and won the jackpot with a woman and son who love you unconditionally.”

  “Kind of hard to do when they’re dead, don’t ya think?”

  Jeremy chilled, relaxing once again. “Maybe the fact that they can’t talk back is better. At least then, you won’t have to listen to them giving you one bullshit excuse after another for why they weren’t there for you.”

  Well, that threw me for a loop. The doc never used swear words in our sessions. In fact, he had always oozed wholesomeness—like a Boy-Scout-helping-an-old-lady-across-the-street kind of wholesomeness. But he was wrong again. With a shake of my head, I gave him the sad truth. “Bullshit excuses would take too much effort on their parts anyway. I don’t think you understand how much of a shit they just don’t give.”

  His shoulders sagged. “And that’s sad. Very sad. But be that as it may, you still need to confront them.”

  “Why? It won’t make a difference. Besides, even if I did decide to go to Detroit, Jerry is fucking dead and Clarice is on life support, so not only will they not be able to say anything back, but they won’t be able to hear me either.”

  “And that’s okay, too,” Jeremy said, assuming he’d gained some ground. “Because this isn’t for them, Shaw.” He sat forward to look me in the eye. “It’s for you. I know it sounds cliché, but the sooner you can get Jerry and Clarice’s skeletons out of your closet and into the ground, the sooner you can fill the space they occupied with happier memories of the people in your life who do love you.”

  I sat there, quietly contemplating what he’d said. Maybe he and Cassidy were right. I’d gone through my life believing that chapter had been closed—hell, never even begun, for that matter. Now, I supposed, it might be possible that I’d just left it unfinished and skipped ahead, thinking it unimportant, only to find out it held the missing piece to a puzzle I couldn’t solve without it.

  “Shaw?”

  “Hmm? Yeah,” I told him, and then with an annoyed huff of defeat, “Fine. I’ll go.”

  Jeremy sighed in relief. Evidently, he hadn’t believed he’d succeed. I wouldn’t have thought it either.

  “But I’m only doing it because you and Cassidy will stay on my case, otherwise, and probably make me have to keep coming to see you every week.”

  “I’ll try not to take that personally.” He laughed. “Whatever helps me help you, I’ll use it.”

  I had zero doubt about it. Jeremy Sparling, Katya Minkov, and Cassidy Whalen—masters of manipulation, those three. They knew how to get what they wanted, and it seemed at least Jeremy and Cassidy wanted me to confront the two people who’d brought me into this world and then fucked it up from the start. I was going to do it. For Cassidy and Abe, and maybe even myself. Whether it helped or hurt or had no effect at all on my current situation remained to be seen, but at least no one would be able to say I wasn’t putting in my 110 percent toward this relationship.

  CHAPTER 17

  Shaw

  The first-class flight from San Diego into Detroit was fine. The luxury limou
sine ride from the airport was comfortable. And the grand suite at the Westin Book Cadillac was, well, grand. But none of that mattered because I didn’t feel fine, or comfortable, or even grand. I felt numb, cold, and like an entirely different person from an entirely different world, like while the skin I was wearing belonged to me, neither it nor I belonged here. Nonetheless, I was here, and I just wanted to get my “obligation” over with so I could get back to where I belonged.

  When I arrived at the hospital, the hallways were crowded with people of various walks of life with their own reasons for being there. Wading through them as best I could, I stopped at the information desk to get directions to the morgue to identify the body of my sperm donor. The thirtysomething female behind the computer was sweet and beyond helpful, despite the chaos surrounding her. I supposed it was like this every day and she’d grown immune to it.

  Deep into the belly of the hospital, I went, where it was freezing and in desperate need of more lighting, something a little softer than the harsh glare of the fluorescents they were using. Seeing the dead body the attendant had pulled out of the freaking wall gave me a case of the heebie-jeebies, but once the sheet was pulled back, I did my duty with a curt nod. It was definitely Jerry Matthews.

  Looking down at his corpse was too much like looking into a mirror. This man couldn’t have denied I was his son, no matter how much he’d probably wanted to. He was me, only gray and stiff with hard lines, too much scruff, unkempt hair, and deep wrinkles forged by his chosen lifestyle. Cause of death: a broken neck when he’d been ejected from the car after hitting a lamppost. He should’ve worn his seatbelt.

  The next order of business was dealing with Clarice’s situation. The hospital staff had blown my fucking phone up to make sure I was on my way. So much so that I was on the verge of blocking their number. They either needed the bed or the government medical benefits had refused to pay for another day.