“I don’t know.” Cash looked puzzled. “If you’d never come to Vets on the Go!, maybe I wouldn’t have such a problem keeping to myself. I’d have read about you in Angela’s journal, but you wouldn’t be real to me. But you’re here, and you hate us. And I get it, because I hate you too.” That seemed to cheer him. “But then that makes it even more obvious how alike we are, and that’s irritating.”
“You got that right.” Cash had a point. Smith sighed. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, we told you about Angela and dickhead Charles.” The man’s supposed father. “What was Meg like?”
Smith felt irritable, sad, and angry at mention of her name. “She was a bitch, okay? Can we drop it?”
Cash glanced at him, and Smith swore he’d belt the fucker if he saw one iota of pity. But Cash just nodded. “Charles, my dad, turned on me when I was just a kid. Went from father of the year to shithead of the year. He found out I wasn’t his, and he never let me forget it. Mostly I heard how useless and lame I was. A few times he hit me. He treated Reid like gold, which made it all worse. Reid felt guilty for stuff that wasn’t his fault.”
Smith watched Cash’s fingers whiten on the wheel. “What did Angela say about it?”
“Not a goddamn thing.” Cash snorted. “She was so wrapped up in TV and books she never noticed us. I think that hurt more than the stuff the old man said.”
They remained quiet as traffic broke up.
Smith kept his gaze on the cars outside and tried to separate emotion from fact. “Meg spent my childhood telling me how precious you fucks were, how her sister had the absolute best kids anyone could have, and wasn’t it sad all she had was me. Uncle Allen would come over. We’d play a game together or mess around with toy cars. Then he’d go fuck Mommy Dearest for a few hours. He’d leave. And I’d be stuck with her ranting and raving about him until the next month when he rolled back into town.”
“Hold on. You met him?” Cash sounded incredulous.
Smith turned to him. “So what? At the time I thought he was a friend of my mom’s. The ‘Uncle’ was like an honorary title. Turns out she had a thing for him, but he only wanted Angela.” Smith allowed himself a cruel smile. “Only thing I can thank him for. He made Meg’s life a living hell. She wanted him. He loved Angela; but he couldn’t have her, so he did the next best thing, using Meg as a stand-in. Best part was she knew it.”
Cash stared at him for a moment before turning his attention back to the road. “Damn. That’s harsh.”
“Life is harsh.”
“Can’t argue that.”
They continued the rest of the drive shooting the other side glances and pretending not to be interested. Arriving at the storage unit, they moved the clients’ belongings in no time and returned to Vets on the Go! Cash parked the truck. Smith paused, and they sat in the dark, not speaking.
Then Cash asked, “Do you ever still see him?”
“Allen? Nope. I was a kid when he visited Meg. He’d come once a month for a while. Then he just stopped coming. She never heard from him again, and he never tried contacting me either. Hell, I don’t know if he ever knew I was his kid. I only know who he is now because Meg felt it was her God-given duty to tell me the full truth of my hated existence the day I came home from the Corps. You know, in case I thought she and I would live as Mommy and Son happily ever after.” He snorted, ignoring how much it still hurt to know the truth—that he’d never been wanted by either of his mothers.
He opened the door to leave.
“Hey,” Cash said, stopping him.
“What?”
“Ah, have a good time at Reid’s. Naomi can seem a little intimidating, but she’s actually pretty nice.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Now if he could just reassure himself that Erin would come with him, and that she still wanted anything to do with him…
Saturday afternoon,Erin sat with Tilly in Tilly’s apartment, making marionberry scones for Tilly’s book club on Monday. Apparently, Rupert, Willie, and a few of Tilly’s other friends gathered once a month to discuss erotic fiction.
Erin suppressed her desire to askso manyquestions. Instead, she worked on the scones and watched Tilly polish off the casserole from last night’s dinner.
“So, you’re all fixed up now?” Tilly looked worried. “You sure the heat is working, right? Because that’s all I need, for the furnace to be going out.”
Erin reassured her. Again. “The heat is fine. Apparently, there was something stuck with the thermostat, but Smith fixed it. Oddly enough, the thermostat is also the problem with the oven. The oven still works. I just need to rely on a separate thermometer, so I don’t burn what I’m baking.”
“Bah. We’ll get that fixed after the hot water heater issue and the electrical mess I’m now dealing with in 7B.” Tilly groaned. “First 6B, then 7B. When it rains it pours. Everything has been working just fine for years. Then suddenly, it all goes to shit.” She eyeballed Erin, her gaze narrowed with speculation. “Right when you arrived.”
Erin laughed off Tilly’s suspicions. “You can’t blame me for things breaking down. Besides, you said you love the amazing meals you’ve been eating. That’s got to be worth a few thermostats.”
Tilly eyed the tray going in the oven. “Well, I suppose. Say, is that white glaze going over the scones when they’re done? I like ‘em on the sweet side.”
