Right now, he’d take the slop in a heartbeat.
He was so angry he wasn’t sure he could choke down a bite of the expensive dinner.
When the waiter was gone, his mom picked up her highball glass again.
“You know, Thad, I will never understand why you jumped the gun. Confessing to everything so your brother wouldn’t get in trouble. I know he probably talked you into it but?—”
“What?” Thad said through gritted teeth. “What are you talking about? He neveronceasked me to. I did it of my own accord.”
“Well, I’ll never understand it,” she said with a shrug.
No, no theywouldn’tunderstand making a huge sacrifice for someone they loved, Thad realized. Andoh, that hurt. Because now he finally understood they had never loved him or Gavin the way they should have.
“Thad, you were never as talented of a player as he was, so in the end I suppose it was better it was you instead of him,” their father said, finally looking up from his steak.
Gavin made another low sound in the back of his throat as Thad’s stomach twisted.
“What about my future?” Thad whispered.
“Neither of you had to go. Don’t you realize the police would have come around anyway?” their mother said with a wave of her drink. “Your father and I could have taken care of this all. When our lawyer explained what kind of future he had, they would have relented. You know how these things go.”
“And what about someone being accountable for what happened?” Thad asked, stunned by her casual dismissal of the seriousness of the issue. Had prison been the answer? No. And he doubted it would have gone away quite as easily as she thought.
But if it had, their parents would have happily swept the entire situation under the rug without a second thought. The idea made his stomach twist.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You were good boys from a good home. There was no need to get the law involved. You weren’tcriminals.”
“Uh, I was, actually,” Gavin pointed out.
“Well, not a serious one. You weren’t in agangor anything,” she said. “Like I said, once they saw you were from a good home, they would have worked with us. Just look at all the players in the league who’ve had their little ‘mistakes’ get whisked away with a good legal team over the years. We’d have made sure that happened for Gavin too if you hadn’t rushed to his defense by signing that plea deal. You threw away everything we worked so hard to build for you both.”
Thad pressed his fingertips to his mouth to keep back the torrent of words he wanted to shout. Jesus, he’d know they were bad, but this … this casual, thinly veiled racism, thisrefusalto take any kind of accountability for anything … it was worse than he’d realized.
“Do you hear yourselves?” Gavin said, scowling as he tossed his napkin on the table. “What the fuck?”
“Oh, do keep your voice down, darling,” she said with a tired-sounding sigh. “I see neither of you have grown up, have you?Even if you are both going gray. Really, I don’t know why you don’t dye your hair. These days, no one would believe I’m old enough to be your mother.” She smoothed down her suspiciously dark hair.
“This isn’t aboutimmaturity,” Gavin snapped. “This is aboutdecency. This is about how we’ve spent the past hour—no, our entirelives—never living up to your expectations. Never beinggoodenough,impressiveenough. Always making the wrong choices. Did you ever, for once, stop to ask yourselves what we actually wanted? Did you ever askwhyI was struggling then?WhyThad made the choice he did to protect me?”
Their father opened his mouth, but Gavin pressed on.
“You talk about waving all my mistakes away with money or a team of lawyers but what would we have learned if you did? That our actions don’t have consequences? That our mistakes aren’t to be learned from?”
Gavin let out a bitter laugh. “But I suppose that fits, doesn’t it? Clearly, neither of you have learned from yours.”
He turned to look at Thad. “I’m sorry I asked you to do this. It was a mistake. Do you want to go?”
“Please,” Thad said, pushing his chair back. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Their parents made shocked, outraged noises as Gavin stood too, pulling out his wallet and tossing some money on the table. “That’s for dinner. Let’s not do this again.”
Without another word, he stalked away from the table, ignoring the curious gazes following him. Thad followed too, feeling lighter with every step they put between them and their parents.
He and Gavin didn’t speak as they waited for the valet to get their rental vehicle, snow beginning to drift down in picturesque flakes or once they were in the SUV, Gavin navigating the bridges and winding hills of the city like he’d never been away from it.
It wasn’t until Gavin pulled up at a familiar old diner, not far from their old practice rink, that Thad understood where they were going.
“Good choice,” was all he said as they got out of the SUV.
