“House. Car. Money. Everythin’. Fuckin’ dishes, furniture, tools, shampoo. Her entire life.Everythin’.”
“Holy shit, Bas,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure what his foster mom’s finances had been, but if she left him an entire fucking house, that was big. Club members made good money, enough to raise a family on—but this was a windfall.
“So now, what?” he barked. “I gotta go to the house? Go through it all? I thought she was leavin’ me some pictures of me as a kid or somethin’.”
His chest was rising and falling like a bellows, but I wasn’t sure he was actually pulling in any air. The tendons in his neck were tight and visible, and his hands were gripping the steering wheel like he was afraid it was going to fly away—or he was.
“Hey,” I called softly, putting his stack of things on the dash so I could scoot across the seat. “It’s all manageable.”
Putting one hand on his chest, I wrapped the other around the back of his neck. “We don’t have to deal with it today. It’ll still be there next week, right? Look at me.”
When his face turned toward mine, I had to hold back a gasp. His eyes were red-rimmed and dark. He wasn’t crying, but it might’ve helped if he was. The pain in his eyes was heartbreaking. I felt my own eyes start to sting.
“We don’t have to deal with any of this today,” I repeated softly as he tugged me onto his lap. Cupping his face in my hands, I pressed my forehead to his.
“She’s dead,” he rasped, his voice catching. “She’s actually fuckin’ dead.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, running my thumbs over the hollows beneath his cheeks.
“I thought—” He scoffed quietly. “I guess I didn’t really believe it. Figured I’d get up here and it would be some kind of misunderstandin’. She left meeverythin’.”
“You were her son,” I reminded him. “Of course she did.”
“She had other foster sons,” he replied. “Quite a few over the years, but two that lived there the last couple of years I did.”
“Yeah?”
“Arlo and Mateo,” he said. “Arlo was my age. Mateo’s one year younger.”
“You didn’t tell me you had brothers.”
“They—I didn’t talk to them after we left.”
“We?” I asked, leaning back a little to meet his eyes. “All of you left at the same time?”
Bas nodded once, but he didn’t explain.
“She didn’t leave them anything?”
“Some money, I think,” he replied. He glanced to the side. “We should get off the street.” Putting his hands on my hips, he urged me back to my seat. When I was seated again and buckled up, he let out a hollow laugh. “Not sure where to go.”
“Do you want to head home?”
“No, I told you I’d take you to the restaurant.”
“We can go a different time,” I assured him. “Let’s just get something later.”
“We’re here now,” he said stubbornly.
I watched the emotions move over his face as he stared at the dash.
“You want to show me your house?” I asked after a moment. “We’re here now.”
He turned his head to look at me, his gaze soft, then nodded.
We were silent as he drove through town, not hesitating for a minute as he navigated one-way streets and traffic. Eventually, we pulled up in front of a little yellow house with a detached garage. He’d remembered exactly how to get there.
“This is it?” I asked as he parked on the street.
