“We have to talk to the others.”
Chapter 19
Nash
“So that’s what the bitch was looking for.”
I look from the brown leather diary on the dining table in front of me to Makhi, sprawled out on the seat beside me.
I’m not the only one. Vonn, Byrdie, and Nance are doing their fair share of staring.
Makhi doesn’t look the least bit apologetic as he crosses his arms. “She was a raging bitch who spent more time searching for that thing than doing a damn thing to clean this place. Stare as long as you want, but I’m not taking it back.”
Byrdie sits perched on Vonn’s lap. She was passing him to get to the empty chair at the dining table when he slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her. She settled in his lap with her arm slung around the back of his shoulder; she has her head resting against his, happy and relaxed in a pair of sweats and a hoodie.
Makhi looked jealous, and Nance briefly raised an eyebrow.
Nance has seen Byrdie and Vonn kissing, knows they spent the night together, and saw me come down with Byrdie this morning since she caught us kissing in the entryway. She wouldhave known or can probably guess that Byrdie spent the night in my room last night.
But Nance has never been the type to judge. As long as I’m happy and Vonn and Makhi aren’t arguing, she’s happy.
“Why would Lydia be looking for your dad’s diary?” Vonn asks, pointing his chin at it since he has both arms wrapped around Byrdie.
Makhi leans across the table before I can pull the diary away, drags it toward him, and flips it open. “It’s boring. Just…” His voice trails off, and he mutters a curse under his breath.
I slam the book shut before dragging it back to my side of the table.
Vonn’s eyes bounce from me to Makhi and back again as Makhi scrubs a hand over his mouth and sits back in his seat, re-crossing his arms. “Well. I wasn’t expecting to see that.”
“See what?” Byrdie scrunches her nose, adorably confused.
“Nothing,” I say as Makhi says, “His dad was a bigger asshole than I knew.”
Makhi grew up in Massey. We saw each other at school, but a kid who grew up in a trailer park outside of town was never going to be someone my parents wanted me to hang around. We didn’t become friends until I came back to Massey after college, and I found an ally in someone looking to escape their own toxic parents, and who took me as I am.
After a brief silence, Nance stands from her seat and crosses the kitchen to the refrigerator. She’s wasting her time. She must know as well as I do that none of us are interested in eating. But that’s Nance. She’s always shown her love through food.
I feel Byrdie looking at me, but I don’t turn my head to meet her gaze.
I focus my attention on the book in front of me that I’m reluctant to open. “If money didn’t get him what he wanted, he liked to use his fists.”
“Soup?” Nance calls out from the stove. “I can make mushroom or potato soup for lunch.”
“Who the fuck likes mushroom soup?” Makhi mutters, face twisting in disgust.
“And he used those fists on you,” Vonn says quietly, getting to the heart of why I’m so reluctant to open the pages of this book and dig into a childhood I hated. I’d be seeing my unhappy childhood through my dad’s eyes. Through my abuser’s eyes, and I’m not sure I’m ready or willing to do that now or ever.
I nod. “It’s how this family has always been. My uncle is the same. Buy people, and they’ll do what you want. If money doesn’t work, threats and violence always will.”
“But if that book was your dad's, why would your uncle want it?” Byrdie asks quietly.
I lift my gaze from the book, and her eyes are soft with sympathy.
Not pity, as I’d feared. She’s hurting for me, which makes it easier to meet her gaze. I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me.
“They were closer when they were younger,” I explain. “Then my grandpa died. My dad got everything, and my uncle got nothing.”
“A hundred grand is not nothing,” Makhi says with a snort.
