“Shit.”
“You could say that. His girlfriend who happened to be my mother’s best friend since college.”
“Oh God, Nate.” Once again he took me in his arms. “How horrible for your poor mother.”
“It gets worse.” Now that I’d told the ugly truth, I couldn’t stop speaking. “We only found out the night he had a heart attack and died in her bed.”
Horrified didn’t begin to describe Press’s facial expression. Sorrow, pity, anger…so many emotions flashed in his glittering dark eyes.
“I can’t believe someone would do that to her best friend while she was so sick. And your father…God, Nate, what a nightmare for all of you.”
Curiously, I didn’t have that visceral response close to hatred I experienced whenever I thought about it. It was as if talking to Press had freed me.
“It was. But mostly for my mother. Here she was, just finished with her chemo treatments, losing her husband of fifty years, and she had to find out not only that he’d been cheating on her all the time she was sick—six years—but with her closest friend. The woman she considered a sister. We called her Aunt Jillian and spent every summer together. It was betrayal of the worst kind.”
Presley stiffened next to me. “Because you were all so close. I can’t imagine how your mother must’ve felt…what she had to go through.”
“Believe it or not, Jillian wanted to talk to my mother. To explain.” I snorted, and Press, now white and silent, sat motionless. “How does she think there could ever be an explanation for sleeping with a married man?”
“I don’t have an answer for that. It’s not like she didn’t know.”
“She knew exactly what she was doing.”
“And your father? What do you think about his place in this? He’s not an innocent party.”
“That bastard,” I swore viciously. “To do this to my mother, sick as she was, takes a special kind of devil. He couldn’t stand weakness in anyone, never mind that it was the mother of his children and someone he’d loved for most of his life. He’d pretend to care and then go get his rocks off with his girlfriend. Jillian said he was overwrought and she was offering him comfort. I’ll bet she was. Comfort, my ass. She must’ve always wanted him, and when my mother was at her most vulnerable, she swooped in like a vulture and grabbed hold of him.”
“Both of them were at fault.”
“She knew he was married, yet she fucked him anyway. What kind of person does that?” I didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I’ll tell you—the kind of person who has no respect for themselves. The lowest type of person.”
“Nate, I get the point.”
I ended my rant with a grimace. “Sorry. As you can see, I get very worked up over this. Now do you see why faithfulness is so important to me?” I grabbed him and held him close, feeling him tremble. “I know I don’t have to worry with you. I see now you’d never do that to me.”
“Never,” he whispered against my cheek. “I would never do that to you.”
Relieved to be free of the burden of my secret, I flopped down on the bed. “Since my father’s death, I’m different. I used to be carefree and happy, but everything changed. I keep people at arm’s length and have a hard time with trust.”
“I can understand why. It’s hard to trust when the inner circle of your life has been torn apart.”
“Not only that.” And here I faltered, wondering if I could say these final words. It might change everything between us, or it might open us up to something new I hadn’t expected to find.
“What?” He tucked a leg underneath him and cocked his head.
“I idolized him. Even though he didn’t accept me, really, I couldn’t change how I felt. He was larger than life, the man I looked up to since I was a child. And now that my illusion was shattered, was I also living in a glass house? Who am I really if the man I loved and cared about wasn’t the person I thought?” I closed my eyes, unwilling to see Presley’s expression of disappointment. “I don’t know where I’m going or who I am anymore. And it keeps me up at night, thinking, ‘Why does it matter?’” I cracked open my eyes and peered at him through the fringes of my lashes to see dismay on his face.
“Nate, no. You can’t believe that. You have your brother and his family. They need you.”
I rolled on my side. “No, not really. Ethan has Allie and the kids. They’re wonderful and have kept him grounded through all this. Plus, he’s a step removed, kind of, because he was out of the house so young. He and my father were more like business partners at the firm than father and son.”
Stubborn man that he was, Press continued to push at me. He’d be interesting to watch in a courtroom. “I don’t believe that for a second. I’m sure your brother loves you as much as you do him.”
“We’ve gotten much closer, but since our father’s death, I’ve pushed him away. I don’t really like the person I’ve become, but I feel caught on a wheel, stuck and unable to get off for fear of falling.”
“How about you reach out and ask? I’m here and willing.”
His slow smile lit up the corners of my darkness, and I wondered if he could be persuaded to have sex again. I reached for him, but he seemed hell-bent on talking.
