Cassidy was already out of her seat. “Yes, we can give you privacy if you need it.”
“No, it’s fine.” I took a drink of my beer, fortifying myself for what the answer might be. And whether I’d be happy or not at the response. It was time to tell them because keeping it to myself wasn’t going to resolve anything. “Dad said he’s not my dad.”
The spoon Gunner was using clattered into the pan, like a bell clanging through steam and spice. The kind of sound that snapped a room into stillness. “He said fucking what?”
Lily gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Cassidy’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Wilder…”
Nash burst out laughing, not the response I was expecting. “Please tell me you didn’t believe him.”
My chest clenched as his face resurfaced; red and contorted as the words spilling from his mouth like bile, thick and burning, aimed to rot whatever they touched. “He said he caught Mom with another guy nine months before I was born.” I scoffed. “Then he joked it was wild timing.”
“He’s a piece of shit,” Gunner growled. He turned the burner off and pushed the pan away.
Lily shook her head. “Wild, sweetie, you can’t possibly believe that. God knows why, but your mom loved your dad. More importantly, she loved you boys with everything she had.”
“Lily’s right,” Cassidy added firmly. My guess is she had too much integrity to do what that man is suggesting.”
Nash took Lily’s hand and kissed it, his eyes on me. “The girls are right, Wild. And that bastard has no integrity or kindness in his blackened heart.”
“You seem more pissed about it than I am.”
Nausea swam through my gut. Did I really care whether Michael Miller was my dad or not? That was probably a no, but I did care whether they were my full brothers. I did care whether my mom had broken her wedding vows. If she had it meant she wasn’t the woman I thought she was. The woman I’d used as a yard stick for my own morals. The woman my brothers had looked up to. The one who they’d told me many times had taught them how to treat a woman—with respect. And so, they’d taught me.
Always be honest.
Never string her along.
Be upfront with her about what you want.
The last one made me want to punch myself in the nuts, because there was no way I was being upfront with Tally. There was so much I wasn’t telling her about my feelings for her. How they were bigger than anything that we’d agreed to. Fuckingfeelings, who the hell was I?
“Don’t get me wrong,” Gunner said, joining us at the table. “I’d love to find out he wasn’t my dad.”
“What’s the problem then?” I asked.
“The fact that he’s a fucking liar and thinks it’s okay to sully Mom’s reputation.” He shook his head. “Not that I’d blame her.” He leaned his forearms on the table and raised an eyebrow. “I also know you, Wild. You’re a sensitive little soul,” he gave me a crooked smile, “and it’ll fuck with your head.”
“He’s not wrong,” Nash agreed. He then got out of his seat. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” I looked at Lily as my brother disappeared out of the kitchen. “Where’s he going?”
She shrugged. “No idea, sweetie.”
We waited, the air heavy with the smell of garlic and something sharper, tension maybe, as Gunner’s jaw clenched tighter with every tick of the unseen clock. Cassidy watched him carefully, knowing how any conversation of Dad boiled his piss. The noise of drawers opening from the office had me wondering what the hell Nash was doing. Finally, he emerged with a photograph in his hand.
He put it down in front of me, tapping it with his index finger. “Take a look at that.”
“What is it?”
“Err a photograph,” he retorted with heavy sarcasm.
“I know that,” I picked it up and looked closely at it, “of what?” Angling back, I held it up and looked at it from more distance. “I don’t remember ever having a hobby horse. And if I did, where is it? I’d have loads of fun with that.”
“You didn’t.” Nash linked his hands at the back of his neck, chilled personified. “That’s Dad when he was seven,” Nash said, nodding at the grainy photo with its edges curled and color faded. Just like the truth he’d always refused to give.
“Really?” I peered closer. “Everyone always says I looked like Mom, which is why I’m so damn pretty.”
