Beneath His Darkness (Healing Hearts #3) (30 page)

Tucker throws his hands in the air and walks back into the studio, not waiting for any response from me.  I don’t know if any of what he said is true.  His words echo through my head. 
I lost my mother and was abandoned by my father in the same fucking week.

It has to be a lie.  I saw Mikos at his play.  Gloria told me of her talks with Mikos about Tucker.  He left me to have a family with his other son.  How dare he stand here and lie to my face because he didn’t like me calling him out on the family bullshit?

How the fuck did a piece of shit like Tucker Stavros become my brother?

Chapter Thirty Two

Cammie

Well, the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak.  Tucker and Grant know they’re brothers.  I fretted the entire time I was in Ohio over how I was going to get Grant to tell Tucker, but all my worrying was for nothing.  I got back to Vancouver to find out the showdown had already happened.  Both of them came to me.  I was surprised Tucker did.  Not because we aren’t friends, but because he knows how close Grant and I are.  Um…well, maybe he doesn’t know HOW close we are.

I was thrilled that the secret was out in the open.  I figured the healing process could start, but these are two of the most stubborn asses I’ve ever known.  They continue to treat each other more like enemies than family.  I want to punch them both in the junk and while they’re bent over, smack their heads together.  It might knock some sense into them.

I’ve been texting Tucker’s girlfriend Adriana to see if there’s anything we can do to help with this divide.  She’s not sure how she feels about Grant, but she did say she’d like to see Tucker mend fences with his family.  I figured she’d feel this way, so I’m glad her man insisted we start getting to know each other, even if it is just through electronics for now.  It’s been weeks of her and I conversing and we’ve gotten nowhere with the lugheads.  We’re getting frustrated with their lack of compromise.

Grant feels that Tucker is a selfish asshole who lies to his face and he needs to lose some of his perfect lifestyle to understand real pain.  Tucker thinks Grant is a know-it-all, self-indulgent, whiney piss-ant who has a mommy complex.  Yeah, they talk real sweet about each other.

I’ve managed, with Eddie’s help, to get them to go to dinner twice.  Both times were a catastrophe.  They’re so busy blaming the other for what they missed out on in their lives, they aren’t seeing that they’re missing out on each other now.  Ugh!  They make me want to scream.

And, Grant and I, we haven’t had sex since we celebrated Christmas.  I know I never asked him whether it could happen again, but I sure as hell was hoping it would be a reoccurring event.  Sex with Grant Andrews is definitely an event.  I saw stars when I orgasmed and I want to reach for them next time.  I have a feeling there will be no sex until some of his shit with Tucker gets resolved.  He’s moodier than a teenage girl getting her first period.

Today is Valentine’s Day.  I thought Grant and I could have a movie night, but those have been impacted by the Tucker tension, too.  Instead of cuddling up next to the man I really want to strip down and lick like my favorite piece of chocolate candy, I’m on my couch, downing a box of conversation hearts I picked up at the store.

“Why, yes, I’ll be yours,” I say snidely to the purple heart before I pop it into my mouth.

Who created this stupid ass Hallmark holiday anyway?

Grant told me no movie night tonight because it’s Valentine’s Day and he didn’t want to send the wrong message.  Wrong message?  I wanted to tell him I’m not looking for flowers or chocolates, not jewelry either.  I’d be happy if he bent me over his couch and showed me how it felt with him entering me from behind.

Seeing that man in all his naked glory is a sight that is permanently etched in my memory.  I’ve tried deleting the file so I can stop being hot and bothered every time I’m in his presence, but apparently, there’s a million fucking backups.  I’m so entirely screwed over this man.

Well, I want to be screwed by him.

Isn’t that the problem?

Chapter Thirty Three

Grant

It’s been over three months since Tucker confronted me about being his brother and today he’s taking me to meet our father.  It’s Easter and I picked this day on purpose.  I wanted Tucker to miss out on being with his girlfriend and whatever they had planned for the holiday.  Although we’ve had these months of knowing we’re siblings, we haven’t formed a relationship.  We hardly tolerate each other.  He refuses to see how he ruined my life, but I will make him understand. 

We’re in Kansas, in what I’m told is my grandmother’s living room.  There are pictures of Tucker all over, so I know it’s his grandmother, but I don’t feel any tie to this place.  My nerves are starting to get to me.  Mikos is supposed to be here in a few minutes and I have no idea how to handle this meeting.

“What do I say to him?”

I didn’t mean for the words to come out, but there they are, hanging in the awkward silence between Tucker and me.  He looks at me and I can feel his unease.  I want to tell him to forget it, but then he speaks.

“I think you should ask him what you want answered the most…even if you’re afraid of what he’ll say.”

I nod at him and start pacing.  I’m kind of blown away at how good that advice was and how civil we just were to each other.  That was close to how brothers should talk to each other.

A knock sounds out at the door and I stop walking.  My eyes try to see through the wood, try to give me some kind of warning as to what I’ll be dealing with, but I’m met with solid oak.  Tucker’s hand comes down on my shoulder and I jump.  “I’m going to bring him in here and then I’m going to sit in the kitchen while you two talk.  If you need me, I’ll be right in there.”

He points to a room adjacent to where I’m standing.  I nod, unable to find words.  He smiles before walking away to let our father in.  I don’t see Mikos when Tucker opens the door, but I hear him thank Tucker for bringing me.  It seems weird to hear yourself talked about like an object.

Tucker walks Mikos up to me and introduces him.  I flinch when he says father.  I can’t help it.  I’m twenty-three years old and I don’t know this man.  He’s never been anything to me.  Before Tucker leaves the room, he reminds me he’ll be in the kitchen.  I don’t know why, but it’s reassuring.

It takes a few minutes to find my voice, but when I do, I ask the question I need the answer to.  “How could you walk away and never look back?”

He seems regretful as he tells me about his wife, her battles with cancer, how he thought he was the reason she got it a second time.  I listen to his stories about being a drunk for years, and how he tried to kill himself with booze because he felt he should never have been a father.  At the end of the story, although I feel bad for his losses, it doesn’t answer one thing for me.

“You agreed to leave me before you knew she was sick again.  She sounds like a wonderful woman, like a woman who would have understood.  Not like the whore who raised me.”

“You will not speak of your mother that way, do you hear me?”  I can’t believe he’s pulling the parental tone on me now, after being absent my whole fucking life.

“She’s a whore and I can’t believe you don’t agree with me after what she did to you.”

“I may not have raised you, but my blood flows through your veins and I will not stand here and listen to you call your mother names!  You show some respect, boy!  That woman raised you.  She loves you.  She may not have done everything right, but at the end of every day, you are everything to her.”

My blood starts to boil at his blind faith in the slut who raised me.  I was a goddamn science experiment that finally wielded a child for her.

“Done everything right?” I sputter.  “She fucked men behind my dad’s back to make me.  Yes, men.  Did you think you were the only one?  Think again,
Dad
.”

Judging by the look on his face, Mommy dearest left out that little detail in the story of my creation.  Well, I guess it’s time Daddy knows the truth of how I came to be.

“You were baby daddy number three.  The first guy was a bust.  Didn’t work.  The second guy was so drunk, his dick was limp, but you…you were the fucking stallion who got her knocked up.  Ding, ding, ding, tell the man what he’s won!  A twenty-three year old son who’s completely fucked up because his mom is a whore and his dad died hating him when he found out his son wasn’t his.  Don’t stand there telling me to respect her.  She ruined my life.”

“She GAVE you life!” he roars at me, surprising and angering me all over again.  I watch him scratch his hand down his face.  “We all make mistakes, Grant.  I made mistakes, too.  I walked away from both of my sons.  I can’t ever make that right, not completely, but I’m here.  I’m trying.  Life is short.  Don’t let hatred consume you so much that one day she’s gone and you never get to tell her that, deep down, you love her.  When people are gone, you can’t tell them all the things you wished you had said.”

He’s really going to sit here and still defend her?

“You two would make a good pair, spouting about how much you want to make amends.  Did you ever think that maybe you can’t fix things?  Did you ever think maybe you broke things beyond repair?”

I can see that he’s about to either start yelling again or give me a line about how sorry he is.  Either way, I don’t want to hear the bullshit.  I start to turn away.

“Excuse me.”  The sweetest voice sounds out behind me and I turn back around to a smiling face on an elderly woman around Cammie’s height.  Her salt and peppered hair is pulled back in a bun.  “You don’t know me, but it sounds like you’re going to leave and never come back and I’m not missing my only chance to meet my grandson.”

She walks straight up to me and wraps her arms around me.  For whatever reason, I don’t stop her.  I look over to Tucker who is walking into the room with a gigantic smile on his face, nodding at me.  It’s all the cue I need.  I wrap my arms around this woman who feels like home to me and soak in her warmth.

When she pulls away, I do something that probably shocks everyone in the room.  “I’m sorry for the offensive words you heard me say, ma’am.”

I watch Tucker almost pass out at my words and Mikos has tears in his eyes.  My grandmother is looking at me with love when she says, “Poppycock.  You’ll call me Grams, just like everyone else.  You are my grandson, after all.”

I smile at her and actually feel it.  Aside from when I’m with Cammie, I don’t ever feel true emotions, but here with my grandmother’s hand on my back, my father and brother in the same house, I have to wonder if I have the chance to finally have a family someday.

Chapter Thirty Four

Grant

It’s been a couple weeks since I met my father and I’ve been a fucking wreck.  Other than going to work, I’ve been holed up in my apartment with the lights off and the shades drawn, trying to figure my shit out.  I thought I knew who Tucker was.  I used that knowledge to justify my actions.  All the horrible crimes I’ve committed were in reaction to him taking the love I felt was owed to me.

But he was abandoned, too.

Cammie kept telling me he was a good guy.  She told me to look past my hate, see my brother for the man he is, and stop wasting time.  When that didn’t work, she told me everything that made him a great friend and why he’s like a brother to her.  I never wanted to hear it.  I thought it was her ability to see good in everyone, even when they didn’t deserve it.  Shit, she thinks I’m worthy of her.  My innocent, naïve buttercup.  That’s what I thought, anyway.

It turns out, she was right in many ways about my brother and now I’m struggling to wrap my mind around that concept.  I have spent years warped by the hatred I felt for him, allowing my whole spirit to become consumed by revenge.  The plan I set in motion is weeks from coming to fruition and it’s too late to stop it.  Not only will it crush Tucker, but the entire crew of
Facing Extinction
.  That means Cammie, too.  What the hell have I done?

I stare into the shadows of my living room, trying to find solace in the darkness like I used to, but all I find is emptiness.  I created this shell of a life for myself.  It’s what I deserve for the destruction I’m bringing down on so many good people.  I can go to Tucker, tell him what I’ve done.  There’s no way for our show to stop the fall out.  We can’t rewrite the episodes, create sets, and reshoot in time to avoid catastrophe, but maybe he’ll know what to do.  I owe him at least this much.  He never deserved what I’ve done.  He lost enough.  I was just too blind to see.

My cell bleeps and I cringe.  I do every time I get a message.  Davyd hasn’t touched me in months, but I know it’s only a matter of time before he shows his hand.  He’s plotting something.  I need to end his game.  It’s sucking the life from me.  I look at my phone and breathe a sigh of relief, but only for a minute.

Cammie: what time r u picking me up?

Tucker’s benefit.  I’d forgotten about it.  I’m not in the mood to go and the last thing I need tonight is one more reminder of the good man my brother is.  Besides, I need to start pulling away from Cammie.  It will be best for her.  She’ll hate me soon enough anyway, when she finds out I’m responsible for the bomb that will destroy her world.

Sorry.  Not feeling well.  Hope u have a great time.

I wait for her to send a text back, but she doesn’t.  She’s been getting more and more frustrated with me as the weeks go on.  I know she was hoping we’d become more after we slept together, but she doesn’t understand that I’m protecting her.  If she knew everything about me, she wouldn’t be so quick to jump into my pants.  Her silence hurts and I hate that it does, but I know it’s for the best.

Separating myself from her helps me to make a decision I should have made a long time ago.  This will not go over well, but it has to be done.  Grabbing my cell again, I type out a text I know will start a war.