Teach Me Like That (LMLT Book 2) (17 page)

There are things about me she doesn’t know. Things no one knows. I know it’s shitty of me to be angry about her past, but the lie about her parents… that’s not okay on any level.

She tells everyone that.

Her mother’s words ring in my ears. So she’s what? Embarrassed. Hell, after meeting Cindy, I can see why. That woman is a train wreck and a half. I hated leaving Lexi there to fend for herself, but I’d say things I’d regret if I stayed.

I make it to my house in record time. The only thing I have on my mind right now is researching her grandparents to see if she lied about their deaths also. At this point, I don’t know what’s been the truth and what has been lies.

I fire up my computer a second after walking through the door. I carry the laptop to the kitchen for a bottle of water, then settle on the couch with it on my lap. I type her name and ‘car accident’ into the search engine. The results populate immediately.

My eyes land on a newspaper headline “College Graduate Sole Survivor in Fatal Drunk Driving Crash.”

My hand shakes as it hovers over the link. I close my eyes and pray that this isn’t the accident my uncle Scott was involved in. My anger at her lies suddenly dissipates when I realize that my drunken uncle, who killed three people while driving drunk three years ago, could be the one who murdered her family.

I swallow roughly and click on the link. I begin to read the article:

A drunk driver claimed the lives of two people this morning after a wrong-way collision on Interstate 90. Clive and Mona Carter were pronounced dead at the scene. Jake Bellows, of Orchard Prairie…

I breathe a sigh of relief. Everyone, me included, feels enough guilt over not doing something about Scott’s drinking. I couldn’t handle it if he was the one who ended her grandparents’ lives. I continue reading.

…walked away from the scene with minor injuries and a blood alcohol content of 0.14, nearly twice the legal limit. An unidentified female, wearing a graduation gown, was pulled from the wreckage and transported to an area hospital. More updates to come.

I scrub my hand down my face and close the lid to my laptop. I can’t read any more than what I’ve already seen. I lie back on the couch and close my eyes. From the date on the article, I know the accident happened three years ago. As a matter of fact, three years to the day of when she stripped naked in her den last week. I knew something was off for her that day.

Three years ago, and I still have the urge to rush back to her house and comfort her for her loss.

As much as I don’t want to be around people right now, my mother would never let me live down missing a Sunday dinner. There is an unspoken rule, that if you are in town, you are at Mom and Dad’s at six on Sunday evening.

The only one I’ve missed was last year. I only got the reprieve because I had the flu and was banished from the house since London was pregnant and the girls were so susceptible to germs.

I don’t bother to knock as I enter my parents’ house. Squealing and screaming greet me just like it does every week. I grin from ear to ear as I turn into the living room and see London walking around with Easton in her arms.

“Here,” Kadin says stopping me with a hand on my arm. “You have to wear this.”

I take the surgical mask from his hands and gladly put it on my face. Just the air surrounding him is lighter than the last time I saw him. I knew Easton had been released Friday, but this is the first time I’ve seen them all together since I picked the girls up and carried them to school several weeks ago.

“How’s he doing?” I ask walking up to London and touching my nephew’s foot with a gentle hand.

“Good,” she answers. “He still gets tired easily, but he’s much better than he has been.”

She goes back to walking around with him, rocking him gently as he drinks a bottle.

“The masks?” I ask Kadin.

He shrugs. “She thinks we all need them. I’ll never question her instincts again.”

I nod, knowing exactly what he means. I have to wonder how long he’s going to beat himself up for not trusting her when Easton first got sick.

“Oh,” my mom says stopping short in the living room entrance. “You’re alone?”

“Just like every week, Mom.”

“But I thought you’d bring Lexi.” She’s practically whining, and the disappointed look on her face is almost comical.

“I told you. We’re just friends.”

“
She
said you were friends,” she corrects. “I read between the lines, and I know there’s more to it than that.”

I watch with grateful eyes as London walks out of the room to lay the sleeping Easton down in the nursery my mom has here. The last thing I need is a bigger audience watching this mess.

“There were no lines to read between, Mom.
Friends.
That’s it.” Kadin chuckles beside me, and I want to pop in the back of the head. He’s having too much fun right now and needs to be knocked down a peg or two.

She narrows her eyes at me. “
You
brought her
here
.”

“And?”

“You never bring girls here unless it is serious.”

“Serious? I’ve never been serious about a girl,” I lie. No one in my family but Kadin knows about Rhonda, and I’m not explaining that shit now.

“That girl in high school,” my mom prods.

“Rachel?” I ask. “You insisted we come over for prom pictures. She was here under duress.”

She huffs indignantly.

“Still, you brought Lexi over.” She will not give up.

“She was in the truck, Mom. She was helping with the girls. Nothing else,” I insist.

The words fall out of my mouth, and I mentally want to slap my own face.

My mom finally leaves it alone, for now. I know we’ll revisit this conversation while we’re all prisoners around the dinner table.

“Just friends? Really?” Kadin is getting a kick out of this apparently.

I sigh and walk to the liquor cabinet. Pouring three fingers of a dark scotch into a tumbler, I turn back to him. “Lexi Carter has more drama than a season of Game of Thrones,” I tell him and take a seat on the couch.

“Every woman has drama, Kegan.” Kadin sits on the cushion beside me. “You just have to decide if she’s worth getting tangled up in the middle of it.”

I laugh and toss back the remainder of my drink. “No woman is worth the drama.”

He looks over at the doorway where London is walking back in with the girls. “You couldn’t be more wrong,” he says softly. “Some women are worth all of the drama.”

I watch his eyes as they soften looking at his wife across the room.

Before I can respond to him, Dad sticks his head in the door. “Hey, son. Where’s Lexi?”

I groan as my brother belts out a laugh beside me. This is going to be one long ass dinner.

An hour and four glasses of scotch later, my mother is still going on about Lexi. I can’t really argue with her observations.

She’s very pretty. Truth.

She’s cordial
. Another point well made, unless you’ve got her pinned against the wall in a dark club. There’s nothing cordial about her then.
Your dad and I talked about her for an hour after you left the other day.

She’ll be an amazing wife and mother. Truth
… hold on… what?

“That’s not even on my radar, Mom.” I toss back another glass and ignore the scowl my brother is giving me. “I’m never getting married.” I look over at the girls who are using their mashed potatoes for lipstick. “Kids really aren’t my thing.”

London’s chuckle draws my attention. “What?” I ask her.

“Nothing,” she says with a shrug and a grin.

“I get it. You and Kadin are great parents and partners. That’s not me. Kadin was born to be a dad. That’s not everyone’s goal in life.”

Kadin leans in and whispers in her ear. The light giggle and the pink that flushes her cheeks make me wish for a fraction of a second that Lexi was here. I’d much rather be whispering salacious things in her ear than listening to my family drone on about settling down.

“You’re thirty-three, Kegan. You don’t want to start a family too late,” my mom says cutting into my mental escape plans.

“No family, Mom. Those,” I point to the girls, “and Easton are the only kids I need in my life.”

I pour a large glass of wine and drink almost the full glass. My parents don’t allow hard liquor on the table, but drinking a full bottle of wine is acceptable.

I should’ve thought about my little Sunday evening drinking binge. Now I’m going to be stuck at this house all night, which means I’ll get to have the same conversation again over breakfast tomorrow.

Lexi

I groan and roll over in bed. My head is pounding, and my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with dirty gym socks. Drinking all day and half the night isn’t as easy to recover from as it was in college. I know I sound like a broken record. I think the same damn thoughts every time I wake up from a night of overindulging.

Deciding just to sleep it off, I turn to my stomach and shove my hands under my pillow. My eyes widen when my arm hits something that’s not supposed to be under there. I sit up as fast as my hungover body can maneuver and lift my pillow. I’m alone in the room, but it doesn’t stop the heat from rushing to my cheeks.

I shoot a look at the door to make sure it’s closed before turning my eyes back to my purple vibrator that I must have stashed under my pillow last night. Did I mention that a drunken Lexi is also a super horny Lexi? That’s how I ended up pregnant in college. Hunter and I were both drunk. Going without protection seemed like a good idea in our inebriated state. It was the only time I made that mistake. Hunter is another story. He had two other girls pregnant before I graduated from college.

It’s also why I didn’t stop Kegan when he pulled my panties off at the club. As angry as I was with him, the thrill of getting it on with a super hot guy in such a public place was a total turn on. I need to reevaluate my life because the more I reflect on my actions, the more I realize I’m a freak.

I normally wouldn’t feel shame about finding my plastic boyfriend under my pillow, but I know that I’m not the only one in the house. My mother is lurking around here somewhere. The idea of facing her again today makes me want to go downstairs and grab another bottle of wine from the fridge.

I put Big Ben back in the bedside table and head for the bathroom. Showering and possibly purging my stomach are the only two things that are going to make me feel even half-way decent today.

It’s over an hour later when I muster enough strength to leave my room. A wide smile spreads across my face when I realize that the guest bedroom is empty. I pray my mother left, which means it will be another six to eight months before she comes back begging for money.

I close the door for now, even though I know I’ll have to strip the bed and begin walking down the stairs. A noise from the back of the house makes me frown. The sight of my mother rifling through my grandparents’ room makes me see red.

“What are you doing?” I ask from the doorway.

“What have you done with her jewelry, Lexi?” I watch as she drops the small drawer she pulled out of the vanity. Thankfully, the carpet keeps the antique from shattering.

“You mean the stuff you didn’t steal the last time you were here?”

“She should’ve left all of this stuff to me,” she says moving on to another drawer.

“But she didn’t. You can stop destroying the room, Cindy. You won’t find a damn thing in here worth money.”

She slams the drawer closed and glares at me.

“What? You’ve already sold it all?”

I shake my head in disbelief. “No. I put all of their valuables in a safety deposit box at the bank. I knew you’d come back eventually, and I wasn’t going to risk you selling them for a fraction of their value.”

She sits on the bed, defeated by my news. “You’ve ruined my life,” she mutters.

“Broken record, Cindy,” I say turning out of the room. “Get over your bitterness.”

Unfortunately, she follows me into the kitchen.

Other than her heavy, frustrated breathing, silence fills the room. There are no construction noises coming from next door. It’s Labor Day which is the only reason I’m off on a Monday. It seems Kegan gives his crew the day off as well.