If I had my way I’d take a match and a gallon of petrol to the whole fucking place, but I guessed they needed to be close to where their daughter had spent her final years.
I wasn’t sure if I could ever go into that house again, or face those people. Hell, I couldn’t even face my own daughter.
I hadn’t seen Hope since the evening Lee was shot…The evening Cam was killed.
I couldn’t see her…couldn’t look at her.
If I did, I would break. It would be too real, it would become my reality.
I felt guilty as shit for thinking like this, but the longer I put off seeing Hope, the longer I could pretend that this was some fucked up nightmare.
If I saw Hope, the veracity of Lee not recovering, would wreck me.
I couldn’t raise her on my own, I wouldn’t be able to.
There was a knock on the door, and I sagged in relief.
“Come in,” I said, thankful to have a distraction from my thoughts.
“Hey, man,” Derek said, closing the door quietly. “I brought you some clean clothes, a toothbrush, and your charger,” he said, passing me a small duffel bag.
“Thanks man.”
I stored the bag under my chair.
“How is…everything?”
Derek sighed, and plopped into a chair on the other side of Lee’s bed.
“Fucked up as hell, dude, Ted is in bits, Mora is worse. She keeps crying and asking for you.”
My head snapped up. “For me?”
“Yeah, she keeps demanding that she talk to you, says she has something important to tell you. Something you need to know. She rambles on and on about how the truth has to be revealed for a perfect match. Ted is at his wits end with her. He’s stopped her from coming here. Poor woman, the grief is driving her crazy.”
“I bet.”
I had a fair idea of what Mrs. Frey wanted me to know, and her telling me how it was my fault Cam was dead couldn’t make me feel any worse than I already did.
“They were sitting in the kitchen, looking at some brochures of caskets this morning, and…they asked me to…Oh, Kyle, I couldn’t look at it man.” Derek shuddered, and slumped forward. “They kept asking for my opinion on things, like her favorite songs, and which flowers she preferred. I couldn’t deal, you know, told them I had to come check on you.”
“Are you dealing, Derek?”
Derek looked up and me, his eyes full of tears.
“I’m dealing,” he said in a gruff voice. “It would be a lot fucking easier if they went and asked Mike about shit like that.”
I didn’t know what to say, but my heart fucking bled for my best friend.
Derek loved Cam, he always had, even when she went and screwed him over.
I couldn’t imagine what it felt like, to have to sit in a room, with the parents of the girl who had left me for another man, broken my heart and have to help organize her funeral.
“You can stay at the hotel, if it’s easier,” I offered.
“Thanks man, but I have to face this, I need the closure.” Derek shook his head, and cleared his throat. “Speaking of facing things…”
“Derek, don’t,” I warned, my shoulders stiffened.
I couldn’t deal with this right now.
“Linda has been calling me, non-stop. You’re gonna have to see her, Kyle.”
“I can’t,” I growled, blocking out the feeling of guilt in my stomach.
“You have to,” he pressed. “She is your daughter.”
.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kyle
The door opened, and I stiffened.
There was only one person who came into this hospital room without knocking, and that person made my skin fucking crawl.
“Morning, Darling,” Jimmy Bennett said, as he walked over to Lee and kissed her on the forehead.
I had to hold onto Lee’s hand a little tighter to keep myself in my chair.
Even though I’d paid for him to fly here, I still struggled with keeping my cool around him.
The man was built like a brick shit house, and the knowledge that he used this strength to wield control over Lee as a child, caused my body to thrum with rage.
Every time I looked at his beefy arms, and huge motherfucking chest, I was hit with an insane urge to return the beatings he’d given my girl.
“Carter,” he acknowledged, nodding in my direction as he pulled up a chair on the other side of his daughter and sat, eyes narrowed, directed at me.
I nodded stiffly. “Jimmy.”
Jimmy didn’t like me.
He didn’t have to say it, it was obvious in the way he moved around me, or the way he watched me like a hawk with those cold gray eyes of his.
It was a fair assumption to presume that the angry energy I had pulsating towards him, was being returned in waves.