“Yeah.” I nodded. “Night, guys.”
“Night, bro.” Vincent sat back down and opened up his textbook. I looked over to Jared, who was staring at me with a slightly apologetic expression in his eyes.
“Night, Logan.” He offered me a peace smile and I walked back to him and gave him a quick hug.
“I know you got my back bro, it’s okay,” I whispered into his ear before walking out of the room. I tried to hurry past the living room, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“Logan, is that you?” my dad called out to me, and I opened the door and peered up.
“What’s up, Dad?” I stood at the door and avoided eye contact with him. I didn’t want to look into his vacant bloodshot eyes tonight. I didn’t want to talk about Mom or hear stories about his life. Or be shouted at or questioned. I just couldn’t deal with it.
“I was just watching this movie, and the actress, she looked like your mom.”
“Yeah?” I nodded and looked at the TV screen. He was watching some old movie on AMC.
“She had long blonde hair like your mom, though she wasn’t as beautiful.”
“Okay.”
“Your mom was the most beautiful woman in the world.” His voice cracked and I finally looked over at him. He was lying down on the couch and there were tears streaming out of his eyes.
“She was beautiful.”
“Why did she have to die?” He looked up at me with a pained expression. “She promised me we would grow old together. She promised me she would stand with me through thick and thin, good and bad. But she lied.”
“She didn’t lie, Dad.” I ran my hands through my hair. “She died.”
“It was my fault.” He sat up, and reached to grab an empty beer can from the pile of cans at his feet.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I sighed. “She had cancer.”
“Have you ever been in love, son?” He looked at me searchingly.
“No.”
“When you’re in love, that person becomes a part of you. What happens to them, happens to you, and you do everything you can to protect them.” He crushed the beer can in his hand. “And I didn’t protect her.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Dad.”
“I wasn’t the man for her.” He shook his head. “Sometimes when you love someone, you have to know when to let go. Sometimes no matter how much you love someone, you have to let go, because even your best person is not the best person for them.”
“She loved you, Dad.” I tried to comfort him, but my mind immediately went to Maddie. She liked me a lot, and I liked her. I really liked her, more than I was willing to admit. And a part of me wondered if I was just fooling myself. Could any of this ever work? Even if we made the million dollars, I’d still be a Martelli and a thief. And she would be Maddie: beautiful, intelligent, wonderful, caring Maddie. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to give her the life that she deserved. The life that I wanted for her.
“But where did that get her?”
“It got her three children.”
“She wanted to leave me.” He threw the crushed can at the TV. “She wanted to leave me and take you boys.”
“I know.”
“I told her she would have to kill me first.” He picked up another can from the ground. “Turns out, it was she who died.” He started sobbing. “What did I do, Logan? Where did I go wrong? I sit back and look at my life, and I don’t understand. Where did I go wrong? How did this become my life?”
“I don’t know.” I bit my lip as I stared at him. But in my mind all I could think was, it was the mayor, the mayor did this to you, Dad. And a part of me broke all over again. How could we ever get through this?
“She was in love with someone else when she started dating me.” It took a few seconds for his words to resonate in my brain, and I froze as I realized what he had just said.
“What do you mean?” I frowned and walked closer to him, so I could look into his face as he spoke.
“She was dating someone else. Someone she was in love with.” He laughed. “But I loved her, and I knew she had to be mine.”
“What do you mean?” My voice rose. “Who was she dating?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He frowned as he took me in. “Get me a beer.”
“There is no more beer.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” His tone changed and his face grew red. “I need a fucking beer, you fucking idiot.”
“You need to go to rehab, Dad.”
“I don’t need to go to fucking rehab. I need a fucking beer.”
“Dad.” I took a deep breath. “Who was Mom dating when you met her?”
“James.” He laughed. “She was fucking dating James. But I got her in the end.” He smirked. “Serves his pompous ass right. The rich guy doesn’t always win out in the end.”
“I thought you dated Mom, and that the mayor just liked her, Dad. What do you mean she was dating James first?”
“It doesn’t matter.” His eyes looked away from mine. “I need another beer.”
“Dad, we need to talk about this.”
I watched as he picked up the remote control and started switching the channels. He lay back down on the ratty couch, and I watched as he kicked some potato chip packets onto the floor. I surveyed the room and all the dirt and knew that I needed to make changes in here as well. I could no longer sit by idly, and let my dad wallow in this mess. I couldn’t be scared of him anymore.
“Dad, I’m going to clean this room tomorrow.”
“Just make sure you get me some beer.”
“Dad, we need to talk about—”
“Get me some beer.” He reached down and grabbed another beer can from the floor, and this time he threw it at me.
“Night, Dad,” I sighed and walked out of the room. There was no point trying to deal with him right now. As I walked up the stairs, I thought about what Maddie had told me and about what my dad had just said about my mom and the mayor. What was going on? The story was changing rapidly, and now I was beginning to question everything.
“We’re really getting it.” Jared grinned at me as we arrived back home after spending the afternoon practicing how to break in to different types of garages. Joey’s friend was some guy from Russia or some Eastern European country, and he was one of the biggest criminals in the world. He had stolen a Picasso from some museum and had been trained by some of the best thieves in the world. We were definitely learning a lot, but I still wasn’t quite happy with everything that was going on. We didn’t know the name of the buyer, we didn’t know who Joey’s contact was, and the teacher told us to call him Tolstoy, which I was almost certain wasn’t his real name. There were so many unanswered questions, and I was starting to worry about everything. It all seemed a bit convenient that Joey would find out about this Bugatti and we would be the ones approached to get trained and to steal it. And the owner would be out of town and we would get one million dollars. But Jared vouched for Joey a hundred percent and I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, seeing as he really seemed to be trying with the whole Maddie situation.
Maddie hadn’t contacted me and it had been about a week since I had seen her, and I was growing antsy. The house was spic and span and had been for a few days, but it seemed like it had all been for naught as she hadn’t called me. I had been planning on surprising her with the invite once she called me, but now I was starting to wonder if she hadn’t already given up on me. At first, I had been shocked that it was taking so long. I had assumed that she would be in contact and apologizing to me within a day or so. But then no call had come through, and I realized that she must have been a bit more upset than I thought. But now it had almost been a week and nothing. I had been unable to sleep well, and Maddie was constantly on my mind, and I was irritable.
“Yeah, as long as everything goes according to plan, we’ll be fine,” I snapped, and I saw Jared and Vincent exchange a glance. I ignored them and ran up the stairs and to my room. I pulled out my phone for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, and saw no missed calls or texts. I called my voicemail to make sure I hadn’t missed a call or a voicemail notification. I threw the phone on the bed when I heard I had no new messages.
“What the fuck, Maddie,” I muttered under my breath as I fell to the bed. “Where are you?”
I looked up the ceiling and felt my heart sink into the mattress as I wondered if she had finally decided that I wasn’t worth it. She was gorgeous; she didn’t need to put up with my crap. Maybe she had met a new guy, someone who had a real future, who wasn’t a criminal. Someone who could take her out and have a good time, someone her parents would be happy for her to date, someone who would invite her over right away. Maybe she was done with me. I thumped the mattress as I thought about her sweetly kissing someone else. I felt murderous inside. She was my Maddie. I couldn’t bear to think about her with anyone else. Not now.
I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, not to her and not to myself, but Maddie was fast becoming my world. When I was with her, I felt like a man, like I could do anything. I felt like she saw the person inside me, the person only my brothers knew. She laughed at my jokes, and when we were together, I felt like I could be anyone, do anything, and I wanted to change. I wanted to be a better man for her. I wanted to climb mountains. I wanted to build ships. I wanted to show her that the man she was falling for was a man that was worthy of her love and affection. Because I had believed her. I had allowed a small part of me to believe in her girlish dreams and jokes. A part of me had pictured Maddie as my wife and as the one I spent the rest of my life with. I would never have admitted it to her, but when she had told me I was the man she was going to marry, a part of me had lit up. I had laughed off her comment, but it had made me feel special and delighted inside. I had begun to hope that perhaps there was a possibility of more in my life. Maybe I wasn’t going to be tied down to my lonely existence. Maybe with her I could achieve something I had never allowed myself to believe was possible. I had believed her when she had said she was willing to wait and be patient for me, but she had lied. She had already given up. I grabbed my phone and stared at the screen again, feeling like a foolish schoolboy. The screen displayed the time, and even though I stared at it, willing it to ring, it never did.