Nate Read online

  And now, here I was.

  He called back a day later with what I needed.

  Now I just needed to find the courage to go through with it, and as I was sitting in my hospital room, waiting for Nate and the nurse to come to get me, the courage wasn’t in me.

  I just wanted to go home.

  I just wanted to hold my girl.

  I just wanted to crawl in bed with Nate.

  That was all I wanted.

  My father was like a pretty snake with fur. A pretty furry snake with doe-like eyes that was poisonous. When you saw it, you didn’t know quite what it was, and you got pulled in by the fur and the doe-like eyes. You thought it was a long sort of wiener dog, and you didn’t know if you should think he was cute or a new sort of species, but then because you were confused, that was when he could strike and hurt you.

  I needed to just shoo the snake out of the house.

  That was what I was going to do, and that was why I called him to come here an hour before Nate was supposed to arrive.

  Knock, knock.

  There he was. My furry doe-eyed snake.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  * * *

  NATE

  I heard the voices as I approached.

  I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but… when I heard what I heard, I couldn’t move. Not a foot.

  Then I was torn apart.

  * * *

  QUINCEY

  I stood from my bed, then decided to perch on the end. Folding my hands in my lap, I rolled my shoulders back and straightened my spine. I was a perfect dancer in front of the so-not perfect father.

  I didn’t care.

  I was pulling on my armor for one last showdown with him. After that, I’d let myself bleed, and I’d lick my wounds, but I’d be okay.

  I’d be okay…

  I would.

  I will.

  He stepped inside the room, and I started. “It has to stop.”

  My dad’s eyes were dead. He was cold.

  A shiver wound down my spine because I realized how accurate my thoughts of him as a snake were. I also knew that he wasn’t going to stop, ever.

  “You need to stop.” He moved farther into the room. “You need to grow up, wake up, and come home. If you bring my granddaughter, I will allow you to live on my premises.”

  “She’s not yours. Not even through blood.”

  “Valerie gave her to you. You are mine. Nova is mine. I want you both at home. This has gone on long enough.”

  “Valerie wasn’t your child.”

  “But you are. And you are Nova’s mother now. I can help you fight Monson.”

  I opened my mouth.

  He beat me to it, saying, “I’m aware you’re sleeping with him. And that’s okay. I understand.”

  “You do?” I frowned.

  “Of course. You’re ensuring your future. You’re doing what you feel you need to do so that he won’t leave you without Nova or worse, destitute. But you’re not. You have me. I can take care of you, of both my girls. But you have to come home, and we have to prepare for battle. Monson has proven to be a worthy adversary, but we can beat him. I’ll need you to tell me everything he’s done to you. That’ll make the case go better. We’ll get enough traction, and then we can take further steps against him.”

  My lips parted.

  He was mad. Literally.

  I asked, “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “I know cops.”

  Dread sliced my insides, cutting a line down my organs. I was bleeding internally. “Like dirty cops?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I think your dad will set me up.” Nate said it, and he was right.

  I moved farther on the bed. I was no longer perched on it, but I was standing and leaning a hip against it. My arms were starting to tremble. A dancer had complete control over her body. I commanded my arms to go still, but they didn’t.

  I stuffed them behind me to hide the shaking.

  “I’ll do what I need to do. Monson won’t be able to raise Nova. I’ll make sure of that.”

  Fuck.

  I knew it then. I hadn’t known it, but I did right then and right at that moment.

  I let out a small laugh, a sad laugh. “I was ready for you. I called you. I knew what I needed to do when you came to see me, but I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to do it. I hoped that you wouldn’t be who you are, and there would’ve been a part of you that would’ve come in. You would’ve seen me. You would’ve realized you were being wrong in everything you’re doing, and you would’ve asked to hug me. You would’ve told me you loved me. And you would’ve asked what you could do to make it better.”

  A tear tracked down my cheek.

  I let it be.

  My voice was hoarse, almost cracking. “But you didn’t, because that’s not who you are. And I can’t have who you are in my life anymore, even if you are my father. This is it, Dad. This is the end for us. I want you to stop plotting after Nate or me.”

  “You are not thinking clearly—”

  “I called Carl.”

  He stopped.

  I didn’t want to play this card, but he was giving me no choice.

  So I played it. “You never paid back that loan.”

  “What?”

  “To the mafia family in Canada? The loan you took out from them for your casino? You cheated them.” I held up my phone. “Carl sent me the proof.”

  If he could’ve killed me, he would’ve. Right then and there.

  His hands jerked up, but then he froze.

  Those hands stayed up, and they curled forward as if he were imagining it was my neck he was squeezing. His nostrils flared as if he were enjoying that he was pretending to kill me.

  “You ungrateful bitch.”

  “Drop everything you’re planning against Nate and me, or I’ll send this proof to those people.” I wasn’t bluffing when I told him this, but I was about to bluff what I was going to do next. “Nate knows people who can get in contact with them. It would not be hard to do it, and Carl told me their reputation. They’re not as bloodthirsty as most mobs, but if you fuck them over, you are annihilated. Simply put. Seeing that the proof is coming from your own daughter, I don’t imagine they’d want to reach out to enact their revenge on the blood that’s turning you in. Though I could be wrong. If I am, then I am. So be it because I am more than willing to die to save Nova from you.”

  He stared at me, long and hard.

  It was a full-on glare.

  Hatred and the promise of violence lurked in his gaze, but I held firm. My dancing façade was firmly in place, but also the mere fact I was Nova’s mother and God help those who try to hurt a mother’s child.

  I’m right here, sister. I’m not leaving you.

  I felt another tear slip past and fall down my cheek. I let it go. That was a good tear because I felt my sister there with me, and I felt her support, and I now fully believed in the afterlife.

  I love you, Valerie.

  I love you, too, Q.

  I almost smiled, hearing her use Nate’s nickname, but then my attention flew back to Duke.

  “He will never love you.”

  My knees almost gave out from relief because that was his capitulation. He was giving in. He would just spew as much hate and hurt before he did, though.

  My throat closed up. I was used to his hurtful words. Those weren’t the ones that would disarm me.

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  He frowned, his eyebrows pulling in. He cocked his head to the side as if unsure how to take that from me.

  “I know he’ll never love me. I’m not her, but Dad, I don’t care. I have enough of you in me to be selfish with him for Nova. Nate doesn’t love me. He’s told me this. He’s never lied to me, but I’ll love him. I’ll love him for as long as he’ll have me. And when the time comes that he finds the one he does love, I’ll step aside so he can be with her. We’ll figure it out. Nate is a good man. I’m Nova’s mother now, the one o
n earth for her, and he won’t take that away from Nova. He’ll do what’s best for her. He’s everything you aren’t and thank God for that.” Another tear fell. “Thank God that I’ll know what it feels like to love someone who’s like him, who’s nothing like you, because I’ll be better for it.”

  His eyes were so cold.

  It hit me that he wasn’t questioning the proof I had or the ability I had to go through with my threat. I almost laughed at that, because in that sense, he wasn’t dumb. He knew I’d do it, no matter if it meant my death with his.

  “You’re out of my will.”

  “Totally okay with that.”

  “You’ll cease to exist to me.”

  “That’s how I want it.”

  He mashed his lips together. I could see him grinding his teeth, but he had nothing else to say. He turned and left, and I reached for the bed. My knees were giving out. I caught myself and had to throw myself half on the bed. One leg got in, and then I was okay.

  I wasn’t falling anymore.

  “You don’t think I love you?”

  I looked up, freezing once again.

  Nate stood there, a stricken look tightening his face.

  I couldn’t answer. I could say it freely to Duke, but to say it to Nate? Say it to the one who did have the power to shatter me with mere words?

  I was back to trembling, but it was my whole body this time. I had nothing more in me to pull myself together. The dance armor was gone. I’d used up all my strength.

  “Answer me.” His jaw clenched. “You don’t think I love you?”

  “You told me you didn’t.”

  His eyes were blazing, but I couldn’t name the emotion.

  I didn’t think I dared. I didn’t think my heart could take it.

  “That was early on. Did you ever think that I could’ve fallen in love with you since then?”

  The question didn’t make sense to me.

  Maybe a normal person, yes, but… I shook my head. “People don’t love me, not unless they have to.”

  “Are you kidding me?” he hissed out. His nostrils flared.

  “My family doesn’t have a choice, but anyone else… they have a choice. Why would you choose me?”

  He growled, showing me his teeth, and I jerked back.

  “You’re fucking beautiful. You’re an amazing mother to Nova. Why the hell don’t you see what I see? From where I’m standing, the question is why wouldn’t I?”

  But he swept out after that, and I was left…

  Confused. I didn’t know what that meant because it couldn’t mean what…

  No. It couldn’t.

  “…They don’t love you.”

  I was just left, feeling suddenly empty, like I lost something I didn’t know I had.

  55

  Quincey

  Nate was withdrawn to me for a few days.

  His friends were kind, but they felt the distance, and one by one, they began leaving. I knew they didn’t leave because of it. If anything, I think they stayed longer because of that. They weren’t the sort of friends who shied away from real situations, real feelings.

  They were the kind that when the tough got going, they just got tighter.

  They doted on Nova, but she was taken the most by Taylor and Mason. If either of them were in the room, Nova ran to their side. Taylor would crawl on the floor with her, tickling her. Mason would pick her up and pretend to fly her around the house. The giggles were nonstop. As for my own friends, Matthew and Ricci visited.

  Ricci was over every day. She either brought coffee in the morning before work, or she stopped by after work with coffee. Always coffee. Matthew was over a couple of times, commiserating with me because he didn’t like my stand-in or the new lead. She was good, though, and I knew he was only saying that to make me feel better.

  And about that, I was okay with not being the lead. That not only surprised me, but it shocked me. If you’re a dancer, you’re a dancer. You were born to do that, and that was how it was, but I was starting to wonder if I had evolved somehow? I was a mother now, but what did that look like for the future? Especially if Nate decided to ask me to move out one day, and I had to be realistic because that was a possibility.

  I didn’t want it to be. Just thinking about it, and I was close to tears. It felt like I was taking a lit hot stick and poking myself with it, permanently burning me, but I couldn’t stop. I had to be prepared for it to come. More than that. I just had to expect it because it would happen eventually.

  Probably sooner since we weren’t sleeping together anymore.

  On the first night, he never came to bed. I went to mine, not sure how to proceed, but his friends were there. He stayed up with a few of them.

  The second night, it was the same thing.

  The third night.

  It’d been like that ever since my hospital visit.

  No kisses. No touches. Just coldness.

  I overcompensated with Nova. I cuddled and loved on her so much, but she was getting more independent. She no longer wanted us to hold her hand when she ran and walked. We could play with her, but she had to bring us the toys she wanted us to play with. She was becoming a bossy little girl.

  That only made her even cuter.

  I was sitting in the playroom with Nova, and Nate walked in. He paused when he saw us. He softened, as he always did when he saw Nova, but then he looked at me, and the same distant look came over him. I looked down, all of my insides being twisted up and knotted.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t understand why what I said upset him so much.

  I mean, he told me he didn’t love me. Why was I the bad guy?

  But wait.

  Nate wasn’t my father.

  I’d been trained to keep quiet, to never just ask outright what’s going on. You couldn’t do that with Duke. If you brought out what was going on under the surface, it was World War III. I was the bad guy every time. I never understood how he did it, but it was a skill I needed to learn. I didn’t want to use it, but I wanted to understand it.

  Fuck it.

  I was hurting.

  It’d been so long.

  I had thought I could do this, endure this, but I didn’t think I could anymore.

  I lifted my head and winced. Nate was staring—or more like glaring—right at me.

  Déjà vu from my father, though I knew Nate wasn’t like him at all.

  “What did I do?”

  He frowned.

  My voice was soft, and I hated that. I couldn’t help it, though. I’d already asked. And now that I had, I was wishing I hadn’t. I forgot this was the part where I was the villain, where everything got turned on me, and I’d cry and walk away thinking I was an asshole but not understanding why I was an asshole.

  Please don’t do that to me.

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  Huh?!

  “What?” I leaned forward, my elbows going to my knees. “Come on, Nate. This has gone on for too long.”

  Nova moved to the chair, pulling herself up and sifting through some books. She was pushing them off the chair without meaning to until she had enough room to sit on her butt. There. She was happy, but no books were around her.

  She started to climb back down, already eyeing her two favorites.

  Nate went over and scooped her up. He scooped up her books, and he opened one on their lap. She started babbling, a word here and there that I could understand.

  Penguin.

  Mama. (My heart swooned.)

  Battybattybattybatty. (I had no clue.)

  Back to penguin.

  She was done, hitting the page to turn it, and it was a repeat. This page had many more words, and she was reading them all. (She thought she was.)

  Nate had been watching me the whole time I was watching her. He asked, “Why do you think I was upset?”

  “Because you haven’t touched me since I got back from the hospital.” Was I living in a warped time zone? Right? He had been cold, hadn�
�t he?

  No, no, no. This was how my father started.

  I shook my head and sat up to my knees. “Don’t do this. Please. Don’t pretend you’re fine. You and I both know you’re not. You haven’t touched me, Nate.”

  For the first time, I thought I saw genuine confusion.

  It made my heart leap. Some hope? Did I dare?

  He murmured, helping to move the pages for Nova, “I was upset with what you thought of me at the hospital, but you went to your own bed that first night. I thought… I thought you’ve been upset with me.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He nodded, a rueful look coming over him. He frowned. “I have been upset, but it’s not at you. It’s at myself. I think I’ve been beating myself up. You’re right. It’s been too long, but a part of me was waiting for you to heal or to say something. And we’ve had guests almost every day. You’ve been going to bed before me, and I don’t know. I now realize I’m an idiot. I thought I was an idiot going to your hospital room that day, but now I realize I’ve been an even bigger idiot after.”

  That stung.

  He thought he was an idiot just going to my room?

  “Oh.”

  It was hurting to breathe. I felt knives slicing between my ribs.

  Wow.

  I didn’t know what to do with that.

  Leave.

  Get out.

  I had to move. I had to walk. I had to go.

  I had to run.

  He was being an idiot, just going to my hospital room.

  I felt the tears, and I swear, swear, I wouldn’t let them fall. Not now. Not here.

  Just going to my room. An idiot. Him.

  I had no idea what to do with that.

  What did that even mean?

  My head was swimming. Nothing was making sense, but I was hurting. That was all I knew.

  “I-I have to go to the bathroom.” I rushed from the room.

  I went to my room, shut the door, and then to the bathroom. The door was shut, and I slid down it until my ass was on the floor.