Addicted for Now (41 page)

“Yeah,” he says. “I found the leak.”

“How?”

“The tabloid who first reported the news finally broke and
gave us their source. It took five million to loosen their lips and uncover
this bullshit.” He doesn’t add
you owe me
every penny.
Even so, I feel like I do.

“Who is it?” I ask, my hands clutching the steering wheel so
tightly.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Dad?!” I shout. A car honks, and I realize I swerved into
his lane and cut off a pick-up truck.

“Keep your eyes on the fucking road,” Ryke chastises. “Or
pull over and I’ll drive.” No, he’ll take us the other direction. And right
now, I’m too wired to go climb a mountain

“Is Ryke with you?” my dad asks roughly.

“We’re on our way,” I tell him, ignoring how Ryke is searing
a death glare into the phone.

“No, we fucking aren’t,” Ryke refutes.

“You both should come,” he tells us. “This is important, and
I don’t want to discuss it over the phone.” He hangs up.

I flick on my blinker and drive along a side street, off the
highway.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryke asks.

“He knows who the leak is,” I say like he’s an idiot. “What
the fuck are
you
doing? We’ve spent
months trying to track down this asshole.”

Ryke stares at the road with a hard gaze. “Maybe you should
drop me off somewhere.”

I frown. “What? Where?” What’s wrong with him?

“Like anywhere but there.”

And then I realize that Ryke hasn’t come into contact with
my father since the Christmas Charity Gala. Before rehab. Before
everything.

A brutal silence strings though the car. And then I say
softly, “Are you scared of him?”

“I can’t stand to look at his face.”

“What did he personally do to you?” I ask.

“I hated him because my mother did,” Ryke says briefly, but
I can tell his mind is reeling, so I’m not surprised when he divulges more.
“…when I was older, I tried to look at him differently, but she painted a
portrait of a monster. So when I stare at his face, that’s all I fucking see.”

His words sink in, and I don’t have anything to say. I can’t
change the way he pictures Jonathan Hale. That damage is too deep-seated.

“I tried to forget about him,” Ryke says, staring out the
window. “I tried to act like I just didn’t have a dad. And then…” He shakes his
head.

“What?” I prod.

“…and then I met you. And all that hate just came back ten
times stronger than before.”

I hesitate before I ask. I fear his answer. “Why?” This is
where he’ll say I’m just like my father. I’m the monster of the story. The
thing to be hated.
 

“You defend him,” Ryke tells me. “He says some pretty
fucking horrible things right to your face, and you just stand there and take
it or you walk away. And then the next day, you’ll talk about Jonathan like
he’s a fucking savior.” I can’t feel that great burst of relief when he doesn’t
compare me to him. I just feel like shit.

I grit my teeth. “What am I supposed to do? Punch him? I
wasn’t into the whole
let me beat the
hell out of my father
tragedy growing up. Sorry.”

“You’re right,” Ryke says, surprising me. “You were stuck in
that house, with that fucking asshole. But right now, you have the option to
leave him. And you’re going back.”

“He’s not all bad.”

“And there you go, sticking up for him again.”

“He’s
my
father.”

“He’s
our
father,”
Ryke retorts.

I hit the wheel with my hand, nervous and pissed and so
fueled right now. “I can’t cut him out of my life!” Not because of the money.
Not because of the trust fund or the information I need from him. I can’t leave
Jonathan Hale because he’s my family. He’s my dad, and before Ryke and Lily,
he’s all I fucking had.

“Pull over for a second.”

“I’m not turning around.”

“Just pull over.”

I drive into a gas station and park the car by the pump. I
face Ryke, and my chest rises at the empathy in his eyes. He’s about to drop a
bomb on me, but he knows I can take it.

“No one is going to tell you this,” Ryke says. “Everyone
says it behind your back, but you’re going to hear it from me, right now.”

I stare at him for a long moment, already hearing his words
before he says them. I think I know. I’ve always known.

“Our dad abuses you,” Ryke says, his eyes reddening. “He’s
verbally abusive, and he’s fucked with your head.”

I let this sink in, but I’m so numb to the answer. I just
nod. “Yeah, I know.”

Ryke nods a few times too, watching me, trying to gauge my
mental state. And maybe he’s reliving the fact that he was the older brother,
the one who was handed the better deal of two really shitty ones, not having to
be raised by him, not having to endure the onslaught of
fucking grow up! I didn’t raise you to be such an idiot! Why are you
crying? Stop. Fucking. Crying.

“Don’t guilt yourself over this,” I tell Ryke. I feel
nothing. I should be red in the eyes like him, but I just can’t be. “I know
what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” Ryke says, nodding again, but he’s more upset than
before. “The fact that you believe you can have a real relationship with him
fucking terrifies me, Lo. That’s what kills me. And that’s why I don’t want to
go there and watch him try to emotionally manipulate you.”

I break his gaze and stare at the wheel. “I’m not asking you
to come with me.” My voice is edged but considerably low. “I can drop you off
at your house.”

We sit in uncomfortable silence again. For maybe five
minutes, both of us just thinking.

And then Ryke says, “If I go, you think he’ll lay off you?”

“Is that even a question?”

Ryke nods. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Are you sure?” He would do that? He’d go stomach a whole
hour or two with our father just so the verbal assaults are redirected his way?

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

I don’t know what I’m feeling. My lungs seem to lift from my
chest, and I know what word I want to say. I know what word I can’t.

Thank you.

In this moment, I truly feel like I have a brother. One
that’s probably too good for me.

{ 45 }

LOREN HALE

“You don’t drink?” My father is hung up on this
one fact about Ryke. Overhead fans circulate cool air on the patio, and I sit
in between Ryke and my dad like someone about to referee an arm wrestle.

“Not since high school,” Ryke says. “I overdid it.” He
doesn’t mention how he crashed his car into a mailbox.

“And that’s why you’ve deluded Loren into thinking he’s an
alcoholic—because
you
couldn’t handle
your liquor?”

The muscles in Ryke’s jaw twitch. “Get to the fucking point,
Jonathan. Who’s the leak?”

My dad leans back in the iron chair, cupping his glass of
scotch. “I’ll get to the
fucking
point when I feel like it. Maybe I want to have lunch with my two sons first.”
He presses a button on his phone. “Carter, make three burgers for us.”

“Any preferences, Mr. Hale?”

“The usual.”

“They’ll be right out.” The line clicks.

“I’m not your son,” Ryke says, even though he does, on
occasion, call Jonathan his father when he’s trying to make a point. Like in
the car. “My mother took full custody of me, in case you forgot.”

“How old are you?” My dad asks mockingly. “Oh wait, you’re
twenty-two. In the eyes of the American judicial system, you’re an adult. And
as an adult, you’re not your mother’s property like that Ferrari she bought
with my money in her goddamn driveway.”

Ryke rubs his jaw in agitation and looks around the patio
like he’s trying to find some excuse to leave, but then his gaze drifts to me
and he stops searching for that escape.

We can’t go until we find out the leak. And if that means eating
a burger with the devil, then so be it.

My father sets his scotch down and focuses on me. “Have you
met your mother yet?”

Shit.
I can feel
Ryke’s confusion and livid heat permeate in the air. “Not yet, I’ve actually
been waiting for Lily to…adjust.”

“You’re going to meet your mother?” Ryke asks, accusation
lacing the words.

My father doesn’t cut in, which means he’s curious about our
relationship, wondering how close we’ve become these past months.

“Yeah,” I say.

Ryke shakes his head. “How long have you had her name? How’d
you find her?” And then realization floods his face, looking between our dad
and me. “You two have been speaking this whole time…” But his hate is
redirected at Jonathan. “Can’t you leave him alone for one minute?”

“He wanted to know who his mother was. It’s not your place
or mine to make that decision for him.” He sips his scotch casually, incensing
Ryke more.

“I don’t care about that. I care that you used that
information to draw him back in. I care that you push him to drink.”

“Ryke…” I start and then stop, not wanting to defend my
father. Not now. “I was going to tell you that I started talking to him.”

“When? When I find you in the hospital bleeding from your
stomach because you drank?”

My father groans. “You’re not still taking that ridiculous
pill.”

Ryke turns on him. “It’s not a fucking joke.”

“It is,” my dad says. “You’re making him soft.”

“Yeah, you made sure he was fucking sharp, didn’t you?”

“Stop, both of you,” I say coldly. “I don’t want to talk
about alcohol or Emily.”

“Fine,” my father says and stands to replenish his glass.
“What do you do Ryke? Or are you like your mother, gobbling up all my money on
furniture and clothes?”

“How about we leave my mother, the woman you fucking cheated
on, out of the conversation as well.”

“Forgive me if I don’t like the bitch,” he says. “I always
wanted you two to meet, and because
I
wanted it, she could barely tolerate the idea. And here you are, closer than
ever. It’s as if it was always meant to be.” He grins, as if he set fate into
motion.

“It wasn’t your doing,” Ryke refutes. “I didn’t meet Lo
because of you. I met him because I wanted to.”

My father rolls his eyes dramatically. “I can’t ever win
with you. Ever since you asked me some silly goddamn question and you didn’t
like the answer.”

“I was
fifteen
,”
Ryke sneers. “I just found out I had a brother. I felt lied to and cheated on.
I needed your compassion and you fucking spit in my face. But I guess I should
have known better.”

“You didn’t need compassion.” My father grimaces at the
word. “You needed the truth, and I gave it to you. It’s not my fault you were
too weak to handle it.”

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask, hesitating. Maybe
I shouldn’t know. But I hate being in the dark.

My father is quick to answer. “Ryke asked me a simple
question that day. Would you like to tell him, Ryke?’

“Fuck you,” Ryke sneers.

“I suppose not.” He takes a small sip from his drink,
smacking his lips before he continues. “He asked me if I could take back the
day that I fucked your mother—take back having
you
—would I?”

My throat goes dry, not expecting that. I think I know his
answer. Because even in his hatred, his bigotry and vileness—there is one fact
that my father has never let me question.

He loves me.

And it’s a fucked up love. Ryke is right. It does mess with
my head. And it’s something I have so much trouble walking away from. Sometimes
I don’t want to. Other times, it’s all I dream about.

My father’s eyes hold this unbridled clarity, unwavering
from mine, the haziness of his drink gone to honesty. “I told Ryke that I would
do it all over again. I have zero regrets, in this lifetime or the next.”

Zero regrets.

That’s what I pick out from that.
Zero regrets.
Not even when he grabbed me by the neck, not when he
called me a shitty fuck at ten years old. Not when he made me feel like I was
never good enough to be his son.
Zero
regrets.

Right.

No one says anything more at first. Ryke is probably worried
that I resent him. He wished I wasn’t alive. But truth is, I kind of did too.
Until I looked at Lily. Until I talked to her. I don’t think I could have
survived this life without that girl.

I redirect the conversation to Hale Co., which my father
only likes to discuss in small quantities. The company took a minor hit in comparison
to Fizzle, but he’s still working on launching a new baby product. Something
about cribs. It’s ironic that the world’s worst dad has a fortune from baby
things, but since it was my grandfather’s business first, it makes the irony
less valid. Unless he was an alcoholic asshole too.

The burgers arrive when he says, “This marriage helps
Fizzle, but do you know what would really benefit Hale Co.?”

Ryke freezes, the lettuce falling out of his bun.

I must be slower because I don’t get it. “What?”

My father cuts through his burger with a knife, juices
oozing out. His eyes find mine. “It’s a baby merchandize company. Babies would
help.” I can’t breathe. “Little Hale babies in little Hale onesies. It would be
great goddamn marketing.” He takes a bite of his burger. “You can’t beat that.”

“No,” I say instantly. My blood feels like it’s on fire. I
have been coerced into marrying Lily. I’m not going to have children because my
father tells me to. There has to be a line somewhere.

“You didn’t even think about it.”

“I said no. Not now. Not in a fucking year. Not ever.”

My father sets down his silverware and wipes his mouth with
a napkin. “Is this a new development?”

“No.”

“Is something wrong?” he frowns. “Are you sterile?”

“For fuck’s sake,” I snap. I didn’t think I’d have to
discuss this with him. “I don’t want kids. It’s not because I can’t have them.
I don’t want them.”
I don’t want them to
turn out like you. Or me.

Ryke stays quiet, but I can tell he’s processing. The only
person I told was Lily. That’s the only one who mattered.

“You’ll change your mind,” my father says like he knows me
so well. He picks up his knife again. “And it’s okay if it’s not anytime soon.
Hale Co. can wait.”

We finish eating and after all the tense conversations, it’s
hard to remember why we were here in the first place. One of the servers clears
the last dish, and I ask the question. “Who’s the leak?”

“That, I can’t tell you,” he says.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Ryke growls, saying exactly
what I’m thinking.

My father ignores Ryke. “The good news is that I have it
under control, and it’s being handled quietly. If I tell you two, I’m sure
you’ll cause a fucking mess that I won’t be able to clean.”

I don’t agree with him. I can’t. “I need to know,” I refute.
“This isn’t some guy who did me wrong or fucked me over in a small way.”

“You won’t change my mind, Loren.”

“Why’d you tell me to come here then?!” I shout, blindsided
by all of this. We sat here for
nothing.

“To have lunch with you and to tell you that you need to
drop this. Let it go.”

I spring up from the table like my soles are on fire. “Let
it go?!”
 

My father glowers. “Loren, you’re overacting.”

“Lo,” Ryke says, rising and resting a hand on my shoulder.

“Overreacting?” I let out a manic laugh. “I have a
girlfriend at home who’s scared to walk out of the fucking house without
getting assaulted. And I’m overacting? It took her a month to stop tossing and
turning at night.” I grip the chair. “She has men mailing her goddamn plastic
penises from prison and alleged sex tapes being rumored every day. This bastard
toyed with her for weeks, texting her vile things before he finally leaked it.
And you have his fucking name!”

My father is on his feet. “And what the hell are you going
to do? Yell? Shout? Stomp your shoes and make noise?” His eyes grow dark.
“There is nothing you can do that I haven’t already done. It’s over. Let. It.
Go.….please.” His voice has softened considerably, and I pale.

Please
. He doesn’t
use that word, and I know what I have to do.

I have to trust him.

But I don’t know who he’s protecting—me or himself.