Page 85 of The Curveball
She hesitates, but my favorite shy grin plays on her lips. “You say the right things, Marks.”
“I say true things.”
“You know Dad wasn’t exactly helpful in raising us more than covering expenses. We all feel like his greatest disappointments. I’m sure he’s still seething Darren opted to open an auto shop and marry his high school girlfriend at twenty-years-old.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, but if he hadn’t, your dad wouldn’t have his awesome grandsons.”
Wren’s nephews are hilarious. To Carter’s dismay, I’m fast becoming a favorite. And I’m not even their uncle.
Yet.
Wren peeks at me over her shoulder. “Griff, I love your positivity, but my dad isn’t the fun grandpa type. You can see that.”
“True.” I frown and rub a hand over her back. “His loss, I guess. What else can I say? Trevor and Sawyer are the best. So, where is this coming from? I know he was a dad at a distance.”
She stops, as if the words won’t form anymore. I have the sick feeling something is about to dig into my gut like a dull knife. I clench one fist by my side, holding her with my other arm. Freaking her out won’t help anyone. She’s trying to open to me, and I’m not going to screw it up by going all caveman on her.
“When we went to stay with him the Christmas I turned eighteen, he’d barely finalized the divorce with Clay’s mom. I thought it would finally be just us. We could spend time with him, maybe get to know him better, but Clay was there. He’d moved into the guest house while we he was interning with the casino manager and going to school.”
My fingernails dig into the meat of my palm when my fist tightens. I don’t like where this is going. Darren was a boiling pot when that jerkoff walked into the birthday dinner. The moment he opened his mouth to speak to Wren, Carter was about to lunge.
“What happened?” I bite out.
Wren starts to tease the hair at the nape of my neck, soothingme. This is officially backward.
“I wanted to be close to my dad,” she says. “He loved Clay, favored a stepson over us. I figured hanging out with Clay for the break would give me some insight into what I could do to matter a little more to my dad. Looking back, I can see how naïve I was.”
Wren hides her face against my shoulder.
I press a kiss to her head, barely keeping myself together.
“All break, Clay kept giving me the same sob story about how sad he was over the divorce, how my dad was the only dad he’d really known. I spent a lot of time with him, comforting him, I guess.
“One night, he was drunk and a mess. I felt bad for him. He’s not much older than me, and I knew what it was like to feel abandoned.” She looks up at me, a flush to her face. “He invited me to watch TV in the guest house. He told me I made him feel good.”
“Wren.” I tighten my hold on her waist. I’m going to lose my mind. I’m easygoing. I live to laugh. But you hurt someone I love, I’m more an eye for an eye sort of guy. Not my favorite character trait, but it’s there.
“Hold on,” she whispers. “You said you wouldn’t implode.
“I did not.”
She rubs the back of my neck and keeps going. “There was a pause in the movie, and I got up to get drinks. I shouldn’t have given him another beer, but again, naïve. I thought we might be friends, maybe he’d help me get close to my dad like I was helping him. That’s how my brain worked through it, at least. I was wrong.” She closes her eyes. “In the kitchen, he started to come onto me.”
“Where does he live?”
“Griff, you’re not going to hunt him down. Now, let me get it out.” She kisses my cheek. “Like I said, he was stumbling drunk. He had the beer bottle in his hand, and I couldn’t get him to give it up, but he could hardly stand up straight.”
Wren lets out a long breath. “He tried to kiss me, but it grossed me out. We’re not related, I know, but to me he was a brother for a bit. I let him know too.”
“Good. Just—” I curse under my breath rubbing the bridge of my nose, picturing a tiny eighteen-year-old Wren cornered by a towering Clay. She was barely legal, and I want to puke. “Just good.”
“He tried to kiss me again, but this time he grabbed me by the arms. It freaked me out so much I could hardly breathe,” she says in barely a whisper. “He pinned me to the wall. I remember wanting to freeze and wanting to fight at the same time.”
The way she sniffled, a bit of my rage died. She didn’t need a Hulk right now. I kissed the side of her head, stroking her arms gently.
“Fighting won out and I shoved him back. Hard.” She closes her eyes. “I remember the sound of the beer bottle breaking when he hit the wall. His head smacked one of the cabinets in his kitchen. He was so drunk, I guess the blow to the head combined with all the alcohol caused him to black out. Somehow, he fell forward onto me. It . . . it pinned me down and the glass in his hand got stuck between us.”
She doesn’t need to say it. Her hand rubs the scar on her chest. My jaw tightens, and I don’t think I’m ever going to let her go.