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“Later,” I said.
“It’s Dad.” He grabbed my wrist.
When I saw my brother’s face, I stopped cold.
My father was not a young man, but he wasn’t old enough to have a heart
attack.
Maybe having his first son at twenty did it. Or the hours he worked
could have weakened him. Or the travel.
Or me.
Maybe—probably—it was me. When I broke his trust, I broke him.
He’d given me everything, and I’d stopped his heart with lies and deceit.
“Nice going, asshole,” Lyric said, taking her phone away from her face
long enough to glare at me across the hospital’s VIP waiting room.
“Stop it,” Mom scolded.
“She’s right,” I said. “It’s my fault.”
“You’re not that important,” Byron muttered as he paced. Olivia and
Garrett had gone home, and he looked naked without them.
“Wow,” Colton said, flipping channels on the flat screen TV. “It’s Take
Shots at Logan day.”
“He deserves it,” Lyric said.
“We oughta call Liam in case he wants in on the gang-up,” Colton
added. Liam had gone to put Matt to bed. “If we could find D-Tay, he’d
have something to say too.”
D-Tay was baby Lyric’s pronunciation of Dante.
“Sorry you’re made of Teflon, jerk-off,” my sister spat back.
“Enough!” Mom cried. “Logan, you did what you thought you had to.
We pushed you.”
I scoffed. I was a fully-grown man who’d taken a risk without
considering any of the personal impacts. I’d hurt my father, my mother,
disappointed my brothers and sister, shamed myself, and worst of all, I’d
lost the one thing of value I’d gained in the deal.
Ella.
Overwhelmed with remorse and grief, I bent over in my seat, putting
my face in my hands to block it all out. If I had my wife there, I’d be able to