Better (Stark Ink Book 2) (10 page)

“Things happen, Pop,” Dalton replied, for lack of anything better to say.

The old man grunted. “If you’d paid a little more attention during that talk I gave you, it wouldn’t have.” He shook his head. “I expected more from you, Dalton.”

Dalton nodded. “I know. I… I’ve really let you down lately, Pop. I haven’t been the man you taught me to be. I’m working on it though, taking responsibility.”

“I didn’t teach you leave someone else holding the bag.” He looked at Zoey. “Or the baby. ‘Course, I told you not to screw up in the first place. One ‘Oh Shit’ cancels out ten ‘Attaboys,’ you know.”

Dalton smiled ruefully. Pop and his phrases were one in a million. “I guess that’s true enough,” he replied. “If I’d followed all your advice, I’d be in better shape than I am now. That’s for sure.”

“You sure you know who the father is?”

Dalton looked at Zoey then back to his own father. “Zoey wouldn’t cheat, Pop. She’s not the type. She’s Elaine and Lyle Connor’s daughter. You know them. From church.”

Pop frowned as he struggled to place the name. “Don’t recall,” he admitted. “Your Mom knows them, I expect. Do you love her?” the old man asked suddenly.

Dalton flexed his bad hand and nodded. “I do, yeah.”

Pop nodded in turn. “Well, good. It’ll make it easier.”

“Make what easier?”

“Marriage,” Pop replied, as though the answer was obvious.

Dalton actually considered his words. “Not sure she’d have me.”

Pop glowered at Zoey. “Well, what kind of nonsense is that? You’re too good for my boy?”

Dalton stepped in between them just in case things got ugly. “Nah, Pop. That’s not what I meant. You know how it is. She’s a nice girl, Like Mom. I’m… more like you.”

Pop actually laughed, surprising them all. “You don’t know how true your words are, boy. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to your mom, smooth things over. She won’t give you too much of a hard time. You probably don’t want to look too closely at the math between your brother’s birthday and our wedding night.”

“Oh, wow,” Ava gasped.

The old man looked past Dalton to Zoey. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “My son won’t leave you. He’s a good boy. We should, ah, have your parents over for dinner. I mean, if we’re going to be family.”

Zoey couldn’t seem to do anything but nod. “Um, okay. Th- thanks Mr. Stark.”

Pop nodded and turned away. “Get your friends out of my house, Dalton,” he ordered on his way to his bedroom. There was a loud click as he shut the door tightly.

Dalton turned to Zoey who had tears brimming in her eyes. He put his arm around her and guided her down the hall. He opened the door to Ava’s room, ushered her in, and shut it quietly behind them. As he sat down on the mattress he looked around the room. The walls were still the same dark blue they’d been when it was his space. Thankfully Ava wasn’t a girly girl and didn’t change it when it became hers. He felt comfortable here, at least. Familiarity wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Pop didn’t have that anymore, at least not all the time. As time went on, he’d have it less and less.

If Mom’s death had been brutal, Pop’s slow decline was hellish in its own way.

He sighed heavily. “It’s Alzheimer’s,” he told her, though by now she’d more than likely guessed that much. “We found out after Mom died. Or at least, Adam, Jonah, and I did. Apparently, Ava already knew something was wrong and just never said anything.”

Zoey’s lower lip quivered and he squeezed her hand. “Why didn’t your Mom do anything?” she asked. “Why didn’t she say anything? How… how long was he like this?”

Dalton grimaced. “Hard to say. A few months, Ava said, before she and Mom noticed it. Jonah wasn’t around much back then.”

“And she never told you? How could she keep it a secret?”

He gave her a long look. “The same way you could. First with me and then with him.”

She tucked in her chin, looking guilty.

“Zoey, when things first start to get bad, you don’t want to admit it, not to anyone, not to yourself. You know that. Because once you tell someone, once you open your mouth, it’s real. It’s real and it has to be dealt with. And maybe you’re not ready or you don’t know how to fix it. I don’t blame Mom for not telling us. She just wanted to hang on to her husband for as long as she could, or at least the idea of him.”

She gripped his hand tightly. “I kept thinking you’d get better,” she whispered. “I kept thinking one day you’d wake up and you’d just… be better. But it never happened. And then I did the same thing with Patrick. Every time he yelled, every time he said we didn’t have any money, every time he hit me, I said it was the last time. I said he was just stressed out at work. He’d get a raise, or a different job altogether, and all of it would be behind us. I guess… people slip away from you, or they were never who you thought they were in the first place, and yeah, I can see how she wouldn’t have known what to do.”

She looked at the closed door across the room. “What will you guys do?”

“Well, Adam lives here now. In his old room down the hall. And Pop’s in a program. He goes to a nursing home with a Day Program during the week. They have cognitive exercises, enrichment activities.”

“Sounds like a day care.” She gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean for it to sound-”

“No, it’s okay. It is. We know. He knows, too. And that’s the hardest part. He won’t remember today, but he knows he’s getting worse. He has medication, but it’s not helping as much as we’d hoped. We’re doing everything we can.”

“God,” she said quietly. “God this is so
awful
. After your mom, after… you. How much more can you take?”

He shrugged. “All of it,” he told her. “This is what we do, Zoey. This is who we are.”

Adam arrived breathless and looking half-wild with concern, scanning the living room for Pop.

“Relax,” Dalton told him. “He’s in his room right now. It’s under control.”

Adam looked past Dalton and into the living room again. “You brought Zoey?”

Dalton nodded. “I didn’t want to leave her at home alone. Though I did tell her to stay in the truck, which she ignored. Obviously.” He gave Zoey an admonishing look and Zoey smiled at him sheepishly. When he turned back, Adam was frowning.

“I’m so sorry about your dad,” Zoey told Adam as she levered herself out of the chair to stand up. “I had no idea. It must be hard.”

Calla came through the door and stopped when she spotted Zoey. She then continued to the living room, smiling warmly. “You must be Zoey.”

Zoey made an apologetic face. “I am. I’m sorry for intruding. I just… well I was worried.”

“No, it’s fine,” Calla told her. “I mean,
I
think it’s fine, anyway.”

Dalton watched Zoey’s shoulders relax as she breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good.” Then her nose crinkled. “I’m… are you…?” She looked back and forth between everyone in the room, clearly not wanting to jump to any conclusion.

“I’m Calla.” She extended her hand and Zoey took it eagerly. “I’m Adam’s girlfriend.”

“Oh! Oh wow!”

Calla laughed. “You look shocked.”

“No! I mean, yeah… kind of. Adam never struck me as…”

“The type to have a girlfriend?” Calla finished. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.

Dalton grinned. “He never struck me as the type to have a girlfriend, either. Though for entirely different reasons.”

“Shut up,” Adam snapped. He turned and looked down the hallway to the closed door. “I’m going to check on Pop.”

He strode down the hall and knocked. Pop emerged minutes later, looking tired. Dalton thought that maybe the old man’s sleep may have been disturbed last night. When he got off a regular schedule, the episodes were more frequent. Pop looked at Adam, then down the hall until he spotted Calla. The corners of his mouth tugged down. “Don’t tell me she’s pregnant, too.”

“No,” Calla said smoothly before Adam could answer. “No, Mr. Stark, I’m not pregnant.”

Pop jerked his chin at Dalton while looking at Adam. “You see the mess your brother’s gotten himself into.”

Adam gaped at him.

The old man stabbed a finger at Adam. “One’s enough,” he said firmly. “Keep it in your pants, boy.”

Adam stared after the man as he turned and went back into his room. He gazed for a while at the grain on the door frame until he finally turned around.

Dalton made a face. “He thinks I’m the father of Z’s baby. It’s okay. I let him think it.”

Adam stared at him. “
Z
?”

Dalton shrugged and picked up the phone. “I’ll call for pizza,” he declared as he headed back down the hall. Calla and Zoey were pretty engrossed in their conversation by this time and barely acknowledged him.

“Dalton,” said Adam, following him into the kitchen. “Listen, I know that things are…” He turned to look at the girls. “A little messed up right now. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to-”

Dalton held up a hand to silence his brother as he proceeded ordered several large pizzas for delivery. Adam continued to frown at him. When he finally finished ordering, he hung up and said, “We should invite Jonah over.” He started to dial Jonah’s cell.

“He won’t come,” Adam replied.

Dalton frowned. “I know it’s hard to be around Pop when he’s like this, but we’re still a family.”

Adam shook his head. “That’s not why.”

“Then what?”

Instead of answering, Adam jerked his chin indicating something beyond Dalton’s shoulder. He turned to look. From the hallway, Ava and Sienna had emerged from Ava’s bedroom, this time they were both fully dressed.

“Ah, shit,” Dalton muttered. “Didn’t think about that. So how long are we going to dance around that?”

Adam shrugged. “No idea and it’s not our business.”

“True,” Dalton replied, but he still didn’t like it. He liked Sienna well enough, he supposed, from what little he knew of her. Dalton and Adam had been long gone and on their own by the time Sienna and her mother moved into the little house across the yard. He hoped Jonah worked his shit out sooner rather than later though, because Dalton was back in the family now and he didn’t want to miss a minute of being with them.

They stayed most of the day, Calla and Zoey chatting over pepperoni slices and ginger ale until Zoey began to yawn.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said, covering her mouth.

Calla laughed. “Don’t worry about it. If I had to carry around a whole ‘nother person, I’d just never get out of bed.”

Zoey smiled. “It’s not that bad,” she said rubbing her belly. “And he’s a good one.”

Dalton gathered their coats, helping Zoey to slip hers on. “We’ll be over for dinner some night this week,” he told Adam and Calla. Calla grinned at Zoey as they were leaving and Dalton ignored Adam’s noncommittal response.

Back at the apartment, he settled Zoey into his bed for a nap. As much as he would have liked to head to the garage, he decided to stay a moment instead. He lowered himself onto the comforter and moved in close to her. She turned toward him in her sleep, her belly pressing against his side. Dalton reached out and rested his hand on it. He only had to wait a few seconds before he felt a kick. He rubbed at the spot reassuringly.

“Sorry you have a prick for a Dad,” he said quietly. “My dad’s one of the good ones, but he’s slipping away from us.”

Dalton was surprised at how much easier it was to talk about it. He seemed to be getting used to saying things out loud. It had started with his share at the meeting and he didn’t seem to be able to stop it these days. Zoey didn’t need to know about any of this, though. God knew she had enough things to worry about already. He supposed that it was alright to tell the baby, though. The baby certainly didn’t understand it, so Dalton wasn’t really adding to anyone’s burden.

“He was a good dad,” Dalton said quietly. “I mean he still
is
a good dad, but he was good when I was growing up, too. He was tough, but he was always around, you know? And he used to say all this random stuff, but it always stayed with me. Like, ‘If you take ten cents or ten dollars for a job, you do that job to the best of your ability.’ He was big on that kind of thing, making your own way, being honest. He used to say a man was only as good as the name he made for himself. I don’t know,” he mused. “My name’s lost most of its value these days, or at least it seems like it, but I’m working on it.”

He rubbed the curve of Zoey’s belly gently. “It’s hard to miss someone that’s still here. You see them, but you can’t really talk to them. They can’t be what you need anymore, but you still have to go on holding up your end. I guess your mom went through enough of that. You won’t remember, though. You’ll never have to know. You won’t even have your dad’s name. That’s probably a good thing. Maybe names aren’t all that important. I don’t know, really. I’ve only ever been a Stark. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”

Dalton was a little tired on the job site the next day, but found that he didn’t mind so much now that he had something to go home to. He slowed his work pace though, despite the dirty looks the foreman shot him all day. Dalton didn’t care. They needed him too badly to do anything about it and if he got hurt again he’d be no good to anyone, not Zoey or his boss.

He’d ground himself down to the bone for months now working faster— and better— than anyone else on site. But that kind of effort really wasn’t sustainable and he had other priorities now. There was making Amends and then there was being taken advantage of, and his bosses were long past the latter in Dalton’s opinion. Money was still an issue, of course, and would be for the foreseeable future. Zoey hadn’t asked for any, but he’d find a way to give her whatever she needed. She deserved that much from him, at least.

His shift finally ended long after the sun had set, another late night. He had figured it would be and so he’d texted Zoey after lunch and told her not to wait up, but the apartment lights were on when he pulled up. He hustled inside to beat the cold, stomping out his boots on the rug. Zoey got up from the couch and slid her arms around him. She looked happy to see him, but slightly irritated.

“How can they work you this hard?” she asked, snuggling into his chest to get him warmed up.

“I screwed them over plenty in the past, plus they agreed to pay cash.”

She looked up at him. “Dalton! You can’t do that!”

“Plenty of guys do. It’s only temporary,” he assured her. “I’m locked out of the union for another six months.”

She gaped at him. “Another six months! Dalton, that’s insane!”

He shrugged. “I can deal with anything for six months.” He would’ve pointed out that he’d made it longer without her after they’d broken up, but it seemed corny to say out loud. Instead he looked past her and into the kitchen. “You made dinner?”

She grinned. “Yep. Beef stew.”

“Smells awesome.”

As he washed up, she said, “I went to the store. Got us some things.”

She hesitated and he glanced at her. “What?” he prompted.

She sighed. “He canceled my credit cards.”

Dalton glowered. “Christ.”

“Which is no big deal to him, I guess,” she said bitterly. “He pays cash for everything.”

“But you’re broke?”

She nodded. “So he says. Or maybe he just wants to know every single thing I buy.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to be using them anyway. I’ll leave some cash before I head out tomorrow. You can go back and pick up anything you didn’t get.”

Zoey frowned. “I’ll pay you back.”

He dried his hands and tweaked her nose as he grinned. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But Dalton-”

“You’re going to let me eat the food, right?” he said, cutting her off.

“Obviously.”

“So, don’t worry about it.”

He set the table as Zoey brought over a large bowl of stew and a ladle. She set it next to the Poinsettia on a placemat to protect the table’s beautiful wax finish. Dalton smiled. He had always liked that about her. Zoey could have had anything she wanted. God knew she’d grown up used to getting almost anything she wanted, but she respected what he gave her and that had always made him feel good.

It wasn’t a big family affair, so they skipped grace and went straight for the meal.

“God, this is amazing,” he said around a mouthful. Until that moment he hadn’t realized precisely how much he hated frozen burritos. He caught Zoey’s gaze across the table. “Thank you.”

She grinned and nodded. “It’s sad that a meat and potatoes man can’t make either.”

Dalton bristled. “I can grill a steak, but it’s thirty degrees outside, Woman!

She wrinkled her nose. “I know. It’s freezing.”

He made a mental to note to grab an extra blanket from the closet before they went to bed.

They finished the meal and he put the dishes in the washer. Zoey put on the same romantic comedy they hadn’t been able to finish the last time. Despite her enthusiasm for the chick flick, she still didn’t manage it this time either. She nodded off practically before the opening credits were finished, settling into a sweet but pretty unladylike snore.

Building a baby must be hard work
, he thought.

Dalton was stuck on the couch at least until the movie was over. He didn’t want to wake her. He didn’t really mind, though. Instead of watching the movie, he counted the baby’s kicks as Zoey leaned against him. It was more entertaining anyway. Dalton had to admit the kid was tough. He’d make a great football player someday, no doubt about it. He was sure active for a little guy.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Dalton told him quietly. “You’re not a kicker. You’re a linebacker.”

The baby objected.

Dalton pressed back lightly on the spot. “Trust me, kid. You don’t want to be a kicker. Our kicker was a scrawny dude with arms like twigs. He scored, but big deal, so do receivers. Scoring isn’t everything.” He felt a knock to his palm and frowned deeply. “Have you been talking to your mother? Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know anything about football. What’d she tell you? That I didn’t score? I’ll have you know, I did score once. There was a fumble and I scooped it up and just hopped right over the line. Didn’t take much, but you’d think I invented the wheel. They picked me up, carried me around.”

The baby nudged him.

“What? True story, bro. I am not embellishing. This totally happened. Anyway it was better than being Prom King. Especially after the game. There was this little cheerleader. Her name was Kelli— with an ‘i’— anytime they spell their name funky like that you’re in for a good time, by the way. Anyway, she was a cheerleader and probably into gymnastics too because… you know what? I’ll finish this story when you’re older.”

The baby gave an indignant kick.

“Don’t give me any lip, boy. I’m…” He paused. “I’m the adult and what I say goes. Your mom is the only girl we need to worry about. And she’s tired. So we should put her to bed soon.”

After a while the kicks subsided. Babies in the womb slept, he’d read, and clearly the little guy was tired, too. Dalton’s own eyelids felt like lead weights. He tried to fight it, but they slid down one final time and he couldn’t muster the strength to open them again. He heard Zoey breathing next to him and on the television, people who’d only just met were declaring themselves the happiest people in the world. Dalton knew better. He was happier.

The baby thumped him one final time.

“Go to sleep,” Dalton muttered
.