V
OICES FILTERED IN
through the haze of sleep and pain. He searched for that musical voice, the one he wanted to hear more than any others.
He swore he felt the touch, heard his name from those beautiful lips. But when he blinked awake, all he heard was a football game on TV. His dad and Brent faced away from him, drinking coffee and watching the game. Cal sat in the chair beside him, reading a magazine.
Max’s one hand rested on the thin, scratchy hospital blanket but the other hand gripped something soft.
He blinked and raised his hand. Wrinkled fabric fell to his chest and he frowned.
Cal leaned over, grabbed it and unfurled it.
Max’s eyes widened. It was a Cross Keys bowling shirt. Max reached out and grabbed it. He brushed his hands over the fabric and the smell of coconuts overwhelmed the cotton smell.
Lea.
He hadn’t imagined her voice after all.
He raised his eyes to Cal’s. “She was here.” He didn’t phrase it as a question because he knew. It was her scent on the shirt and the tingle on his cheek where she’d cupped his face and the sound of his name echoing in his ears in her musical voice.
She had come.
Despite everything that had happened, she’d cared enough to visit and buy him a new shirt. A shirt she hated and rolled her eyes at whenever he wore it.
She cared.
His whole body flushed hot. He had a chance.
“Hey.” Max’s father stood at the end of the bed, drawing his attention away from the shirt. “How’s the head?”
Max was too tired to act macho. “Hurts like a bitch.”
His dad blinked at him, his gaze lingering on the bandage Max was sure was visible behind his ear. But something else worked behind those cold eyes, something Max couldn’t read. And his dad’s body language was all wrong. He was always tense, but confident. And now his posture radiated an odd anxiety.
“They had a gun,” his dad said. The word
gun
said with so much venom, it hit Max in the chest like a bullet. “They whipped my kid with a
gun
.”
His tone was all wrong. His words were all wrong. Max couldn’t remember the last time his father even acknowledged Max was his kid. Or had ever been a kid. He was always supposed to be a man.
But he kept talking, his eyes burning into Max. “You didn’t stay and fight. Always told you never back down until the whistle. But you ran and called for help.”
It was a statement of fact, and for once, Max couldn’t determine the meaning behind the words. Was he ashamed of Max? Cal stiffened beside him and Brent came to his feet, standing on the other side of Max’s bed, his gaze darting between Max and his father.
They were a triangle of Paytons, Max’s father at the end of the bed and his sons making up the base.
Max remembered his dad’s words, that he’d take on all three guys. That he’d stand his ground.
Life isn’t a Jason Statham movie.
And this time, Max spoke up. “It wasn’t a game, Dad. There was no ref. There was no whistle. I—”
“
I know that!
” his father roared, the sudden emotion like a blast of hurricane-force winds, rocking all three of his sons back. Then, like his shout had weakened him he sank into the chair at the end of the bed, rested his elbows on his knees and thunked his head in his hands.
Max had never seen his dad in this position. The man before him now was a stranger. A stranger who radiated uncertainty and maybe a little bit of regret.
Brent sank down onto the bed beside Max and they all stared at the hunched broad shoulders of their father.
Finally, Cal cleared his throat. “Dad?”
He raised his head and those eyes were right on Max. “You did the right thing.”
Max sucked in those words on a sharp inhale and then held them there, letting them swirl around in his head, pump through his veins and feed his body, because he didn’t know if he’d ever hear them again in his father’s voice. When he needed to breath again, he exhaled roughly. But those words, he’d kept them. They weren’t escaping.
“Dad—”
The big man shook his head. “They had a gun.” He repeated again. This time drawing out the word on a groan. Max bit his lip so he didn’t talk as his father continued. “Thought I’d been teaching you boys the right thing all this time. I thought fighting, eye for an eye, was right but . . .” He closed his eyes slowly and then popped them back open, zeroing in on that bandage on Max’s head. “They coulda killed ya.”
They could have. Max knew that. They hadn’t killed anyone yet, and they might not have wanted to. But accidents happened. Fingers slipped. Bullets hit flesh.
His dad shook his head, visibly shuddering. This wasn’t the response Max expected. He thought he’d be called a coward. He thought he’d be told to get out of bed and take it like a man.
He hadn’t his father to practically break down at the foot of his bed while all three sons watched.
As much as he told himself that he hated his father, he didn’t. It was his dad who’d raised him with his brothers when his mother bailed. Sure, he bitched but he did it. He kept them in a house and fed and clothed.
And he’d tried.
That was better than what Jill did.
Jill bailed. Jack and Jill went up the hill but only Jack came back to take care of his family. His dad wasn’t a quitter in things that mattered. He just had to know when quitting was the smart thing to do.
Brent’s eyes were wide and Cal gripped the sheet near Max’s hip with white knuckles. Max took a deep breath. “Well, they didn’t, Dad. I’m here. I’ll be okay.”
He hoped, at least. His head hurt but he was alive and he remembered everything and knew the year and the president so it couldn’t be too bad.
His dad nodded toward the shirt. “What’s that?”
Max folded the shirt carefully on his lap. “My girlfriend brought me a shirt.”
“Girlfriend?”
Max raised his eyes. “The girl who came into the shop last night. The one you were an asshole to? Yeah, that’s Lea.”
His dad frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Max shook his head. “I was an idiot. She surprised me, and then you brought up the lie I told you, about how it was just a one-time thing. And I froze.” Max took a deep breath. “I was on my way to apologize to her when I got jumped. I care about her and I’m a lot in love with her and now I feel like I have at least a slim chance of getting her back if she cared enough to visit me.”
Max’s dad rubbed his palms together. “And her injury . . .”
“Childhood car accident.”
He nodded. “I guess I owe her an apology then, too.”
Max ran his tongue over his teeth. “Yep, I think you do.”
“I can do that,” he said quietly.
T
HE NEXT
MORNING,
Jeremy woke up Max, telling him it was time for his MRI. He helped Max into a wheelchair, and Max let him because no one was around to make fun of him for being a baby.
The MRI showed he still had some swelling in his brain. And for a split second, Max wanted to go give those fuckers some swelling in their brains. The cops had talked to him yesterday, asking him questions and letting him know about the charges against the three criminals. So that thought calmed him down. Jeremy let him eat, and Max fell asleep again.
He woke up on his own this time, and his dad was beside him, elbow propped on the arm of his chair, chin in his hand, watching Sports Center.
“Dad,” Max said.
He jerked his head up and then grabbed a cup of water off of Max’s side table. “Thirsty?”
Max nodded and took the proffered cup. “How long have you been here?”
His dad shrugged. “Hour? Two. I think I fell asleep for a little.”
“It’s quiet here during the day.”
“Yeah, it’s not the maternity ward. Loud as shit there.”
Max shifted to face his father. “Yeah?”
His dad kept his eyes on the TV. “Cal and Brent both had colic, so the hospital stays were a blur of screaming. But you . . .” he cleared his throat, “you were a really good baby. Slept well, ate well. Being in the hospital with you was like a vacation.”
“Really?” He never heard much about when he was a kid. His mom had left shortly after and it always seemed like his dad blocked out that part of his life.
“Yeah, I let your mother sleep because she was always so tired from the boys and . . . you slept in my arms on the pullout couch in the room.”
“I slept on you?”
His dad looked at him. “You slept the best on me. Your mother said she thought I made you feel more secure than when she held you.”
How had he gone twenty-two years and never heard any of this?
His dad waved his hand. “Good thing, because when she left you didn’t seem too bothered by it. As long as I was there.” He sighed. “You got really dependent on me. So I tried to break you of that.”
Max never remembered feeling dependent on his father. But looking back, he’d always felt safe.
So if his father didn’t want him to feel dependent on him anymore, then it was time to break free, wasn’t it? Time to be honest.
All this time he’d thought his desire for something different for his future meant he was weak. That if he could just buckle down and stay strong, stay the course his father had set for the family, that he’d be rewarded.
Then he’d be a real man.
But now, every throb of his head was like a lighthouse beacon, shining into the recesses of his heart.
His dream of teaching, of coaching, of making a difference in people’s lives in the way he wanted to wasn’t a weakness. It was only weak if he didn’t stick up for himself.
And as he gazed at his father, sitting beside his bed with his arms crossed over his chest, he knew he was done being weak.
Because the longer he suppressed himself, the more he’d atrophy, until who knew how much Max would actually be left.
If his dad truly wanted Max to be an independent man, then this was the right decision.
“I don’t want to work at the garage after I graduate,” he said.
His dad jerked his head toward him, then moved the chair so it faced the bed rather than the TV. “What did you say?”
“I want to change my major. I want to teach physical education and coach.”
His dad was eerily still. Max braced himself because his dad definitely had a “calm before the storm” mood. Or more like the eye of the storm. Because no matter which way you turned, you hit the swirl of temper.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m just being honest,” he whispered.
Slowly, his dad ran his lips over his teeth and studied his hands. Full of callouses and grease permanently worked into his nail beds. His whole body showed a life of hard work. Six days a week. Sunup to sundown.
“What do you want to coach?”
Okay, so he wasn’t yelling. So far, so good. His dad didn’t give two shits about creating a scene in public so Max didn’t expect their location was in his favor. “Hockey.”
His dad’s gaze trailed over his face, stopping on the scar above his eye, caused by a hockey stick when he was little. If they wanted to go through the injuries Max had suffered, they’d be there all day.
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
Max licked his lips and went with honesty. “A long time.”
His dad nodded and looked back down at his hands. “And you didn’t tell me because . . . ?”
Max picked at the blanket pooled at his waist. “I thought you’d quit helping me pay. I thought you’d disown me. I thought you’d flip your shit.”
A lip twitch. “Flip my shit.”
“Come on, Dad, you know—”
“I know. I know.”
Max tapped his fingers. “So, are you going to flip your shit? A warning would be nice. I might need more pain meds.”
“I guess I didn’t give you the impression I won’t flip my shit, did I?”
Who was this guy? “Dad, who are you? I didn’t have a near-death experience. I just got hit in the head. And all of a sudden you are . . . I don’t know . . . different . . . and I—”
He held his hand up and Max snapped his jaw shut.
“Brent flapped his gums,” his dad said.
“What?”
“I heard him talking to Cal and Cal was angry that Brent discouraged you. And I . . . I realized that Brent did that because he probably thought that’s what I would do. But Cal said he was proud of you for wanting something different and I . . . I realized that it was unrealistic to keep all of you in that shop with me. It’s hard work. Your brothers and I like it. But I can’t make you do something you don’t want to, can I?”
Max nodded. “Actually, yeah, yeah you can.”
“Okay, but do I want to?”
Max squinted. “ I don’t know. Do you?”
He shook his head, but Max could see the sadness lingering in his eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “I realize I didn’t make it easy on you to tell me.”
This was the first honest discussion he’d had with his dad. Ever. Was he dreaming?
“I need to check in at the shop, so I gotta get going.”
“Okay, Dad.”
He leaned in and gripped Max’s shoulder. “We’ll talk more later.”
M
AX SAT
ON
the end of his hospital bed, humming to himself and tapping his feet. His brain was “A-OK” (that wasn’t the medical term, but he stopped listening when they used Latin words) and so he’d been discharged. And now he was waiting until Cal could pick him up and drive him home.
He wasn’t allowed back at school for a week, which was going to be hell on his classes, but at least he could e-mail his advisor to get an appointment to switch his major.
And then he needed to phone Lea.
Or bet at her doorstep.
Anything, really.
His door opened and Max looked up, expecting to see his brother, but instead a pompadoured head peered in.
“Zuk!” Max cried, thrilled as hell to see his friend. Cal said he’d talked to him and Max had been sad he’d been conked out and missed him.
“Hey, man.” Alec smiled and walked forward with a container in his hand.
Max eyed it. “What you got there, Zuk?”
Alec set the container down on the bed and stood in front of Max. “I come to drive you home from the hospital after you got pistol-whipped and you only care about what treats I brought?”