Page 49 of Falling in Reverse

“Let’s just get the test done and worry afterward, okay?”

I wrap my arms around my naked torso and squeeze. “Yeah…okay.”

“I’ll take care of it.” His eyes flash with confidence, something that makes me feel somewhat comforted, because he’s one dude who would never betray or steer me wrong. “We’ll figure this out.”

This is too big for us to be able to handle alone.

If this is true, my whole world just shifted, and I have a family who relies on me. A whole three heads who depend on my ass not being related to the biggest piece of shit in the universe.

“Bay, you should sit down.”

I rock my head. “I can’t. I swear to God, I’m not sure what’s happening right now.”

“We should call Levi?—”

“No,” I clip out, then immediately regret how harsh that sounded. “I mean, I can’t.”

I’ve already lied to him about the red mark on my face and why I showed up with another man’s shirt on my body. I said it was because some asshole spilled a drink on me, but even I knew that was lame.

“Why not?”

Oh my God, Trav. Please stop asking me questions.

“I just need a minute to breathe and...can you keep this between us?”

“Yeah…of course, I will.” He frowns, and it looks so foreign on his face that I become paranoid all of a sudden. “Bay...you’re shaking.”

He reaches for my hand and squeezes my fingers before I glance down at them in his grasp.

“Maybe I should call Levi and have him come over.” I attempt to pull my hands free of Travis’s, but he doesn’t let me go. In fact, he holds tighter. “How about I stay for a little while?”

Hot tears threaten to burn the back of my eyes again. How am I going to bring this up to Dad?

He’s not in the best mental state, and he’s literally everything to me. He’s always put me and my sisters first. He’s worked his ass off for as long as I can remember at the shipping yard, coming home late, listening to my mom bitch about how he’s never around to take care of his kids.

While mom wasn’t the greatest to me, he was. He consistently was. Even when Mom and he separated for a few months when I was maybe eleven, he made sure I had a roof. While he stayed and slept at the docks, I stayed with one of his friends for a short period of time because he didn’t have the money to feed me.

Mom didn’t want to deal with me, of course.

It could’ve been because I was a menace, someone she despised for whatever reason, but he never abandoned me.

However…it all makes sense.

I wasn’t her daughter.

If I am Emilio Wildes’s offspring, why would she wish to raise another man’s child? Unless she is my mother and Emilio and her?—

“You never have to hide from me,” Trav mutters lightly just above a whisper. “I’ll never spill your secret.”

Waterworks…it’s the best way I can describe my immediate breakdown as Travis wraps me in his warm arms, holding me to his chest as I have my mini mechanical brain failure.

His embrace is firm, fitting the rock he’s always been.

And Dad…without him, I’m lost.

I need him to get back to normal.

I need him now.

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