Page 11 of The Final Beat

“No! I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll call you soon.”

I wouldn’t.

I ended the call and immediately dialled Destiny’s number.

“Daisy,” I groaned as she answered. “I really need you.”

“Come over.”

Her response was given without hesitation, and I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever hated myself more.

CHAPTER 6

DESTINY

As soon as I opened the door to Joey, I knew things were bad. There was a shadow of something dark in his eyes. Something that I hadn’t seen before. I’d seen need, craving, and regret but never the shadows that seemed to be haunting him as he walked into my house.

“What’s happened?” I asked, watching him pace up and down my lounge.

He focused on the floor as he hung his hands from the back of his neck. He was practically vibrating from whatever emotion was running through him.

“Joey?” Finally, his eyes met mine and the pain in them took my breath away. “What the hell happened? Is it one of the boys?” I swallowed. “You haven’t taken something, have you?”

“Fuck, Daisy, no.” He licked his lips and then blew out his cheeks. “It’s not me or the guys. I spoke to my mum.”

“Is it her drinking? What’s happened?”

I was aware that it was unusual I knew everything about his mum, considering no one knew aboutus. We were occasional fuck buddies, but I was also his sounding board. I openly disliked him, yet I was always there when he needed me. Wehad an unconventional connection, some would say toxic, but it worked for us.

Joey shook his head. “My dad.”

The two words surprised me, and I instantly understood why he was rattled. Joey had an almost irrational hatred of his dad. Right from the beginning, when we had our initial fling, he told me that he never wanted to speak about him. How much he hated him. Once, when he was high on something, just before things ended between us, Joey spilled it all. By the end he was emotional with tears of anger and pain, and it was easy to see it wasn’t just the drugs talking.

“Joey, sit down and tell me everything.” I went to him and guided him to the sofa. He fought me for a few seconds but then flopped down and I took the seat next to him. “What about your dad?”

Inhaling he turned his gaze on me. “She told me he’s dying, Daisy.” As Joey wound his fingers together, it was clear his grief was battling with his anger at having to talk about the man who’d abandoned him.

“How? Is it cancer? What?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea. I told her I wasn’t interested. She wants me to go and see him.”

I placed a hand on his forearm. “That’s nothing new.”

“But he’s never been fucking dying before.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “He’sdying.”

His shoulders stooped as his head dropped between his knees. I’d seen him sitting like that before, usually when drugs were involved. Often after he’d relapsed after promising to get clean. Never because he was feeling emotional about his dad.

“I’m sorry, Joe, I really am. I know you hate him, but this must be a bloody awful shock.”

“He left me when I was four, just as I was old enough to know him. To understand that he was my dad. And then he left us andwent back to Italy and married someone else and had three kids with her.” He groaned, not lifting his head. “I was his son and yet he never once called me. He didn’t even send me a birthday card.”

“And that’s on him, Joe.”

“I can’t even blame my mum; she wasn’t even drinking then.” The breath he drew in was shaky. “Ihad to be the reason he left, otherwise he’d have kept in touch with me. He’d have wanted to see me. To introduce me to my three fucking sisters.”

Every part of his pain at being abandoned was dripping from him. From his defeated posture to the wringing of his hands.

“That’s not true,” I replied. “You’re not the reason he left. He left because he was a fucking shit parent.”

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