Page 80 of Mind Pucked

“Hey,” I say softly, for a lack of anything better to say at the moment. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” I admit.

“Why’s that?” he asks me softly, as if he’s trying not to let others hear his voice.

“I mean, I know you gave me your number and all, but you seemed kind of set on keeping me out of it all,” I say, hoping I’m not being too hard on him.

“Sorry,” I say quietly when he doesn’t say anything in return for a long while. “I’m just in a bad headspace. I know you can’t be in a great place yourself, but…” I fall still, trying to think of something, anything else to say to finish my thought process, but nothing comes to mind.

“I figured you might want to know what’s going on,” he says. “But I can go if you don’t want to talk to me.” My heart breaks. “I didn’t mean to cause any problems for you.” He sounds dejected.

“No,” I snap, hoping to catch him before he hangs up. “Don’t you dare. I know you’re on a burner or something and I don’t want to take the chance of not being able to get back to you if I need to. I don’t know how these things work, Pres. I was just shocked is all.”

“You’re right.” He chuckles a little, but it seems rather forced. “I am, and it’s a limited-use type of thing until I can figure out how to deal with your dad.” It’s weird for him not to sayourdad anymore.

“He’s not my dad either if he tried to kill the only brother I’ve ever had,” I snap dryly, trying to figure out how I’m going to go about dealing with that whole situation. “He murdered someone, Pres, and God only knows how many more someones.”

“I never wanted to take your father from you,” he says, his voice dripping in sadness. “He’s going to blame me, you know.”

“You didn’t take him away from me…he did that himself by trying to take my brother.” I sigh because that’s the only thing that feels right. “And he took himself out of the equation when he did that. It’s as simple as that.”

“How are things with Jackson?” he asks, obviously trying to change the subject. “Does he know about me?” It’s easy to tell he isn’t super comfortable with the whole situation.

“Yes, I told him…big mistake,” I breathe. “And he promptly broke up with me after, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Jackson is a thing of the past.”

“Why?” he asks with a tone of worry lacing his voice.

“Because, Pres,” I begin, trying to coerce the hostility from my body so I don’t displace it onto him. He doesn’t deserve it after all he’s been through. “I pretty much admitted to him that I only came into his life in the first place because I suspected he had maybe killed you.”

“You what?” I have to fight a laugh at how indignant he sounds. “Why on earth would you think that?” he barks out in disbelief.

“I thought that since your things were in that car, that you must have been sleeping with Lyla and Jackson found out or something,” I rant. “I mean, I know you two were rivals and didn’t get along all that much before you were on the Jays together. It was a possibility that he got rid of you and killed his wife in the meantime. The only problem is…” I pause for a moment, trying to think of the best way to explain what I have to say.

“The only problem is you fell for him, then realized that he wasn’t capable of hurting me at all and that he loved his wife more than any man has ever loved a woman before, and there was no way he harmed a hair on her head?” he spouts, and I know I don’t even have to say anything to let him know he’s right.

“Can I ask you something?” I change the subject, though I don’t know that he’s going to let me get by so easily.

“Don’t run from the subject, little sister, because I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Fine,” I say tersely. “Yes…now, did you ever figure out who your father was? As I hear it, Lyla wasn’t even one-hundred-percent sure who her dad was.”

“Yeah, we knew we were half brother and sister, on our dad’s side, because of the genealogy project. So we decided to look for our dad together—all we knew was it had to be someone who slept with both our moms. And then we found him—we had just discovered the truth right before she died. I wondered if finding out was the cause of the whole thing, but we hadn’t told a soul, so there was no way anyone knew to report back.” He pauses a moment as if thinking of the possibilities. “Unless your father bugged her car or something. Maybe our cells.”

“Sounds like he’s capable of it,” I admit, even though it doesn’t feel so good to do so.

“Either way, we had just found out our father is the coach of the Chicago Blue Jays…my coach,” Preston says. “I don’t know if Coach knows or not. Lyla and I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him, and since then I’ve sort of been dead, so I haven’t gone to him about it since.”

I fight a chuckle. No matter how crazy this all seems, my brother knows how to make me laugh. In the middle of the chaos, he finds moments to slip in something funny, and it feels so good to feel something other than numb for a moment.

In all honesty, I’m having a hard time grasping all the lies that have been told here.

“Do you plan on telling him now that you’re alive again?” I ask, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“Not right now,” Preston says. “I don’t want to risk his life in all this.” He blows out a huff of air. “It’s just weird that our mother was apparently a bit more promiscuous in her younger days than what any of us knew.”

“So, you think she cheated frequently on our father?” I ask. “I mean…my father,” I correct myself though the whole thing still feels so ridiculous.

“Well…” He pauses a moment, and I can hear him shifting on the other end of the phone, trying to get comfortable. “There were two that I know of. Apparently, it happened a lot with those two guys though, but that was why I didn’t know right away who my father was.”

“And you’re sure it’s Coach, really?” I ask, trying to figure it all out. “How do you know for sure?” I ask, hoping he has some concrete evidence on the matter. I shift in my seat before getting to my feet again and resuming my pacing. Sitting still for long periods of time has not been possible these last few days, and it’s even less possible now that my gut is twisting with all this new information.

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