Page 106 of The Two Last Moments

I get up and stand in front of my uncle, digging my hands into my jeans pockets. His mouth flattens into a tight line.

“Almost twenty years,” I say. “Twentyfucking years.”

“I have no excuse. But I can try to explain. If you’ll let me.”

I shrug and walk over to the living room window. It’s getting dark. Fuck, it’s been a long fucking day. And I know I’m wearing thin when every other word in my brain is an f-bomb.

“How long have you known about that DUI?” Travis ask softly.

“A few days. Private investigator.” I don’t feel like explaining Bennett Security and what they do.

“That must be how you found my address.”

I turn around, crossing my arms over my chest. “Actually, it was Lark. Indirectly. She had your address written down, though she didn’t realize it. I don’t see the need to discuss logistics with you, though. If you have something you think I want to hear, then say it.”

If he sniffs, nodding. “You probably know about what happened before I left. Your grandpa’s funeral. The cufflinks.”

“The cufflinks you stole? Yeah, I remember. I was a fourteen-year-old kid, but I was old enough to overhear what everyone else was saying and figure out what I needed to. How you stole from my dad and Nina, and when they got upset, you took off and never came back. Never said awordto me. Like I didn’t mean shit.”

Travis wipes a hand over his face. Then he sticks a hand into his pocket. Pulls out his wallet.

From inside the fold of leather, he produces two gold cufflinks.

“I did take them. But it wasn’t to sell them like your dad accused me of. It was stupid and sentimental. I did a lot of stupid, impulsive things back then. I wish I could take them back.”

“So you’ve been carrying that shit around all these years? For what? You could’ve come back, and you didn’t. You live an hour away from here. You mentioned the migraines and chronic pain, and I’m sure that’s rough. But you haven’t been out of commission every minute for the past twenty years.”

His fist wraps around the shiny gold trinkets. “I tried to come back. A year after I left. I wanted to apologize. Explain myself and make things right. But Chris told me I wasn’t wanted in your life.”

“My dad said that?”

“He told me you and Nina were both better off without me. That I was a bad influence on you, and he didn’t want me around you anymore. He’d said it before, but that time, the truth sunk in. I’d missed my own father’s funeral. I felt like a waste of space.”

I’m ready with another biting comeback until I actually process what he just told me. I can imagine my father saying that. He said the same about Travis to me plenty of times.

“You didn’t talk to Nina or me? Didn’t let us decide?”

He hangs his head. “I figured Chris was right. That you were better off without me in your life.”

I’m still pissed, and I still want to argue. But if I take a step back, if I try to separate myself from the pain of rejection, I can see how he might’ve believed my father.

It’s the same thing Lark was doing. Believing the worst about herself because of the cruel words of someone else. And while my dad is kind of an asshole, he’s not the evil villain here either. He and his brother just let pettiness and fear make their decisions for them.

I exhale and tug at my necklace. I haven’t thought about it in years, but Travis gave me this necklace for my thirteenth birthday. I’ve been wearing it all this time, like he’s apparently been carrying those cufflinks. Tiny pieces of jewelry. But both of us have been hauling around an invisible, back-breaking weight.

“Do you want to see Nina?”

“Of course I do,” he rushes to say. “More than anything. And I want the chance to get to know you, too. To know the man you’ve become. Seeing you with Lark, how you treat her, I’m just so damn proud of you.”

I nod begrudgingly. “She deserves it. She’s an amazing woman.”

“She is. It’s not fair that she’s had to deal with so much. But if you two end up together, if you make each other happy the way I know you can, then it’ll be worth it. Who the hell knows, maybe it’s meant to be.”

That’s something else my uncle and I can agree on.

“Let’s go see if Nina is awake,” I say. “She’s had a hard day, but I know she’ll want to see you.”

36

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