Page 50 of Send It
My dad chuckles, changing his tune with Reiss. Just like always. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s see how all this training with the world’s most expensive trainer pays off at Nationals.”
Another thing my dad doesn’t let me forget. That he is funding my racing career. He doesn’t let me forget because he’s been throwing money at me since they started traveling. The second my dad retired from racing, my parents left. Trips that always last weeks at a time and when Nana went into Willow Hills, they tossed a credit card at me like that made up for their absence.
Graduation? No thanks. Here’s a brand new truck and text message that says, “Congratulations son.”
Don’t get me wrong, I was thankful for never having to worry about money but it didn’t fill the void like they thought it did. It didn’t excuse the fact that I spent birthdays without them and school functions with a family that wasn’t even mine in my corner.
When it came to my mother I was numb, I didn’t love her and I didn’t hate her. I wasn’t even sure if she loved me and could care less. She never showed affection toward me. I can count on one hand the number of times she hugged me and when I saw how Reiss and Lincoln’s mother was with them growing up, that is what really opened my eyes.Our relationship wasn’t like that, it never had been, so it was hard to miss something you never had. I’d become independent at a young age and I liked it that way.
Nana was the only person in my family that really knew me. She cared what my favorite foods were, which cartoons I liked on the weekends, and how to really get through the walls I’d built around my heart.
Aside from Nana, I had the Bane family.
Later that night after we’d eaten, we all sat around the front room and chatted with Nana. She had trouble remembering some things from the past but the present she was completely on top of.
“Lincoln, honey, when you come by this week will you bring me some more of that chocolate?”
My head snapped in Lincoln’s direction, waiting for her response, but when it came it was natural.
She visits my Nana?
“Sure,” she chirps. “Did you like the caramel or the regular?”
Nana’s eyes light up with excitement. “Both, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” Lincoln smiles, and it’s the sweetest one I think I’ve ever seen. “I’ll probably come by on Tuesday. I have quite a few shifts this week at Lakeside.”
No one else questions a single thing, but I catch Lincoln when no one else is paying attention. “You visit my Nana?”
Lincoln shrugs, “You said no one else does, and she needs to see someone besides a dipshit like you.”
I laugh at the nickname. “Thank you for doing that, I’m sure she likes seeing you.”
Lincoln rolls her eyes, “Of course she does. I bring chocolate.”
I pout, “You never bring me chocolate.”
“Because you don’t like chocolate candy, dipshit. You like sour candy. You don’t really like sweet stuff, which totally matches your personality.”
I grin wickedly and whisper, “I like sweet stuff.”
Her cheeks turn a rosy shade of pink, “You can’t say things like that here.”
“No one can hear me,” I argue, leaning into her ear. “Besides, I think you know just how sweet you taste, which proves that I do in fact like sweet stuff.”
“Fine,” she snaps. “Let’s for the sake of the argument say that you are right. It’s not like it’s something you can have on demand.”
My face falls because she’s right. As much as I love flirting with Lincoln and the embarrassing amount of times per day I think about that night at the lake house, the very first time I touched her, nothing will ever compare to what happened at my house the other day. Even though it was the first time, part of me knows it needs to be the last.
“We need to talk about what happened the other day,” I state, knowing we need to hash it out.
She steps back almost defensively, “Why? So you can tell me how it can never happen again? Howwecan’t happen, ever?”
I feel her pulling away and with every single part of my being I grasp for that invisible string to pull her back. I search for words. Excuses. But nothing comes out of my mouth.
I look across the room at my dad and watch how heinteracts with Reiss. The jealousy bubbles up in my chest and I look to Lincoln, I can’t be with her, I can’t have her like I want but there might be a solution. Something that makes everyone happy.
I can compete at Nationals.
