Page 45 of Off the Rim
"How is it that your parents didn't name you in any sort of will? You said he was rich, and they were married for fiveyears before they died, right?" He nods, pursing his lips like he knows exactly what I'm about to ask. "That didn't seem fishy to anyone?"
"It did to me. And I was upset. I didn't expect or want some big inheritance, but I was left with nothing. Not only was it unfair, but it seemed unlikely that a wealthy, professional guy like AJ wouldn't have an updated will after being married for five years, or that my mother didn't have one at all."
"Do you think Matilda…" I trail off, not really sure how to phrase my question, seeing as I know nothing about estate planning or laws.
"I don't know," Dad says, answering my unspoken question. "But I asked. Publicly. And it caused them a lot of trouble. Their business got put under a lot of scrutiny, and they lost investors."
"Good." I raise my hands when Dad gives me a look. "What? From my point of view, you were the one getting screwed over."
"You're forgetting how young Junior was. That he'd been under immense pressure his entire life. And he lost a parent, too."
My face falls. The pain he feels for his ex-stepbrother is obvious. "So, what did you do next?"
"Something I'm not proud of."
I look at him questioningly.
"I took a bribe. Matilda offered me what seemed like a lot of money at the time. It was enough to get me through my next year at school, but I underestimated the cost of living in a big city, and I ran out of money pretty quickly. I took out some pretty steep loans to finish my degree, but I made it through. Iworked hard and started a business from the ground up, doing something I loved. And most importantly, I started a family."
Holding the ball against his side, he reaches out with his free arm and pulls me in for a hug.
"Our family being together and happy is all that matters to me. All the money and success in the world could never touch what we have. If nothing else, AJ taught me that."
I always wondered what any of that had to do with AJames Enterprises and the cease and desist letter, but I never got the chance to ask. The topic changed, probably purposefully on his part, and I let him distract me by discussing what clips I wanted in the promo video I was using to get into a basketball camp I wanted to go to. The same camp where I had my first encounters with the boy he’d warned me away from.
The real reason I drove all the way to an empty house was to hopefully find that box. I feel a little guilty for going through my mother's things, but it's not like I can talk to her about it. While my mom hasn't yelled at me or tried to have Ashton removed from the team, she has made it known how uncomfortable she is with me getting close to him. I told her we're just teammates who are trying to be friendly with each other, which wasn't a lie when we'd initially had the conversation after the interview aired. But the other times she's brought it up in the weeks since, not to mention the number of times Greg has found me eating lunch with Ashton instead of on my own or in his classroom like I did most of last year, I've had to change the subject or assure her there's nothing happening between us. It was a lie I’ve been telling myself as well as them, trying to deny the raging hard on I have for Ashton James. And who am I kidding? I've had it bad for him since we were fifteen years old, and my first kiss was interrupted by tragedy. There's been nothing but intriguesurrounding him since the first time I noticed him and asked my dad what the big deal was.
"If he's anything like his dad, he's not trustworthy."
And I think… I think he called Ashton's dadJunior. I asked Ashton about it, and he said no one calls his dad that. So I could be wrong about this hunch I have, but there's only one way to find out.
Greg's house is modest by Cumberland standards, but much larger than the home I grew up in. It has a large open floor plan on the main floor, with an office and a guest room to one side of the living room, and the kitchen, dining room, and a sunroom on the other. There are three bedrooms upstairs, and a loft on the third floor that Greg uses as his nerdy man cave.
I start in the downstairs office, because that's where mom has her work stuff set up. Since she didn't have to worry about working so much, she finally started doing some graphic design stuff online. It started with stuff like menus for restaurants or website graphics. But since she has more time to read now, which was always her true passion, she fell into making book covers. Most of her clients are indie romance authors, but she's been commissioned by a few larger name publishing companies, as well. She loves it, and it allows her enough flexibility to do volunteer work and pursue hobbies that she hasn't been able to in a long time. Which, looking around the office, seems to mostly involve collecting books. She told me Greg built her some bookshelves, but I had no idea it was an entire wall of them, and that she'd already made impressive progress filling them up. Since I'm snooping anyway, I pull a few titles down, raising an eyebrow in surprise at some of the dirty stuff I find. One whole shelf is even dedicated to gay sports romance, which distracts me from my task for an entire hour.
Me: What the hell have you been reading?
Mom: Don't judge me.
Me: I'm borrowing some of these.
Mom: Don't dog-ear the pages or use them as coasters. Those are my children now that you've flown the nest.
Me: Should I be concerned?
Mom: Only if you hurt my babies.
Mom: Seriously though, some of those get pretty racy. You're an adult and all, but I feel like I should warn you.
Me: Uh, yeah. I opened one of them that looked like it was about Motocross and ended up reading about two dudes beating the crap out of each other one page, then beating the crap out of each other in a very different way on the next.
Mom: Oooh, that's a good one. It's a series, make sure you grab all three.
I shake my head, marveling at how much life has changed that I'm borrowing porn from my mom. Shuddering, I go to put the books back on the shelf but think twice and make a little pile to take back to school with me instead. It'll be nice to have something to read on the plane to Vegas tomorrow night.
It's sad that I can talk about dirty books with my mom but can't tell her who the main character in my own fantasies has been. Or that I took things too far, again, and really wish I could talkto someone about it. Ollie, my old teammate from Wake Prep, is usually pretty down to talk about stuff, but when I made the mistake of telling him about what happened with Ashton after the interview, he went a little nuts. His reaction was actually what helped me keep my distance for as long as I did.
Because if you can't be honest with the people closest to you, maybe it's a big clue that you're doing something wrong.
