Page 32 of Ensnared By Silence
“I’m splendid, Agnes. Why have you been blowing my phone up for weeks?”
“Can’t a mother be eager to talk to her son?”
“Cut the crap,Mom. What do you want?”
She huffed, and I heard her whisper to someone before a door closing sounded through the phone. “I’m hosting the annual Thanksgiving dinner for the club’s board this year and I wanted you to attend. I was hoping you could be here next week.”
I barked a laugh into the room and took a hit off the joint. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You don’t want me there—you want my control over the estate. What’s the matter? Hubby not have enough zeros in his account to get on the board of your country club on his own?”
“Don’t be crass, Hayden. You having control over your father’s estate has nothing to do with me wanting my son home for the holidays.”
I let the wheels spin in my head quickly, trying to figure out her angle. Agnes Willham-Prescott does nothing out of love or kindness. If it doesn’t benefit her or her new family’s standing in their social circles, she looked past it like it was a stray dog.
“What’s the catch? If it’s not the board you’re after, who is it?”
She huffed into the phone before she relented. “Your stepbrother is bringing home his girlfriend and her family for dinner and her father could be a potential partner for Richard.”
I sat forward and stared at the phone as my vision grew hazy. She had more nerve than anyone I ever met, and I couldn’t believe her audacity. I sat back and snubbed the joint out before I spoke.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to come play the puppet so that Dick can schmooze some potential business partner while your stepson fucks his daughter on the side?”
“Hayden Winchester, watch your language,” she scolded.
“Fuck that and fuck you, Agnes. I’m not going to be involved in whatever shitshow you and your new family are trying to get yourselves mixed up in. I refuse to play the doting son while you reap the glory and praise of the vultures you call friends.”
Her voice lowered, and for a moment, I felt sorry for her. “Please. He really needs this deal to go through. Richard’s business . . . it’s been struggling the last few years, and I’ve nearly tapped my trust fund dry. I may be forced to sell the estate.”
My family home was far from an estate, but it was one of the largest and nicest houses in Lincolnville. I shook my head and chuckled as I stood from the chair, prepared to end this conversation once and for all.
“You have no rights to the house, and you know it. The house and grounds that I graciously allow you and your asshole family to live at are solely in my name. Piss me off and you can all find someone else to mooch off of.”
“You would really let your own mother get thrown out in the streets?” She scoffed, and that was the final indignant straw.
“How dare you call yourself a mother? You drowned yourself in a bottle from the time I could walk, and when my father died, you checked out completely. I had to fend for myself, and then what did you do? You up and started a new family the second I left, moving them into my home without permission. I’ve been good to you, Agnes. I’ve let you live there, let your husband and his kids think they deserved whatmyfather worked hard to build, but I will not be the catalyst or connection that allows you to prosper. If you want something, work for it.”
I pressed the disconnect button and the room fell silent. I wanted to punch my fist through a wall, the anger and resentment from my youth pushing forward and reminding me of the countless fights I instigated, just so I could feel something again. Something besides loneliness or despair.
I refused to go back to being that volatile young man who threw a punch before thinking and resented the world. I needed to be a better man for Aubrey.
Checking the time, I let my night manager know I was leaving and quickly drove to Aubrey’s house. She was the only thing that seemed to calm me, and I needed to hold her, to feel her love for me instead of the gaping hole inside my chest. My parents never acted like they wanted me and my mother choosing her step-kids over me time and time again burned a hole deep in my soul.
I knocked on the door of the cute house and brought up the app to see where Aubrey was. She was working on her laptop, headphones on, so I knocked harder against the door. She paused and lifted one side, so I knocked again, and her head swung over her shoulder. She took her headphones off and stood, walking cautiously to the front door. I closed the app as she walked around the small wall of the entrance and smiled through the side window before she opened the door.
“Hey. What are you doing here? I thought you had to work this afternoon,” she said as I walked in and pulled her into my arms.
“Can’t I come by and see my girl?” I asked, deflecting her question.
Aubrey didn’t deserve my anger, and as I followed her into the small living room, I watched her ass sway in the tiny shorts she was wearing. Sitting on the couch, she looked at me with guarded eyes as I sat down next to her. Gripping her by the back of the neck, I kissed her until we were both fighting to catch a breath.
“Wow,” she murmured, and I leaned back, running my hands though my hair.
Leaning her head against my shoulder, she whispered, “Seriously, are you okay?”
Inhaling deeply, I blew a stilted breath from my chest before I answered. “I called my mother today.”
She took my hand in hers and asked, “What happened?”
I cackled out a laugh, and she looked up at me as I shook my head in disgust. “She wants me to come home next week for Thanksgiving so she can show me off to her business associates. Her stepson is fucking some rich girl and they want a connection to her father, since apparently, they’re almost broke. And to make it worse, the board at her club will be there and she wants me to play the perfect family so she can climb another rung of her social ladder before they know she’s headed to the poorhouse.”
