Page 113 of Smooth Moves
He heard the front door open and close.
“Cash?”
Reid had returned. He entered the bedroom, took a good look at Cash, and grabbed the journal. “I’ll read the rest. I can guess at some of it already.”
Cash just lay there, wrung out, unsure about everything.
Reid remained quiet and sat by his side.
“You know the worst part about losing Mariah?” Cash said out of the blue.
“What?”
“Knowing she agreed with Angela. When she called me nothing, said I was too dumb to realize she’d been cheating or stealing, that I didn’t have an emotional core and couldn’t connect, I believed her. When she told me I was heartless and never saw to her needs, it was like I’d taken a page from the Charles Griffith school of relationships. But even that was a lie.”
“Don’t do this to yourself, Cash.”
So numb yet still feeling a blurred pain in his chest, Cash rubbed his breastbone. “Man, I don’t even know why I’m upset. I mean, Charles was a dick. You and I used to talk about him hating me because I wasn’t his kid. But he never mentioned it.”
Reid sighed. “Maybe he couldn’t admit it out loud. He did love Mom.”
“He did. She says he did at least.” Cash kept staring at that ugly popcorn ceiling. “You and I are half brothers.”
“Which we’d also guessed before. So what?”
“So what?” Cash repeated, feeling out of sorts, and sat up.
“Do you think I love you any less because you have a different dad?”
“No. Yes. No. I don’t know.” Cash hated that the numbness started wearing off, that he felt so sad and angry. “She fucked us all up.”
“Yes, she did.”
“I’m not even good enough to be hated by my own father. Allen fucking left.”
“Yeah, well, Charles hated you enough for the both of them,” Reid said wryly.
A hard knot of laughter stuck in his throat. “At least I get why now.” Another thought penetrated, and he hated that it pierced like an arrow through his heart. Corny and trite but real all the same. “She was never calling out to me. I was her tie to Allen. All-in my ass.”
Reid said nothing, no doubt having figured it out before Cash.
“Even there at the end, it was all about her ex-lover. Not her son.” And that bothered Cash far more than it should have. “Angela was dead to me for so long. But I thought she kind of loved me. But no. I was just an echo of Allen. Shit, Reid. I never had anybody.” And that hurt, so fucking much. What was wrong with him that his supposed father, mother, and real father didn’t like or want him?
“Shit. It’s not you, it’s them.” Reid vaulted to his feet and crossed to block the bedroom door before Cash could leave. “They don’t matter. We had the same shitty mother, Cash. And yeah, different deadbeat daddies.” Reid clutched his shoulders and shook him. “But you have me. I love you, Cash. And I see you. I always have.” Reid’s eyes glittered. “You’re everything to me. I looked up to you growing up. I still look up to you. When everyone else shit all over you, you stood strong. You never gave up. I joined the Corps because of you, and, man, it was the best thing I ever did. If I didn’t have you, I’d be lost.”
“You don’t have to say that.”So empty inside…
Reid shocked him into awareness with a punch to his gut that had him bending over to catch his breath. “Stop it right now. You get out of that everyone-hates-me mentality. Because I need you. The guys at work need you. Jordan needs you.You—not Charles’s, Allen’s, or Angela’s son. They don’t matter.Youmatter. Now quit being a pussy and hit me back.”
Reid, that idiot, stood over him, shaking, ready to take a punch.
Cash felt the rage in him, the need to lash out at someone to make the pain go away. But not Reid. “I’d kill you with my mighty fists,” he said, trying to sound lighthearted. Except his voice sounded gravelly, and that last part broke on a sob.
So he reached for Reid and gave him a bear hug, needing that support, that honest acceptance from someone who knew him and yet loved him anyway.
“Yep, you’re a big pussy,” Reid said, clutching him back as tightly. “My big brother. I love you, Cash. You’re all I’ve got. Evan and Aunt Jane don’t count. They’re too nice.”
After some time, they gradually broke apart. Both of them had tears, and Cash felt shaky and light-headed.
