I took her by the shoulders. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I wasn’t here when you needed me. I’ve been a terrible son.” The words hurt to say, but they were the truth.
She squeezed my fingers. “I think there are things we need to talk about.” She darted a look at Mae and Heath again. “Maybe a lot of things? Starting with what on earth the three of you are doing in my house in your underwear.”
I glanced over at the man, now leaning against the doorframe. “And maybe who your bodyguard is?”
She glanced over at him, and when she turned back, she was smiling, though there was a nervous edge to it. “Yes. That, too.”
We all disappeared into our bedrooms, me and Mae dressing properly in our clothes from yesterday, but Heath stared at Rowe’s guard uniform lying crumpled on the floor. “I can’t wear that again.”
He was right, he couldn’t.
At a soft knock, we all paused. I crossed the room and opened the door. My mother stood there with a pile of clean folded clothes in her hands. She looked past me to Heath. “I wondered if perhaps you might be in need of these… I don’t imagine someone in…your position…would have had time to pack a bag…”
I stared at her and then choked on a laugh. Mae and Heath laughed as well, and my mother’s thin lips turned up at the edges.
She passed the clothes to Heath. “QB isn’t quite as big as you, but he likes his clothes baggy, so hopefully they fit. It’s supposed to be warm today, but if you get cold and want a sweatshirt, just say the word.”
QB was more than a friend then, if he had clothes here.
Heath stared down at her, gaze full of gratitude. “Thank you, ma’am.” He took the clothes from her carefully, and she left the room so he could dress.
“I like your mom, Banks,” Heath gruffed out, pulling on the clothes she’d given him.
“I do, too, but we can’t stay here. We’re putting them in danger. We’ve already made them accessories.”
Mae nodded. “We’ll leave for Rowe’s cabin as soon as it’s clear. But Liam? Take the time to sort things out with her while we’re here. This might not be the way you wanted to do it, but it’s the opportunity that’s presented itself.”
I nodded, and the three of us straightened up the little room. Mae and Heath went to the living room, while I gathered the bedsheets and put them in the washing machine.
Eventually, there was nothing else for me to do except join them.
Mom lifted her head when I entered the room, and her gaze hung on me. “Mae and Heath have explained everything. I’ve just told them you’re all welcome to stay here as long as you need. We don’t have much…”
“We?” I asked her, glancing between her and the man she’d called QB earlier.
She bit her lip, looking nervously between me and him. He sat in a recliner, but he didn’t appear relaxed. He watched me carefully, and a flicker of recognition flashed somewhere deep in my mind, but I couldn’t place it.
“You two didn’t officially meet… Liam, this is QB. Or…Jacob, I guess. We called him QB in high school, and I haven’t been able to switch ever since he came back.”
She wrung her fingers nervously, glancing between the two of us. I frowned at her, but in a split second, it dawned on me why she was so nervous.
I jolted up off my chair and stumbled back like she’d electrocuted me. I stared at QB…Jacob, with a lightbulb going off in my head.
He pushed to his feet and crossed the room, holding his hand out to me. “Jacob Banks. Seems we have something in common.”
Anger replaced the shock as I stared at the man who’d knocked my mother up and run. “Like DNA?” I spat at him.
I turned and glared at Mom. “What the hell is this? Dear old dad comes back after nearly thirty years of doing his own thing, denying you and I ever existed, and you just take him back to play house?”
Jacob sighed and sat back down. “Oh boy.”
I could barely keep myself in check. I wanted to launch across the room and throw a punch at the man who’d been nothing more than my sperm donor. “No, you don’t get to act like I’m the one being dramatic. Fuck you, Dad.”
My mother’s fingers trembled. “Liam, there are things—”
I cut her off. “I don’t want to hear his excuses. And I don’t know how you do either. Does he know how hard you’ve had it all these years? All the things you sacrificed to have a baby at sixteen? I’m his kid, too, but he got to go off and have a life, where you were stuck with me.”
Mom’s mouth dropped open. “I was never stuck with you!”
QB sighed. “And I was never your father.”
All heads in the room whipped to face him.
“QB!”
He sighed and reached a hand out to my mother. “Sorry, love. I know this wasn’t the way we discussed telling him, but—”
I rolled my eyes. “Telling me you’re not my dad? Yeah, been there, heard that.”
“Liam. He’s not.” My mother’s bottom lip trembled. “He’s your half brother.”
Shock punched through me.
The world around me spun. I’d always prided myself on being a smart man, but right now, I couldn’t make the pieces fit together. I kept trying to shove them in, but they just kept ramming against each other, each piece getting dog-eared and tattered the more I tried.
Much like my heart, that already knew before my brain did.
Mae got up from her seat and put her arms around me. I didn’t push her away, but I didn’t feel her embrace either. I was too numb to feel anything.
I stared at my mother. “My grandfather…”
“Is your biological father, yes. So Jacob is your half brother.”
“How?” I choked on the word. But I already knew. My mother had been sixteen. My grandfather in his forties when I’d been born. Bile rose in my throat, choking and thick.
There was no such thing as consensual sex between a grown man and a teenage girl. A grown, married man. I turned to Jacob. “He blamed it on you to avoid the scandal.”