“We’re almost done,” Coach lets me know. I nod and raise two fingers—meaning it’ll take me two minutes to go make my fifth trip into the house for lemonade.
Inside the house, I spot Riley at the edge of the living room, and he’s so motionless I almost don’t see him. His hands are jammed in his suit pockets, and he’s staring at the front door with a huge frown. My body kicks straight into high-alert mode, and a cold little kernel settles deep inside my tummy.
“His parents,” I say in disgust.
His parents. Two specimens of people who did not deserve a penis and ovaries, much less be permitted to reproduce something as magnificent as Remington! Raise him? Oh, no. Those assholes just grabbed their boy, checked him into a mental institute, and never came back.
Tight-lipped, Riley gives me an affirmative gesture. “Pete’s handling it.”
Curling my arms around my stomach by pure protective instinct, my gaze falls on the front door along with his. “Why do they keep bothering him? Do they want to make amends?”
“Brooke!” Riley almost chokes on my name, his laugh one of the most humorless, sad laughs I’ve ever heard anyone give. “They’re assholes. We’ve gone through this dozens of times and they know Remington will make them go away with a damn check.”
A potent anger overtakes me as I think of the way Remy gets restless every time we even get near his hometown. Last season, his parents looked him up again and found themselves on the receiving end of a check with his signature.
“They don’t deserve anything from him. Anything,” I whisper.
Before I know it, I’m charging across the living room.
“B! Just let Pete make them scat,” Riley proposes to me.
But instead I swing the door open and there they are, on the porch, pretty as you please. The man . . . he’s big as a mountain, beautifully aged. I swear it almost hurts to see the resemblance to Remy in him. Eyes the same electric-blue shade as Remy’s instantly train on me, but the expression in these eyes is completely different. The life and vitality, the drive and strength I see in Remington’s eyes are completely lacking in his father’s.
And his mother? As she surveys me with a critical eye, I survey her back, and in that neat little homemaker dress, she looks small, calm, and sweet—which only makes the confusion I feel more overwhelming.
These are people I could smile at in an elevator, or passing by on the street. They seem good and caring, but how can they be? How can they have abandoned Remy and then have the gall to come knocking on his door, again and again, like it’s their right to?
The mere thought of abandoning this little baby I hold inside me repulses me, and I still can’t fathom why anyone would do that to their own son.
“You’ve left him alone his entire life. Why can’t you leave him alone now?” I demand, glowering.
They have the gall to look genuinely horrified at either my appearance or my outburst—or, quite possibly, both.
“We want to talk to him,” the woman says.
Because that’s what she is, just a woman. I can never look at her and think of her as anyone’s mother, especially Remy’s.
“Look . . . we’ve heard about the baby,” she adds. Her eyes drop to my stomach, and I feel Pete draw closer to me, as though he expects her to reach out and touch my stomach, and he, on behalf of Remington, plans to stop her. “This baby,” the woman continues, pursing her lips into a thin line and gesturing at me, “could be just like him. Do you realize?”
“Yes,” I say, thrusting my chin up. “I hope he is.”
“Our son is in no condition to be a father!” the man thunders in a deep, booming voice that startles me. “He can hurt someone. He needs to be medicated and contained !”
“Ohmigod, you hypocrites! You want to talk about good parents?” I ask, so outraged my lungs can’t even work right now. “Your son has grown into an honorable, noble man despite what he has to deal with, when you’re the ones who abandoned your only child! You took his childhood and threw him away, and you want to come here to tell him how to live the rest of his life?”
“Our son is sick! We want him to be treated and to check in with the mental facility periodically to make sure he’s calm and serene, like a normal person,” the woman says.
“No! You’re the ones who are! At least he knows what his problem is, but I think you both should figure out yours.”
The door behind us swings open, and Riley steps out with the fiercest glare I’ve ever seen him wear.
“You missed out on an incredible human being,” Riley says, and they look so shocked at his calm, threatening words, I think this is the first time he’s stepped out to greet them too. “As his parents, you were supposed to lift him up and hold him up. We’re not sorry for him, really, because he thrived. But we are sorry for you.”
“We’re his family,” Remy’s mother huffs.