My eyes closed as I recognized that voice. I couldn't face him, not like this.
The sound of his car hit me like a cold wave. His tires moved slowly over the gravel on the road as he pulled to the side. Then his engine turned off and I gulped. I knew what was happening. When his door opened and closed, I needed to face facts. He was coming over. He was going to see the near-hysteria on me and he was going to ask questions.
Everything clenched inside of me. Then, as my body lifted up by its own accord, I looked at him with grave eyes. At the sight of him, freshly showered, with a pair of jeans and a tight tee shirt, everything went dead inside of me.
He was everything I was not.
He was the golden boy of a rich private school. He was gorgeous. He had talent. He was the football quarterback, most popular and most wanted guy in our school. He had it all. I had none of it.
I took a gaping breath and tried to remember who I had become, but it didn't matter. In that moment there was no Mason, there was no Logan. Not even Nate. They'd been stripped from me, and I was the same as I always wanted to deny before. I was the unwanted child to a hustler. My mother. I never wanted to admit it, but it was the truth. She had loved someone else, became pregnant with me, and hustled a stand-up guy to marry her. Enter David Strattan. He raised me, loved me—or so I thought—and loved my mother. Then came the time when she found another con, another one that fell in love with her, a better one—wealthier one—than David Strattan.
It was hard to swallow.
Adam crossed the street now, but I couldn't stop the thoughts racing in my head.
I was nothing. I had always been nothing. My mother tolerated me because I came from her. I felt like her. I felt like I had conned Mason into loving me. I had conned Logan into protecting me, but it was all a lie. If they saw inside of me—how I was the dirty spawn from my mother—would they still stand by me?
Adam's foot stepped onto the lawn where I sat.
I swallowed everything down. All the gravity, all the deadness, all the truth. Down it went, and I blinked at him, back to the shell I projected to everyone.
"It is you." He blinked in confusion. "Are you okay?"
I pushed it down so fast that I could almost pretend it was never there. I grinned up at him and grimaced at the same time. "I'm a mess, but yeah. I'm fine."
He shared my grin. The corner of his lip curved up to his cheek and a dimple showed. "I'm not going to disagree with you. One of those mornings, huh?"
My stomach dropped. My smile stayed the same. "Where are you headed?"
"Uh." He scanned up and down the street, but then shrugged before he dropped down to sit next to me. He drew up his knees in the same way I sat. His arms hung from them as he looked casual and relaxed. "To tell you the truth, I was going on a date."
"A date?" On a Tuesday morning?
"Yeah." His head ducked down in a sheepish manner. "It's my mom's idea to help fix her marriage."
I blinked at him. "Come again?"
He grimaced and rolled his eyes. "I know. It's stupid." Then he groaned as his head fell between his knees. "I can't believe I'm even doing this."
"How is your date going to fix her marriage?"
"Gawd, I have no idea. I really have no idea, but it's my mom's latest project. She likes to focus on everybody else's life rather than her own."
His head shot up and bitterness flashed over him. I expected it to go away the next second, but it stayed. Then I sat farther up. This wasn't the Adam who was angry at me because I was dating Mason. This was the friend I once thought I had.
He added, "He didn't come home last night so, of course, when I got up for basketball practice this morning she had already called a friend of hers whose daughter just moved here. I'm supposed to meet this Felicia girl at the Country Club." A hollow laugh escaped him. "And she timed it as the perfect excuse so I could 'teach' the girl how to play tennis at the exact same time my dad always has a match. I bet we're even on the next court from him." He shook his head, raking a hand through his hair. "I'm supposed to spy for her."
"She said that?"
"No, but she'll want to know everything about the 'date' and by date, I mean my dad's match." He glanced over and quirked an eyebrow up. "Did I tell you that my dad's been playing one of his executive assistants at matches? And she's got the boobs, the ass, the tan—everything for her to be a younger version of my mom?"
"You think he's trying to replace her?"
His arms dropped off his knees and he stood. His jaw clenched as he looked away from me. "I have no idea, but that's what my mom thinks. From the screaming she was doing on the phone earlier, I don't think she even cares who hears her anymore. Hell. She might already be playing the custody card. I wouldn't put it past her."