After waking up and working out, he was going to drive home and take a shower before napping, but then he decided to go see Reese. He had planned on having her naked for most of the afternoon but, when he learned of her plans, he decided that it would be fun to just hang with her, and it had been. After a long class, where he mainly watched her ass jiggle as she hit a bag, he now had the pleasure of sitting beside her and enjoying her. She was easy to talk to, and he loved her teasing little comments. It had turned out to be a great day, and he was hoping it would end with her beneath him.
“So you said Claire is doing well?”
He nodded before saying, “Yeah, she is slowly but surely going back to the girl I used to know.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why haven’t you always had her? I know some of the back story, but it just seems like she is better off with you.”
“Yeah, she is,” he said, before washing down the piece of sushi he had just eaten. “But my sister, her mother, didn’t want me to have her. Thought she was a better choice for her than I was.”
“That doesn’t seem to be true though.”
“Nope, but Rochelle thought it was.”
A moment passed before Reese looked over at him and asked, “Had she always been really bad into drugs?”
Phillip looked away, his mood souring. “Yeah, both my mom and Rochelle were horribly into them. My dad was an alcoholic. He ran out on us when I was three, and then it’s the horror story of strippers and drugs. Claire and I were caught in the middle of it. Thankfully, I never touched the stuff, it scared me, but they needed it to survive, I guess.”
“That’s too bad, I’m glad you never touched it though.”
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug.
“It’s a disease, you know.”
Phillip glanced over at her. “What is?”
“Addiction. I know it seems like a selfish thing and all it does is hurt people, but it’s a disease.”
He shrugged as he twirled the chopstick with his finger. “That’s what the therapist told me, that it’s not my fault.”
“It isn’t,” she said softly. “My dad was really bad into alcohol when Harper was a child. He got help, but he has always been honest with us. My mom used to blame herself, but he reassured her it wasn’t her fault.”
He didn’t like this subject. It always brought up sucky feelings, so with an uncommitted shrug, he said, “Yeah.” Looking over at her, he asked, “So, it’s just you and your sisters right?”
She smiled. “Yeah, after my dad cleaned up, they tried for a boy and got two girls.”
They both shared a laugh at that, and he loved the way her eyes shined. It was obvious that she loved her family, and he wished he could say the same. Well, he loved Claire. She was his family.
“Just you and your sister?”
Phillip looked over as his chest tightened. “No, I have a brother, Miles, but we don’t talk anymore.”
She let her head dropped to the side. “Can I ask why?”
“You can ask anything you want. To answer your question, he isn’t my whole brother—he’s my half. Apparently, before coming to run through my mom, my dad had a family that he left for my mom. After having me and leaving, he got cleaned up and his ex-wife took him back to have their family back together. When I went into the AHL, I ran into him. We joked around about being related because of our last name, and then our dad came to practice and knew it was me. Long story short, my dad freaked, thinking I was like my mom. He told Miles that he couldn’t have anything to do with me and if he did, he would lose his relationship with his father.”
She took in a sharp breath. “That’s horrible.”
“I know, but I don’t blame him for cutting off a relationship with me because he had his dad so long before he left, and he didn’t want to lose him again. I guess, or at least that’s what I tell myself. It sucks you know. He plays for the Bruins now and, when we play against each other, we don’t even talk. It sucks and it hurts, but it is what it is. Maybe one day we’ll reconnect.”