“Fuck.”
He’d been going the ignorance-is-bliss route for so long, the idea of knowing the truth was undeniably terrifying. It could open up an entirely new future—one worthy of getting into a serious relationship for, of starting a family someday. And while that would be good news, he thought as he climbed the stairs, duffel bag bonking the wall with every other step, it was also what scared him. He’d spent the last few years diligently avoiding commitments and personal connections, too afraid of losing them if he wound up like his mom.
If he found out he didn’t share whatever breed of crazy she had, he might just have to grow the fuck up, once and for all.
But I have, already. A little. Even Vince had noticed. He unlocked the door to his apartment, found the light switch, and dropped his bag on the floor. But if it turned out he wasn’t going nuts, well, that landed him at a major crossroads. Keep going as he always had, or step up completely. Become the sort of man who somebody might be proud to call their lover or partner or husband, or maybe even father, someday.
Hold your horses there, bucko.
Even if he dodged his mom’s misfortune, he feared inheriting his dad’s legacy nearly as much as the mental illness. At least if he went nuts, it wasn’t his fault. If it turned out he was just a flighty, selfish deadbeat who took off the second things got ugly on the home front . . . ? Yeah, that was all on him.
But maybe, he thought, setting the box on the arm of the previous tenants’ fugly plaid couch, just maybe, the test’ll tell me what I’ve suspected since I was ten. That that deadbeat was never my real father to begin with. Man, that’d be the ultimate load off, knowing he wasn’t Tom Grossier’s kid after all. Didn’t seem so far-fetched. Vince looked just like their father, so the guy had strong genes. But Casey, on the other hand . . .
His head was racing with too many questions, and the answers were still days away, even if he overnighted the test back, even if he shelled out for the expedited lab processing. He had plenty to worry about outside of a cheek swab in that time, and he’d be smart to keep his head screwed on.
He looked around the apartment.
Nothing special, but it was spacious. To judge by the state of the place when he’d moved in, the previous tenants who’d lived above the drugstore had been enthusiasts of a different breed of pharmaceuticals, but for three hundred a month he wasn’t about to bitch. Taking it in now, the space was barely recognizable. Not because anything had changed— just because he’d spent so little time in here since he’d signed the lease. That had been a week after Abilene had given birth, and he doubted there’d been a day when he hadn’t seen her since then. Either they’d been working together or he was swinging by with something she needed—first at her old place and more recently at Three C. And when he hadn’t been doing that, he was loitering at Duncan and Raina’s or his mom’s house. He’d abandoned his few bits of furniture in his apartment in Lubbock and had some more important items in a storage unit down there—a unit he paid the rent on religiously, under a fake name. At some point he needed to make a road trip and dispose of that shit.