“My mama got sick—real sick. There are medical bills, and there’s not health insurance anymore.”
“So use the money I’m giving you to help get your family into a better place.” I argue helplessly, still thinking about the look on Savy’s face. “I’m not saying it’ll be perfect, but it’s better than nothing. If I could change what my father did, I would…but I can’t.” I hold the check out to her. This has to work. It’s the only thing that’s keeping me from absolutely hating my family. The idea that some part of my father’s fortune can pay a semblance of restitution.
“I came down here because I wanted to be a decent human being. So that I could look you in the eye and say what I’m about to say to your face—”
“Before you tell me to go to hell again. I’m not going to spend this money. I can’t take it, not when I know where it comes from. It broke my family, don’t let it be the end of yours.”
She looks long and hard at the check in my hand. Come on, I will her, take it. Just take it. It looks like she’ll reach for it, but in the end she just grabs her son’s hand and disentangles it from her ponytail.
“Money can’t break a family, it’s just a wedge that splits the crack open. We’ll get through this without any help from you Gardners.” She doesn’t even look at the check just turns and walks away.
I close the door on my father’s past and all I want to do is yell. This wasn’t supposed to be how it worked out. A sound from my apartment tells me there’s still one way I might be able to save today.
Savannah is still here. It douses me like cold water slamming me right back down to earth. She knows. But what does she know, and what she must think about it?
I sprint for the door to the club and take the stairs to my apartment two at a time. I barely make it in time to stop her from walking out the door.
“Get out of my way.” She’s shoving things into her bag and doing her best not to look at me. But she can’t hide the tears from me. Fuck. Shit. This is all my fault. I was waiting for the right time, I thought after last night that I would let her in, and then that woman had to go and show up.
“Please,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “Please just let me explain. Don’t think like that. Don’t put me on the same level as him.” If she’ll just listen to what I have to say, I’ll explain it to her. I’ll tell her things I should have told her from the beginning. I know this now.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking right now.”
Standing in front of her, I block the hallway. “You think this is Tanner all over again. That I’ve lied to you and that the woman downstairs is one of the girls I’ve slept with and that the check is some sort of child support.”
Savannah crosses her arms and just shakes her head at me. “Wrong, now excuse me.” She tries to push past me and I grab her arms, pinning her to the spot, because she has to listen to me. There has to be some way to make her understand what I did, what I’m still trying to do.
“I promise—”
“No, don’t even start. This is Tanner all over again. You’re a fucking asshole, Cash Gardner, and I hope your balls burn in hell.”
“Let me explain. Please just hear me out.” I look in to her eyes and will Savannah to relent, to let me at least try and make her see what I’ve been trying to do. She crosses her arms and pulls out her phone.
“Give me one good reason.”
“I promise you that is not my kid and I have never—ever—met that woman before today.” I stare her down. She has to believe me on this. I just need to explain it to her. She’ll understand, I know she will. She’s smart.
“You have two minutes.” She looks at her phone and stares at me expectantly.
I don’t know where to begin, so I just start at the beginning. The words come slowly at first but they pick up pace, and I just keep going emptying my life’s story on her. My parents and their house and boarding school. That’s how I know Morgan Dockson—the woman we met at the club. Then the crash and all those people and how my parents got off scot free. I’m not some poor bartender at the end of his rope, I have a trust fund with over seven figures in it and I plan on giving that money all away to my father’s victims.
She just stands there blown away by the avalanche of my story.
“Please believe me.”
“Why now? Why tell me now. You could have told me at any point, but you choose to tell me now.”
“Because I don’t want to lose yo—”
“No,” she says quietly. There’s no anger to her voice. She’s not yelling, she’s eerily calm about this, and this frightens me more. “You are telling me this now because you got caught.” She jabs a finger into my chest, pinning me to the wall of the stair well. “When would you have decided I could know about this?”