“You think it’s so simple.” Her voice grew thick as she started to cry.
“Christ,” I breathed, leaning back in my chair, and running my hand over my face. “Don’t cry, Mom. I didn’t call to upset you. I needed to make sure you’re all right.” There was some anger in my words, but I couldn’t hold it back. This woman made me feel powerless, and when I was in that state, I invariably became furious.
“We could use some money.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I knew that one was coming. “There’s an apartment here waiting for you. You know that. It’s already paid for. You say the word, and I’ll have new furniture in it tomorrow. I’ll send a plane to get you.”
“You know your dad doesn’t want to move to the city. The smog ain’t good for his lungs.”
“It’s not for him,” I answered through gritted teeth.
It was the same old conversation we always had. It differed slightly each time I picked up the phone, but it was always a tired reenactment of the same drama. My mom always tried to win over my sympathies in a roundabout way. But it wasn’t empathy for her that she was trying to garner. It was for my father. A man who didn’t deserve even a shred of my pity.
“He’s not taking losing his job well,” Mom went on.
“You mean he’s hitting you again.”
“Xavier Michael Fields,” she hissed. “Are you not hearing anything I’m saying? He’s your father, and he’s in need. You have billions of dollars, and all it would take to help us out is a little bit of that...”
“I know how much it would take,” I interrupted. “I also know that if I gave you some money, even if I sent it directly to you, it would end up in his dirty hands. He’d take it from you, just like he always does.”
“We’re married. What’s mine is his, and I know that’s hard to understand, but it’s time you tried.”
“Are your bruises his? Was that broken wrist he gave you his? Because from where I’m standing, Mom, it doesn’t look like they are. He’s given you all this pain, and you’ve had to carry it on your own. He didn’t even drive you to the ER when he broke your wrist. I drove you. And I was thirteen. Remember? I didn’t even have my driver’s permit.”
“You were always good to me as a boy, I know. So why can’t you be good to me now?”
My free hand twisted into a fist. I pressed the bottom of it into the top of the table, putting so much force into it, it was a surprise the wood didn’t splinter. “I am trying to take care of you. That’s why I’m calling and asking you to come here. Leave, Mom. Leave before you’re one of those dumb women you hear about on the news who stayed and paid for it with their lives.”
“Don’t you call me dumb,” she snapped. “I’m still your mother, and I deserve some respect!”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words.”
“Well, you’re not exactly giving me much to work with. Call me back when you can talk to me with respect.”
The line went silent. I pulled the phone away from my face and looked at it, just to make sure she really had hung up on me. And she had. She was gone.
“Fuck,” I roared. I wound my arm back, ready to release the phone and send it flying into the wall. Right before my grip released, though, I realized how destructive I was being. Just because my parents were insane didn’t mean I needed to be too.
I set the phone down on the table before I changed my mind. Fury pulsed in my veins, making me grip my hair. I needed to get this anger out, but there was nothing to be done. I could get dressed, go downstairs, and hit Enigma. It was still open for a couple more hours. If I didn’t find someone to fight there, there were several other clubs I could hit up.
“Xavier?” I jerked in my seat and turned around. Riley stood in the doorway, wearing her panties and one of my t-shirts. “Are you all right?”
I’d almost forgotten she was here. She shouldn’t see me like this. No one should see me like this. My parents were fucking disasters, and I was halfway as bad as they were.
I turned away from Riley before she had a chance to properly see my face. “I’m fine.”
“I heard you yelling.”
“I’m fine,” I said again, keeping my voice as calm as I could.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Do you want me to stay up with you?”
My chest tightened. I almost said yes, but the squeezing sensation in my lungs became even stronger. I didn’t share my family problems with anyone. They didn’t define me, but some people might have made the mistake of thinking they did.
“I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
“All right.” There was pain in her voice. It hit me like a jagged knife, slicing me open and making me bleed more than I thought was possible. It was pain just like the kind my mother walked around with on a daily basis. Pain like the kind I inherited from my parents.
There was nothing I could do for Riley. I wasn’t a magician. I wasn’t even a monogamous man. I couldn’t give her what she wanted, and she couldn’t fix me. I could tell her all of this, but she wouldn’t understand. She’d fight back. She’d argue that I had it all wrong, that people could change, that things could get better.
But I already knew things didn’t change that easily. I’d been trying to get my own mother to change for the last thirty years, and I still hadn’t had any luck. I listened to Riley’s footsteps as she padded back to the bedroom. Finally, I was alone. Just like I needed to be.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Riley
Banging woke me up. It sounded like someone opening and closing drawers as hard as they could. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I rolled out of bed and found my clothes. They smelled of yesterday’s shift, but there was nothing to be done about it. After pulling my pants on and buttoning up my shirt, I followed the noises through the penthouse.
The source of the noise was Xavier. He was in a small room I’d never been in that looked like a home office. He extracted a folder from a filing cabinet, shut the drawer, and turned around. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah.” I smiled and leaned against the door frame. “I think I was way behind on sleep. I don’t usually stay in bed so long.”
He went to the desk in the center of the room and put the folder into his briefcase. “I need to get going.”
The tone of his voice made me stand up straight. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were running late.”
“It’s fine.” He walked across the room, his gaze on the floor. As he passed by me, it was like an arctic chill followed in his wake. Something was very wrong.
In the second it took me to turn around, he was already halfway down the hall. He disappeared in the direction of the living room. I went and got my things, then put on my shoes. I couldn’t have done anything to piss him off. When we’d gone to sleep the night before everything seemed great.
Maybe I was being paranoid, but I couldn’t help but take this sudden turn of Xavier’s mood personally.