Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Don’t do this, he cautioned himself. Don’t put yourself in this position. It won’t end well.
Sighing, Wes settled in front of his tub of algae once more, forced himself to stay seated, and tried to remember what his nice, private life was like before Adam and Gus had arrived on Knockbridge Lane, bringing with them the chaos that is a functioning heart.
* * *
“It’s his sixtieth birthday,” his sister said.
“I know.”
“I’ll pay for your flight,” she went on. “Just come for Christmas.”
“It’s not about the money, Lana.”
It had never, ever been about money, though his mother and sister refused to believe that.
“Then what?”
Wes could hear her begin to move around her house, doing other things. As always, his sister wasn’t interested in any explanations other than her own.
“You know what. I can’t spend time with Dad.”
“You won’t spend time with him. It’s not like it’d kill you.”
Also as always, Lana managed to say the exact thing that sent rage sizzling through him. She was the only one who made him feel this way. Even with his father, it wasn’t rage. It was a gut full of guilt, pity, and a slow-burning resentment that would reach rage if allowed to kindle.
But Wes hadn’t allowed it to kindle since he was fifteen. And he’d keep it tucked away inside him as long as he didn’t have to spend time with his father.
Wes bit back the torrent of fury he wanted to unleash on Lana. It wouldn’t do any good and would leave him with the bitter taste of guilt in his mouth for days to come.
“Yeah, you’re right, Lana. It wouldn’t kill me. I choose not to spend time with Dad. I’m hanging up now.”
She didn’t try to stop him. She never did. Because if he was the absent child, the child who didn’t call on birthdays or come visit for holidays, who wasn’t in publicity pictures with their father, who didn’t send gifts, then she got to be the good child. The one who was there, who cared.
The one who had followed their father’s plan for both of them, after Wes had torn it to pieces and flung it in his face.
Not that that had been his intention.
Wes jumped up and shook out his hands, needing to discharge all this energy. It wasn’t late enough to go for a run yet—there might still be neighbors about—so he settled for doing pushups until his arms and back trembled and he couldn’t hold himself up any longer.
He buzzed his hair as he did every week, turned the shower as hot as he could stand it and ran a handful of soap over his shorn hair. Once, that hair had been a feature people recognized. Wes made sure no one would ever recognize it again.
He walked around the rooms upstairs, air-drying, still irritated.
What would happen if he did go back to Los Angeles? If he set the record straight in front of everyone.
He got as far as picking up his phone, when it rang in his hand.
Adam.
Just the sight of his name was like a cool breeze, dispelling the lingering heat.
“Hello?” he said, despite knowing it was Adam, the habit of learning to answer the phone that way unshakeable.
“Do you wanna come over and get drunk with me?”
Adam pitched his voice jovially, but it was clear he wasn’t happy.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, I will be. Just a bad day.” He sighed. “I’ve got boxed mac and cheese?” he offered, as if that was tempting.
“Okay.”
“Yeah? Yay! Okay, come on over.”
Wes stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror after Adam disconnected the call.
It was the only mirror in the house, half fogged over from his shower.
Once, he had looked in every mirror he passed, searching their reflections for what it was that made people care about his face. Whatever it was, he didn’t see it. After things had imploded at home, an unexpected glimpse in the mirror was enough to fold him over with a clawing pain in his stomach.
He’d started training himself to look straight ahead so he didn’t see himself in shop windows; to look at the water swirling down the drain so he didn’t see himself in bathroom mirrors; to unfocus his eyes when speaking to people wearing mirrored sunglasses, so he didn’t see his talking head in their reflection.
Dark eyebrows, intense blue eyes, a rather large nose, a mouth, a chin. Ears. Cheekbones. Stubble.
They were neutral in his mind. Clean of line, perhaps, and that seemed to be a thing people responded to aesthetically, but other than that...just features like any others.
Now, though, he found himself wondering what Adam thought of them. Might they appeal to Adam the way they once had to people he didn’t care about?
Wes blinked and the man in the mirror blinked. Wes imagined it was Adam—beautiful, sweet Adam—looking back at him and he watched the man in the mirror’s features become something hopeful, something tender, something yearning.