Teach You to Love Me (Lindon U #4)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Rachel

S taring at the meetings list taped to my office door as I hold my phone between my ear and shoulder and listen to my father drone on, I balk at the new edition written in familiar chicken scratch for a time slot ten minutes from now. It’s a clever way to ensure I’ll talk to Matthew, considering I’ve made it a point to distance myself from the charming boy who makes it a point to wiggle his fingers or flash that stupidly annoying white smile at me any chance he gets.

It hasn’t been particularly hard to distract myself from the extracurriculars I find myself involved in outside of class and work, thanks to the conversation that seems to be dragging on despite me trying, and failing, to get out of it for the past five minutes.

“…see what the big deal is. It’s just a couple of small changes,” my father says, sounding as tired as I feel.

A couple of “small” changes doesn’t seem to do the situation justice, and my irritation only grows the longer he tries justifying his girlfriend’s ideas. “That’s the issue, Dad. You don’t see the problem. You never do when it comes to Tatum.”

God, even saying her name makes my heart hurt. Hell, it makes me queasy every time I even think about Dad having a girlfriend. It wasn’t like I didn’t think my father would move on eventually, but my mother hasn’t even been gone for nine full months. Not even a year ! And now he’s letting his girlfriend, who’s not even ten years older than me, change our Thanksgiving sides the first time she comes to a holiday get-together? It doesn’t sit right with me.

Dad sighs heavily for what must be the third time on this call, then mumbles, “I can’t keep up with you and your sister. I swear. I can never make everyone happy.”

I roll my eyes. He stopped trying to make everybody happy a long time ago. Right around when our mother said goodbye, knowing it was her time to go. A part of him died with her that day, and there was nothing my sister, me, or the therapist we suggested he see could do.

I finagle the lock with my key and use my hip to push open the door and flick on the light. “It’s not even about the food,” I say. “It’s the tradition. We’ve always done it Mom’s way. The holidays were her favorite.”

Dad’s favorite Thanksgiving side was the yams, Brie’s was the macaroni and cheese, and mine was the homemade stuffing. All of them were modified for us—the yams with less sugar for Dad’s diabetes, the macaroni and cheese with lactose-free cheese for Brie’s intolerance, and the stuffing without raisins because…well, raisins are gross and don’t belong in stuffing.

“Traditions can change.”

Eye twitching, I drop my belongings onto the desk a little more forcefully than necessary. “It wouldn’t be a tradition then, would it?”

I’m greeted with silence.

Rubbing my tired eyes, I unzip my coat and peel it off one arm at a time. “This is our first Thanksgiving without her, and you’re letting your girlfriend change the menu we’ve served for years. Did you even think to stop and consider how that makes us feel—how it would make Mom feel?”

I hear the subtle intake of breath from the other side of the phone, like I sucker punched him in the gut. But after my sister called me to vent about Tatum coming over for Thanksgiving and how she suggested getting rid of the yams and macaroni and cheese to make things “simpler” to prepare, I couldn’t just let it go.

Tradition is tradition for a reason.

“Do you honestly think I’ve forgotten that my wife is dead?” he snaps in a voice I’ve never heard him use before.

I blink at the coolness I can feel from hundreds of miles away. And I certainly don’t ease the growing tension by replying, “I don’t know, Dad. You tell me. You’re the one who moved on from her. Not us.”

The second I say it, I close my eyes, knowing I crossed a line. And I cringe when the call ends abruptly.

“Shit,” I mumble, pulling the phone away from my ear to see the blank screen.

He hung up on me.

“That sounded intense,” a familiar voice says quietly from the doorway.

I turn to see Matt standing there.

The meeting.

I already forgot.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I push my glasses up and set my phone on my desk. “Family problems,” I tell him distantly, eventually pulling my chair back from the desk and taking a seat.

He stays at the doorway. “Tell me about them.”

His words take me by surprise. “Trust me, I don’t want to bore you with my personal issues. That isn’t why you’re here.”

Slowly, he nods. “You’re right. It isn’t.” Lifting a shoulder, he walks in and sits across from me, dropping his bag on the ground beside him. “But it looks like you could use somebody to talk to, and I’m here.”

He really wants to listen to me rant? I’m sure he’d rather do anything else. “Matt…”

“No ulterior motive,” he promises. “Just you and me talking about whatever has those eyes dulled. Talk to me, Rach.”

I stare at him for a long time, unblinking, not breathing, heart slowly increasing in my chest with an ache that settled there after my father hung up on me.

Then I feel my jaw quiver. “She wants to get rid of the yams!” I bellow, feeling tears spring into my eyes before I can fight them off.

Matt’s eyes widen at the outburst. “What?”

“The yams,” I repeat as if he knows what I’m talking about, his image becoming blurry from the tears building in the ducts. “My father’s girlfriend wants to get rid of the yams, the mac and cheese, and probably the stuffing too! We always did those sides, and she wants to change everything.”

Slowly, so slowly, Matt nods as he soaks in the rushed answer. He reaches forward to grab a tissue from the box I keep on the desk and passes it to me. It’s only then I realize a few tears have slid down my cheek.

I blot the tissue against my face and take a deep breath. “It’s the first Thanksgiving without our mother,” I tell him quietly, staring at the damp Kleenex in my hand.

Sympathy clouds Matt’s otherwise soft features. “I didn’t realize she died recently.”

All I can do is nod, feeling the lump in my throat grow bigger and bigger.

His voice is uncharacteristically soft. “You said she was sick. Can I ask what it is she had?”

I peek at him through my damp lashes and try blinking away the tears. Sniffling, I clear my throat and tear apart the tissue in my hands. “It’s called Huntington’s disease. It’s a rare neurodegenerative disorder that basically causes your brain cells to decay over time. There isn’t one part of a person’s life that isn’t impacted by it. They just slowly deteriorate in front of everyone they love.”

His lips curl deeper at the corners. “And there’s no cure?”

Silently, I shake my head.

Mom’s disease was a slow progression that occurred silently for years before it became a physical problem. She played it off as if it was nothing but a slight inconvenience anytime she forgot basic things, started tripping and falling, or got moody over stuff she never used to react to. By the time any of us realized it was serious, it was too late.

Dad used to beat himself up over not seeing the signs sooner, not that any of us knew what Huntington’s was before her. She wasn’t close to her side of the family, so she never knew the health history.

“Damn, Rach. That’s…that’s tough.”

All I can do is nod. Words can’t describe watching the person who was the most hands-on with us worsen every day, knowing there’s nothing you can do about it.

Matt wets his lips when he sees me burying myself in the pain of my reality. Then he says, “I was adopted.”

I gape at him. “What?”

He nods once. “I was adopted when I was a baby. Not many people know that. It’s not a secret, but it’s not something I advertise either.”

I’ve seen his parents at games. He looks a lot like his father, so I never would have guessed.

He lifts his shoulders nonchalantly. “I don’t know anything about my birth family because it was a closed adoption. All I have are my assumptions as to why they gave me up. They were young, probably. Maybe not in the best headspace to raise a kid. So they gave me a chance to have a good life. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

I stop tearing apart the tissue. “Have you ever thought about finding out?”

“Once in a while, I think about it,” he admits softly, looking at the wall with a contemplative expression on his face. “But then I think about the people who brought me up and taught me what love is. There’s a chance I wouldn’t have had those circumstances if I were raised by anybody else.”

I watch him as he stares off, thinking about who knows what. “That’s sweet,” I tell him, clearing my raspy throat. “I know how much they love you. I can see it every time they come to watch you play.”

He meets my eyes with a gentle smile.

“I loved my mother more than anything,” I tell him, my voice thick with emotion as I picture her in my head. Her bright smile and brighter eyes tease my consciousness and make me miss her ten times more.

Brie and I look identical to our mother, which our father always said was a blessing and a curse because Mom had the type of beauty that could have won her any pageant she entered. Thankfully, she passed her brownie-batter brown hair, hazel-green eyes, and peach skin to us instead of Dad’s thin black hair, brown eyes, and paleness. Everything from our short five-foot height to the lean build of our bodies to the way we tan in the summertime is a reminder of what Lorelei Holloway left behind.

“And I know she loved us too,” I add, staring down at my lap. “But my father…He went from grieving her to moving on like it meant nothing. And now he’s got a girlfriend that he wants us to meet, and it makes me wonder if he ever really loved her at all.”

I never used to question it. My parents were the sickening, sweet couple that gave people cavities just looking at them. But how could someone move on so quickly the way my father did if it were actually love? They were together for almost three decades. That seems like a lot of history to just…forget.

“Maybe your dad is coping with the loss by trying to distract himself from the hurt. We all grieve differently.”

Rubbing my lips together, I think about it. “I think my mother was the super glue our family needed to stick together. Because now…” I lift my shoulders dejectedly.

The way Matt watches me should make me squirm, but there’s something light in his blue-gray eyes that calms me instead. “You’re mad at your dad.”

That’s the easiest way to put it. “I feel a lot of things toward my father, and anger is definitely one of them. But I’m more confused than anything. Hurt. It makes me wonder what love really is if he could find somebody else so quickly after the woman he said was the love of his life.”

He nods in understanding, his eyes going to my phone when it lights up. “Avoiding him won’t answer those questions, you know.”

He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t make me want to talk to the man I have conflicted feelings over.

“Look,” he says, scooting forward in his seat and resting his elbows on his knees. “There’s a lot I wish I knew about my birth family. I’ve long since accepted that I probably never will. That’s not to say I don’t feel lucky and grateful for the family I got. I’ll never properly be able to put into words how much I am. But your father is still here, still alive. You’ll regret shutting him out or being mad at him forever. Family is too important to live without them, Rach.”

My phone starts going off again.

“You should answer that,” he encourages, his chin gesturing toward the cell phone I’ve been ignoring.

“It’s your time,” I answer, my eyes dipping to the screen briefly before returning to him.

A small smile graces his lips when my eyes go back down to the flashing phone with my father’s name on it.

He grabs his bag and takes something wrapped in white tissue paper from it. “I came to give you this.”

I hesitantly accept the light offering with furrowed brows as I see the red fabric peeking through.

Matt moves the paper aside to reveal my last name stitched onto the back of a jersey that looks identical to the ones they wear. “I had it custom-made for you. You’re an honorary Dragon. Part of the family. Don’t let the number offend you; I had to figure out one that wouldn’t be used during the game.”

My eyes roam over the double zero beneath my name. Emotion builds in the back of my throat that I have to clear away. “You did this for me?”

“Nobody else here with your last name,” the wide receiver points out with a grin. “It’s the least I could do. You’ve done a lot for us this semester.”

He’s quiet for a second as I stare at the present I wasn’t expecting.

Clearing his throat, he rubs the back of his neck and adds, “I talked to my mom the other day and realized that this team is like a second family. And it seemed like maybe you could use that. Now more than ever, I guess.”

My eyes dart to where he stands, his weight shifting from one foot to another as I study his soft features. “Thank you,” I whisper.

“You should start coming to the games again. We seem to suck without you there,” he muses, pointing to the jersey. “Make sure to wear that. It could be our lucky charm.”

Emotion crams into my throat.

He walks to the door. “You should call your dad back too.”

I watch as he leaves, giving me no other excuse to ignore my father.

I stare at the thoughtful gift, running my fingers along the stitched name.

Then I pick up the phone.

Dad says, “I’m sorry.”

There’s a long pause from me.

Then I say, “I’m sorry too.”

And a little weight lifts from my chest.

The day before Thanksgiving break, a can of yams is sitting on my desk with no note. Not that I need one after my outburst.

That night, I go to the game in my brand-new jersey and support the team—my Lindon family.

They win.

Then I drive to Pennsylvania for the holidays, meet Dad’s girlfriend, and my little sister and I make the side dishes our mother would be proud of as our father watched with glassy eyes.

It’s not much.

But it’s a start.