Tell Me It’s Right (Sweetspire #1)

Chapter 45

Chapter Forty-Five

LIAM

Christine and I don’t talk much. Especially not one-on-one. The few times she has called, it’s been about Casey.

And it’s never been good.

So seeing three missed calls and a voicemail from her today was nearly enough to give me a heart attack.

I pull into the driveway of the address she sent me—one of the little Victorian houses on Main Street that has been converted into a business. A divorce law office, by the looks of the sign.

Christine and my dad are standing near the front porch yelling at each other, and Casey is sitting on the ground behind his mom with tears streaming down his face.

I throw the truck’s door open and jump out.

“How could you not talk to me about it first?” Christine demands. “We don’t have anyone else?—”

“She needed to go!” my dad yells. “If she can’t handle a single six-year-old, we’re better off!”

“It wasn’t her fault!”

“Liam!” Casey jumps up when he sees me. He lunges in for a hug, then practically collapses in my arms until I’m the only thing holding him up. His little face is bright red and puffy like the crying has been going on for a good long while now.

“Hey, bud,” I say.

Christine and my dad stop, apparently just noticing me.

“Finally,” Dad mutters, then turns and heads into the house without another word.

Christine is practically vibrating with anger, but she takes a deep breath before turning to me with a small smile. “ Thank you. I’m so sorry?—”

“Don’t mention it. I was already done with clients for the day anyway.”

She flicks her wrist and rubs her eyes. “He fired Casey’s nanny this morning, and I couldn’t get a hold of anyone else, and—” She glances at Casey, her face falling, and lowers her voice. “You really seem to be the only one he wants around right now anyway. I don’t think this will take longer than an hour…”

I wave her off. “Don’t worry about it. We can find something to do. Right, Case?”

She nods a few too many times and shoves her blond hair behind her ears. Now that I’m looking at it, I realize how messy and tangled it is, how wrinkled her dress is, how dark the bags beneath her eyes are. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this.

“Thank you, Liam.” She squeezes my shoulder and turns for the door. “I’ll text you when we’re done?”

“No!” Casey latches on to her leg before she can go inside, big, fat tears streaming down his cheeks. “Don’t leave. Please.”

Christine sighs and crouches down to his level. “I won’t be gone long, I promise. You’re just going to hang out with Liam for a little bit. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Then you and I can do whatever you want for the rest of the day.”

He sniffles but still doesn’t let go of her leg. “You promise?”

She gives him a serious nod. “I promise.”

“How about the arcade, Case?” I offer. “What do you think?”

That gets a smile out of him.

The door opens, and a woman in a crisp black suit steps one foot onto the porch. “Christine.” She glances at her watch. “We really need to get started.”

“I’m coming!” After giving Casey a quick hug, Christine stands and dusts her hands off on her dress. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear her eyes looked a little misty too.

“Go on.” I grab Casey’s hand. “We’re good here.”

Casey tucks himself against my leg and waves goodbye to his mom.

She gives him a watery smile before steeling herself with a breath and heading inside.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pry Casey off this motorcycle. I have no idea if this game has an age limit—his little feet can’t reach the footrests, and I had to pick him up to help him get on it—but he’s somehow still kicking my ass.

We don’t talk for the first game, or the second, but I wait for him to come to me. It pays off because after the third race when I suggest taking a break to get some water ice, we camp out on the bench outside the arcade, and he turns to me.

“Dad made Nanny Dina leave.”

“Did you like her?”

He nods, tears welling up in his eyes again. “She was the best at playing dinosaurs. She got in trouble because I was hiding and she couldn’t find me. I didn’t mean to get her in trouble. They were just yelling a lot, and I don’t like it when they yell.”

I sigh and wrap my arm around his shoulders. “I know. It’s not your fault, Casey. Dad shouldn’t have done that.”

“But he’s a grown-up.”

“Sometimes grown-ups mess up too.”

“Ow! Freezy-head.” He smacks his hand against his forehead, his spoon sticking out of his mouth.

I chuckle and pull it out. “Yeah, doofus, you can’t eat it all at once.”

Undeterred, after a few seconds, he resumes shoveling it in his mouth.

I lean back against the bench and look out at the waves. The beach is quiet with only a few people lying out on towels. There’s a girl a few yards away on her front with her book propped in the sand.

My stomach twists at the sight, and I check my watch. Gracie and I are supposed to FaceTime in an hour. She’s only been gone a week, but her absence is already glaringly obvious.

It was obvious when I swung by Milano’s and had to correct the barista that I was ordering only one coffee. It was obvious when I opened the shop and the front desk was empty and there was no bike out front. It was obvious every time I looked up from work, expecting to see her smile or a flash of her hair.

I’m trying to give her space to grow into this new phase of her life, but all I want to do is jump in the car and drive out there so I can see her face light up about how amazing her new job is in person.

At least I know she hasn’t been alone all week. Her parents went up to visit her one day, and she was telling me about her plans to get lunch with her friend Carson this weekend. And I’m sure Leo’s itching to get back up there too.

Still no word from Christine though, so it’s looking like I won’t even be able to make our call. I’ve been looking forward to it all day.

Casey and I head back into the arcade once we’ve finished our water ice. We do a lap and try every game he can reach—most of them are too big for him—then he starts pointing out which ones he wants me to do to win more tickets. I dutifully play the basketball, Whac-A-Mole, and Skee-Ball machines until he’s able to afford the ugliest stuffed sea lion I’ve ever seen. Its eyes are tiny, and the stringy white whiskers are…something else. But Casey jumps up and down with excitement as the worker behind the counter hands it over, then clutches it to his chest like it’s now his most prized possession.

By the time Christine texts me, it’s dark outside, and she comes to meet us at the arcade to pick Casey up.

“Thank you again, truly.” She sighs as she helps Casey into his car seat, his eyes already half-closed. I’m pretty sure he passes out before she closes the door behind him, that sea lion tucked tightly beneath his chin.

“It was no problem.” I turn for my truck, but she stops me.

“Liam…”

I tuck my hands in my pockets and wait.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry again, about how the whole thing with Hailey and True Sweets went down.”

I wave her off. “Don’t worry about it?—”

“No, no, I do. Especially after what Asher told me. I tried to talk them out of moving forward with her after that meeting, but as you can probably imagine, my vote didn’t get too far.”

I shake my head, not sure I heard her right. What could Asher possibly have told her? “Asher?”

Her eyes flick between mine, and her brow furrows. “He said…well, he said she was pretty abusive.”

I rock back on my heels. I never talked to Asher about Hailey.

She gives me a small smile. “I think he’s more observant than people give him credit for.”

I glance at Casey through the window. His head is lolled back and mouth wide open as he sleeps.

Christine sighs. “Look, Liam, I know you don’t like me, so my opinion won’t count for much, but?—”

My eyes snap back to her. “That’s not true.”

She raises a single eyebrow.

“Okay, so it was true. I didn’t like you at first. But I didn’t know you. And it had a lot more to do with my dad than you.”

She smirks. “My point is, my mom had me when she was a teenager, and my dad left before my first birthday. My grandparents on both sides have pretended I don’t exist all my life. And when I left home at sixteen, my mom didn’t even try to stop me. So shitty families? I get it.”

I stare at her for a second, the image I’d had of her all this time crumbling. Her sunny disposition, always smiling, always jumping in to help—always trying a little too hard, if you asked me. The clothes and the parties and the way she never seemed to have a care in the world. I guess I assumed she’d always been that way.

“I had no idea,” I murmur.

She gives me a wry smile. “It’s not exactly something I advertise. My point is, yours? They may do a shit job of showing it, but they do love you and want you around. That’s not nothing.”

I have to resist the urge to scoff. Sure, they want me around. As long as I’m in a tie, hide the tattoos and piercings, and pretend to give a fuck about so-and-so’s latest golf game or new boat or trip to Ibiza.

“The version of me they want around doesn’t exist,” I mutter.

She tilts her head to the side and nods. “Your dad, yeah. Taylor and Makayla, maybe. But not me and Casey. And not Asher. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.” She laughs at whatever look is on my face. “Ash is a pain in the ass, but he’s young. And can you blame him? He grew up in that house too. He was even younger than you when your mom died. I think he’s just lost, Liam. And we both know your dad shipping him off to rehab so he doesn’t have to deal with it isn’t going to help him. I guess what I’m saying is…maybe you should give him more of a chance. He looks up to you.”

I glance at Casey again, but this time, I see Asher at that age sitting in the car seat next to me as my mom drove us to school. I was in fifth grade when he was in second, so it was one of the rare times we overlapped and went to the same school. Taylor had already moved on to middle school, so naturally, he was too cool to be seen with us. Makayla was already in high school, which might as well have been a different planet. For a while there, it was Asher and me against the rest of the world.

I’m not sure when that changed.

Maybe I was unfair to him. Resenting him because the more he grew up, the more he fit into the family, when the opposite was happening to me. Taylor and Makayla always felt apart, but watching Asher join them…I guess it felt like a betrayal, in a way.

Maybe he was just trying to survive being a Brooks too.

I say nothing. I don’t know if I could if I tried.

Christine shrugs and opens her car door. “Just something to think about. Thank you again for the help.”

“Hey, Christine?—”

She pauses.

“I don’t know if I ever properly thanked you for getting Michael Cushing not to press charges. But…thank you.”

She smiles. “Whether I’m married to your dad or not, we’re family. That means something to me.”

I smile back and watch until her brake lights disappear around the corner.