Behind the Pitch, a novella: Seeking Serenity 1.5 (2 page)

“What’s this about, Joe?” Even stepping up to him, moving my head to catch his glance didn’t help. Neither did me shoving the letter in his face. “Who the hell is this Fiona O’Malley and why did she leave something to me in her will?”

Joe fell onto the sofa, clutching the glass in his shaking hand. “I imagine she didn’t leave you anything a’tall, Deco. It was likely Micah, her husband.” He took a sip of the Scotch, paused, and then downed the whole of it in one final swig before he seemed able to look at me. “Micah O’Malley was your father.”

Joe waited for me to react, but I could do little more than stare down at him like a fecking idiot. He said the words as though they were nothing; as though that long-withheld name was some glib detail in the makeup of my life that he found trivial and unimportant.

It was his attitude, the casualness, that hacked me off well and good.

The words “your father” moved like a saucer around my brain. I didn’t know “my father.” I’d never known him. Mum’s sister, my aunt Clara, had told me from an early age that I shouldn’t worry about things like fathers. There had been many of my childhood mates that had been raised by women on their own, just like me. It wasn’t shocking or unheard of for a boy not to know who his da was. But Clara had warned me that mentioning my father to Mum would only make her already dark moods worse. I hated seeing her sad, didn’t want to be the cause of any tears.

O’course Joe would know. He was my mother’s husband for a time, but him knowing and not telling me? That was almost as bad as him never telling me about the family he had here in the States, or his own connection to Autumn until well after I’d fallen for her.

“Say something, Deco. Please, son.”

“How long?” The table in front of the sofa stopped my retreat when Joe stood up. I couldn’t manage to look him in the eye. He didn’t answer and I reckon my temper got the best of me. The table behind me slid across the floor when I kicked it. “How fecking long have you known about my father, Joe?”

His shoulders fell, as though all he’d given up trying to calm me; as though my anger was an absolution he’d willingly take.

“I knew about Micah O’Malley before I married your mum. I…I thought she was through with him when I took up with her.” He shrugged, returned to the sofa and avoided my eyes again. “When she told me she was pregnant I assumed you were mine.” Joe laughed to himself and the sound was bitter. “When you came early, I knew I’d been played for a fool.” I didn’t like the curl of Joe’s lip or the way his eyes had grown cold. “What an idiot I was, yeah? Believing her, thinking she would ever want me after she’d had that bollocks.”

Dammit, this wasn’t about him. “She was scared, likely,” I told him, feeling oddly like I needed to come to her defense. Joe’s glance met mine and a swift rush of anger filled me at the expression on his face, as though my mum had been some simple tart. As though he thought very little of what she did as a scared kid. But she wasn’t a tart. She was kind, fragile, never raising her voice far as I can remember, despite the stupid shite I got up to as a kid. It was always “that’ll do, Declan” or “be still now” when she fussed at me. I knew she wasn’t perfect. She had made mistakes, but that didn’t give Joe the right to look down on her. Besides, I’d known about her past, or so I thought. Joe had explained it all when he told me about the family he left in America. He’d come back to Ireland when mum got sick, mainly because he had never bothered to divorce her. I had to give him that, at least. But I didn’t like his judgment, didn’t like the look he gave me and I wouldn’t let him disrespect my mum. Not after everything since…not after everything he’d already put me through.

“Don’t give me that look.” I threw the letter at him, ignoring that Joe seemed immediately guilty. In my own anger, it didn’t matter. “She was a kid. She made a mistake, but you’ve known who my father was my whole life. You knew and never told me. Even after we came here, even after.... you should have told me.” I never hated Joe, not when I was an angry kid watching Mum die. I never hated that he came into my life acting like a father I never had when I lost the one person in life that made me feel safe, loved. I didn’t hate him after his past, his nondisclosures, threatened everything I wanted with Autumn. But now? After all we’d gone through, he still held secrets about my life. When would it end?

“I had my reasons.” Joe’s anger began to surface; I knew the signs. I’ve lived with him long enough to know when I’ve pushed him too far, when his temper flares and his hackles start to rise. I didn’t care.

“What were your reasons, Joe?” When I moved closer to him, Joe stood, his wide shoulders squaring as though he was readying for a fight. “Were they the same barmy reasons you abandoned your other family, abandoned Autumn?”

Too far. Much too far with that insult. Joe’s guilt over what he’d kept from Autumn had yet to subside and even though we were together, sometimes my stepdad would look at me and Autumn and I’d wonder if he thought she could do better. I knew he loved me. He loved Autumn, too, but that didn’t mean he thought I was good enough for her.

Joe’s eyes narrowed and I could see anger surf up his neck, on his face to color his cheeks pink. Joe might be in his fifties, he may have been weakened by his heart attack, but he was no pathetic old man. But I wasn’t thinking of mincing my words or worrying about Joe’s ability to hand me my arse. I was too hacked off to muck about with logic, or compassion.

The brimming anger swelled high and Joe met me nose to chin. “You might want to mind what you say, boy.” I was taller, but that death glare still had me inching back from him.

Sometimes anger weakens fear. It did that day. I wanted to hurt him, dole out the quick spark of upset he’d caused me, remind him of the pain he’d caused Autumn. “Why the hell should I? You lied to me about your other family, and now I find out you’ve lied about knowing my father. What else are you hiding, Joe? Have any other long lost children you’re keeping from us? Any other women you’ve left behind?”

“I’ll allow your anger, but not your disrespect. I protected you and Autumn both from the truth for a reason. I’ll not apologize for that.”

I was tired, so tired of his meddling; tired of the lies Joe liked to throw over all of us like a cloak. He’d controlled so much of our past, played us, both Autumn and me; he had held all the cards in the game our lives had become. Finding out from a fecking legal letter that he had withheld knowledge of my father’s identity, added with knowing how much he had withheld from Autumn, then I doubted that he had yet come clean with everything. How long would Joe continue to pull ghosts from the past to haunt those he swore he loved?

He walked away from me then, or at least tried to, but I’ve always been as pigheaded as Joe in being a stubborn arse. I grabbed his arm, spun him around, screaming, calling Joe every vile thing I could think of.

He was no weak man. He reacted, raised his fist ready to strike.

But I swung first.

“You old fecking bollocks!”

He blocked me and I pushed, my anger rising even further. But he wouldn’t strike back, wouldn’t even push me. “Stop it now, Deco.”

“Piss off, Joe.” Again I swung, this time high and to the right and nipped my stepdad right on the chin, just as Autumn came through the door.

She ran to him immediately, throwing herself between us even as she leveled the wickedest glare I’d ever seen from her right at me.

“What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?”

I needed to make her understand that Joe somehow deserved my anger. Seeing her crowding over him, trying to lift his heavy weight on her own, only hacked me off further. “You don’t know what he did, Autumn. What he’s kept from me.”

“I don’t care what he did, Declan.” She stood in front of Joe then, him still on the floor as she shielded him from me. “He’s an old man. What the hell…” she looked down at Joe and then back at me as though she couldn’t process what she’d just seen. “This is insane.”

She wouldn’t hear me out. Wouldn’t let me explain. Of all people Autumn should understand how Joe’s lies inflict the worst kind of wounds. Seeing her hovering over him, forgetting everything he’s done to us both, only fueled my self-righteous anger and for just a few moments I forgot how much I loved her. I forgot that she was the most important person in my life. For just those few seconds, she meant nothing to me and I wanted to lash out, hurt her, even her, the woman who meant the world to me.

“Figures you’d take his side. You’re a good little girl, aren’t you?” I didn’t stick around for her response, just grabbed my keys and headed toward the front door.

“Where are you going?”

I didn’t look behind me when I left. Didn’t bother answering her even though I knew she’d worry, I knew Joe would. At that moment, all I cared about was cradling my own anger, being so utterly fed up with Joe and his puppet tricks.

I had a father I never knew about—but I could have. I didn’t know what he looked like, what kind of a man he was. I didn’t know when he died, didn’t know what he and my mum had been to one another.

Joe did. Clearly, he did and yet again, he kept it all to himself.

When hours passed and my anger quelled, I just wanted her. My Autumn. I had to make her understand. But she wouldn’t even let me through her door. So I stood in her doorway, trying to talk to her, feeling her own heavy anger flicking out onto me like a wave.

And then, suddenly and irrationally, she was the one hacking me off, with the way she defended the man who had brought her so much sorrow.

“Maybe Joe was protecting you. Maybe your father was an obnoxious bastard. He was clearly a cheater. Joe told me that much.”

Joe had confided in Autumn, but not me? About my life? They discussed my life, my business when I deserved to know the whole truth?

“What did you say?”

Autumn had wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, completely closed off from me. Despite my anger, I had to force my hands in my pocket to keep from touching her. I didn’t want her to talk, I wanted to hold her. But she continued. “Your…your mom. She and your father had an affair. He was married. He cheated on his wife with her and when she got pregnant with you, he broke it off. Joe believes she only married him to cover up the fact that she was pregnant.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why would he lie about that?”

She couldn’t be serious. Had she forgotten so quickly? “Why would he tell the truth? Jaysus, Autumn he lied to me for eight years. He lied to you, he lied to everybody.”

“That’s in the past and you know it.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that he turned his back on his family, both his families. How can you defend him?”

“How can you not? He raised you. He loves you.”

Autumn is a brilliant woman. She is intelligent, clever, but in that moment, I never realized how naive she could be. Joe had her blinded, forgetful of the secrets he’d kept from us both. I could only stare at her shaking my head, utterly amazed.

When I stepped back and turned toward the lobby door, she followed. “Where are you going? Declan, wait.” She tried to reach for me, I even felt the pull of her small fingers on my sleeve, but my need to touch her was gone. I was too disappointed in her, too angry to let myself seek her comfort.

I was angry at Joe, and at Autumn, for believing in him so blindly. I didn’t mean to push her away, but I couldn’t stop myself. My anger and my pride were too damned raw.

“Just leave me be, Autumn.”

I had no clue how closely she’d take my words to heart. Which is why I was now sitting in a police holding area after being decked by my best mate.

“Think they’ll keep us here overnight?” Donovan slumps in the seat next to me, his earlier embarrassment over my teasing seemingly forgotten.

I only shrug in reply. The melted water from the impromptu ice pack has collected on my fingertips, dripping coldly down into my palm and I chuck the whole lot in the bin to my right. I don’t care if the cops make us stay all night. It’s not like I have anywhere to go. Autumn refuses to speak to me, especially after tonight’s asinine debacle, and I still haven’t spoken to Joe since I punched him.

Rubbing my wet hands on my jeans, I sit next to Donovan, slouching down to get as comfortable as possible in these plastic, broken seats.

“Do you think coach will find out?”

“No, mate. Not in a town this
massive
.” I ignore Donovan’s small frown. Guess he doesn’t appreciate sarcasm. “Of course he’ll find out.”

Cavanagh is tiny, likely the smallest place I’ve ever lived. I hate it. The mountains are too high. The trees, too tall. There is country music on every bloody radio station piping down from Nashville, just a few hours from here, and because it was founded by Irish settlers, the influence of my homeland is in each shamrock in every stained glass window, in the foods served in restaurants and the architecture of every building. You’d think I’d feel comfortable here. I don’t. It only mocks me that I’m far away from home. It feels like a cheap imitation of the home I knew as a kid. The only thing that gives me any comfort in this fecking town is Autumn and playing rugby. Only one of those two comforts currently remains.

“Maybe Layla can—” Donovan begins.

“Layla’s got enough to sort out on her own. Didn’t you see that look Autumn gave us tonight?”

“She was just trying to help.” I hear the hesitance in Donovan’s voice. It teeters on annoyance and I know he’s trying not to sound like he’s worried about her. Stupid sod.

The electric bell dings when the front door opens and I sit up straight when I hear Coach Mullens speak to the lady cop at the front desk. My best mate and I both release heavy sighs. This won’t be pleasant. Coach has a temper. Donovan knocks his shoulder to mine and we both stand as the coach approaches.