Crush (11 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MIA

My phone buzzed next to my head, and I rubbed my bleary eyes and looked at it. It was Brad. I almost considered letting it ring out, but I answered it at the last second before it went to voicemail. We needed to talk about what had happened last night eventually, so we might as well rip the Band-Aid off and do it now.

“Hello?”

“Mia, it’s me. Can we talk?”

There was an urgency in his tone which I’d never heard before, and I sat straight up on my mattress. Across the room, Tamara grumbled and sat up as well.

“Sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. I was pretty sure everyone else in the house was still asleep.

“I know what happened last night was awkward, and maybe we should talk about it at some stage, but that’s not why I called. Remember how we said we’d be friends?” he said.

“Uh…yeah?”

“I sorta need to cash in a friendship favor right now.”

“Oh. Sure. What’s up?” I asked, my voice tinged with concern.

He told me all about a visitor he’d just had at the frat house, and I leapt to my feet. “Crap. Really? Your father?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what the fuck to do. Should I talk to Mom about it? And if so, what the hell do I say? I don’t want her to think I’m accusing her of anything.”

“No, I understand. Anyway, how can I help?”

“I thought maybe we could drive to McComb together. Then you could help me talk to her about it, if you think that’s a good idea.”

“Sure, yeah. We should definitely talk to her about it.”

I’d meant to say ‘you should definitely talk to her’, but the ‘we’ had slipped out instead, as if we were some sort of couple who handled everything together. Something about that felt strangely right, and I didn’t correct myself.

“Are you still in Hattiesburg?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m calling in sick to work. I could come pick you up, and we could drive to McComb right now. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it should be. Just gimme a sec.”

I spoke to Tamara about it to see if she was okay with me bailing on the road trip back to Overton, and she smiled and nodded. “It’s cool. I guess it’d be awkward for you to drive back with us anyway, after what happened with Jeremy last night. Anyway, let me make you a coffee first.”

“Thanks.”

Brad said he’d get to the house in half an hour, and I sipped on the warm cup of joe Tamara brought me a moment later.

“Mmm…this is good coffee,” I said.

“I know, right? My uncle has one of those pod coffee machines. I’m totally getting one. So what’s up with Brad, anyway? All you said was that it was some sort of family emergency.”

“Yeah, it is. His biological father has just come back into the picture, and it’s a messy situation. He asked me to help him talk to Karen about it.”

“That’s nice of you,” she said. “I guess you guys really are getting along well these days.”

She didn’t need to know exactly how well we were getting along…

Brad arrived at ten, and he grinned at me as I got into the passenger seat. “I see you’re still in your party clothes,” he said.

I gave him a rueful smile. “Yeah, I didn’t pack any spare outfits because I figured we’d just be heading straight back to Overton today.”

“Those heels look uncomfortable.”

“They are. I have about a million blisters just from walking around in them last night.”

“We’ll stop at the mall before we leave town,” he replied. “When we get there, I’ll quickly run in and grab some flats for you so you don’t have to walk around in those shoes. What size are you?”

“Seven. Thanks, by the way.”

Ten minutes later, we arrived at Turtle Creek mall, and Brad pulled into a parking space and shut off the engine.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Anything else you need? Coffee? A muffin?”

“Sure, coffee sounds great. I just had one but I could use some extra caffeine,” I replied, pulling my purse onto my lap so I could get him some cash for the shoes and drink.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s on me.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. Anyway, I’ll try to be quick.”

True to his word, he returned only fifteen minutes later with a big shopping bag and two takeout coffee cups.

“Here you go,” he said, leaning in and passing me my coffee. “Could you grab mine and put it in the cup-holder there?”

I did as he asked, and he slid into the driver’s seat a second later and then rifled around in the shopping bag. Pulling out a black pair of leather-look ballet flats, he passed them over to me.

“Are these okay?”

“Sure, they’re great,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want money for them?”

“Nah, it’s cool. I also got you some yoga pants and a T-shirt. I figured you wouldn’t want your Dad to see you wearing that,” he said, giving me an impish grin as he gestured at my short, tight party dress.

I glanced down at it and smiled. “I guess not. Thanks. I’ll go get changed in that gas station bathroom over there.”

He handed me the bag, and I put the new flat shoes on and dashed over to the gas station. Fishing the clothes out of the bag, I was pleased to note that he’d figured out my dress size quite well. The black yoga pants were snug around my thighs and butt, but not
too
snug, and the grey long-sleeved T-shirt fit perfectly. I still had my cardigan from the night before as well, and I pulled that on over the shirt.

“Ready to go?” he asked when I returned, and I nodded. I could feel my cheeks heating up as his eyes raked over my curves, and I tried to ignore the wetness between my legs.

It didn’t matter how guilty or bad I felt about finding him attractive - he’d probably still turn me on if he was lying in a pile of mud and garbage. He was just
that
hot.

Ten minutes later, we were cruising along the main road which led to McComb, and Brad glanced over at me. “You can turn the radio on if you want.”

“All right. Let’s see what’s playing.”

I flicked through the stations and finally came across one that was playing an old Boyz II Men song.

“Yes! I love this song!” I said before singing along in a silly voice. I very rarely acted like this, but for some reason I felt completely comfortable being silly in front of Brad. “Although we’ve come….to the end of the road…”

Brad groaned. “I totally regret telling you that you could turn that on on now,” he said, shaking his head. “This song is terrible.”

“Hey, come on! It’s called The End Of The Road, and we’re on a road trip! It’s the perfect song for us!” I protested.

Brad laughed and shook his head. “Fine. You’re the worst.”

I flashed him a cheeky grin. “Whatever, you still love me anyway.”

I regretted my choice of words the second they tumbled out of my mouth.

“Err, I meant that as a figure of speech,” I hastily added.

Brad nodded. “I know,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

I knew it wasn’t really a big deal, but I felt totally mortified anyway. Awkwardness permeated the air, and I tried to think of something else to discuss to take our minds off what I’d just blurted out. Unfortunately, my mind had gone blank, and we sat in silence for the next few minutes.

“What do you think I should say to her when we get there?” Brad asked, breaking the quiet tension a few minutes later. “My Mom, I mean.”

“I’m not sure. I guess you should just be straight-forward with her. Tell her that Tobin came to see you, and tell her what he’s claiming. If what he’s saying is even remotely true, then give her a chance to explain her side of things before you say anything else,” I replied.

“Yeah, that’s good. I’ll do that. Thanks for coming, by the way. I’m not sure I could have handled this alone.”

“No problem.”

“I’m not going to be cutting into your study time, am I?”

I did have quite a lot of exam prep to work on, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He didn’t need to feel any worse than he currently did.

“No, I’m pretty much up to date with all my studying,” I said.

“Cool.”

I could tell he was pretty nervous about speaking to Karen, so I tried to keep him as calm as possible by telling him funny stories about things I’d seen on campus. He responded by recounting his own amusing stories, and by the time we got to McComb, we were both grinning from ear to ear.

His grin faded as we stepped out of the car and saw Karen crouched over in one of the front gardens, digging out weeds with a trowel. When she heard the car, she turned her head over her shoulder, and a smile broke out over her face.

“Kids! This is a nice surprise! What are you doing here?”

She looked rather shocked to see Brad and me together. I couldn’t exactly blame her for that. Last time we’d all been here over my birthday, Brad and I had barely been on speaking terms.

“We came to see you, Mom,” Brad said, shifting around nervously.

She smiled and called out towards the house. “Michael! Come look who’s here!”

She turned back to us a second later. “Your father has a bit of a cold, so he’s taken the day off work,” she said to me.

Dad came out of the house a moment later, dressed in an old robe and carrying a tissue. He looked annoyed to be outside while he was sick, but as soon as he saw me and Brad, he smiled.

“Hi, you two! To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? Shouldn’t you be studying?” he asked, striding over to us. He hugged me and then shook Brad’s hand.

“Um…Brad and I need to talk to Karen,” I said.

“But you can be there if you want, Michael,” Brad added.

Dad’s forehead creased in a confused frown. “You two aren’t dating each other, are you?”

I almost took a step back in surprise. Was it
that
obvious that something had happened between Brad and me last night?

“Er…no,” I said.

He grinned. “Thank God. I thought I’d have to go out and buy a shotgun. No, don’t worry, I’m only kidding,” he said, patting Brad on the shoulder. “So what’s going on?”

“Why don’t we go inside?” I suggested.

Karen was starting to look worried, and I flashed her an encouraging smile as she took off her gardening gloves. We stepped inside and headed into the lounge room, where we all took a seat. Brad was sitting perpendicular from Karen, and he leaned forward and cleared his throat.

“Mom, something happened this morning. I had a visitor. It was Tobin Jacobsen.”

Karen’s blue eyes widened, and she touched a hand to her mouth in surprise. “He…he came to see you?”

“Yeah.”

Her face paled slightly. “What did he want?” she asked, her voice stiffening.

“Mom, I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing you of anything. I just want to tell you what he said. I know he’s probably lying, but…”

His voice trailed off, and my Dad wiped his nose with a tissue and leaned forward. “But what, Brad? What did he say?”

Brad looked at me, and I nodded at him to continue.

“He said he had no idea I existed until he saw your wedding announcement in the paper a couple of months ago. He said he tracked me down after seeing my name and age in the announcement and figuring out that I was about the right age to possibly be his son. He said you never told him. But that’s bullshit, isn’t it?”

Karen’s face was completely white now. “Of course that’s not true. He was perfectly aware of your existence.”

“So you told him right to his face?”

Her cheeks began to turn pink with indignation. “Not to his face, no. But he knew. I made sure he was aware of my pregnancy.”

“What do you mean, not to his face?” I asked, shooting Brad a worried look.

Karen cast her eyes down to her lap and sighed. “It’s a long story. Tobin and I were living together at the time. We’d been having problems, but I didn’t think it was over. I started feeling sick and missed a period, so I bought a home pregnancy test. I took it in the bathroom, and it was positive. Then I got called back into work, so I left the test sitting on the basin. I was planning on telling Tobin when we were both home, but when I got back a few hours later, all his things were gone, and the test was in the trashcan next to the bathroom counter. So I suppose he saw the test, realized I was pregnant, threw it out and then ran like the Devil was after him.”

“Is that it?” Brad asked.

“Of course not. I had no idea where he went and no way to track him down. This was before the days of the internet, Facebook and cell phones. But I knew his mother’s phone number and address. She lived in a different state, so I called her and told her rather than go to see her in person. She said she would pass the message on to Tobin. When I didn’t hear from him, I wrote her letters, sent her baby photos and called again, and she said she’d told him, but he wanted nothing to do with me or the baby, as much as she’d told him he needed to take responsibility. I was actually going to take you to see her when you were about eight months old, but she died in a car accident before that could happen.”