Trouble in Sudden Falls: A Sudden Falls Romance (4 page)

How could he not know he had a father?

Rogan sat down on the bed in Eli’s guest room. It was too weird to think of Eli as “Dad” or “my father”, so he wouldn’t even try. And why should he? He usually called Becca by her name and she’d been his mother since birth. Not a good one, maybe, but she still managed to call in a performance from time to time. Why should Eli get special treatment? Especially since Rogan hadn’t even realized that he had a father until earlier this morning.

Well, he’d assumed he hadn’t been hatched and knowing Becca, immaculate conception had definitely never occurred to him. But part of him had really wanted to believe her story of a father who died in the war. It beat the hell out of a guy who didn’t care enough to acknowledge his kid.

The question was, did Becca lie to him about his father dying in the Middle East because she didn’t want him to be hurt by Eli’s abandonment, or was it possible Eli hadn’t known? Eli had looked pretty shocked when Becca had announced his relationship to Rogan.

Flopping back on the bed, he took a few steadying breaths to calm himself. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing the ache behind them to go away.

At least these digs were better than the last several places he’d stayed. Lodging with Becca was usually dodgy and her most recent place had been a week-to-week lease in a roach motel near Chicago. Thank God she’d tired of that quickly. Before Chicago, he’d stayed with Becca’s aunt which ended when Aunt Lucy’s husband got a job transfer. Prior to that he’d split his time with Becca’s mother—until Nana had passed away—and one of Becca’s more accommodating ex-boyfriends.

He slid his empty single duffel bag under the bed, broke down the cardboard box he kept Fluffy’s chew toys, food and water dishes in during travel, then slipped it in under the bag.

That was it. He was done.

He’d learned to travel light and he’d gotten good at relocating quickly. Practice made perfect, after all.

The laptop he’d won at a 48-hour
League of Legends
LAN-Fest last year in Chicago made his travel-ability complete. It beat the hell out of trying to lug around a tower and a monitor. Sure, he couldn’t get quite the graphics or performance as well as a new decked-out gaming machine, but it was a lot easier to haul from place to place, and it more than got the job done.

He set it up on the small writing table in the corner next to the window. His computer whirred reassuringly as it booted up and Rogan reached down to scratch Fluffy’s ears as he waited. “We don’t need more than each other, do we, baby?”

His one-hundred-and-twenty-five pound “baby” showed no pride and rolled over to allow him to scratch her belly, letting a happy moan escape her throat, which made him chuckle.

The computer chimed that it was fully booted and he turned on the tunes. Seconds later, the techno stylings of
Über-Spank
belted from the speakers in all its rhythmic glory. Rogan wished more than anything that the small laptop had the sort of speakers that made things fall off walls and loosened teeth. Anything to drown out the rest of the world.

Eli knocked on his door then stepped immediately in. Rogan straightened and Fluffy hopped to protective attention. “Don’t you know the purpose of knocking on a door is to give the person on the other side of it the chance to invite you in?” Geez, was privacy a foreign concept to this guy? Even his inconsiderate and self-absorbed mother managed a polite knock more often than not. But that was a mutual thing—he didn’t bother her if there was a scarf on her doorknob and she knocked when they lived in a place where he had his own room.

Eli paused mid-stride, then returned to the threshold and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Rogan felt his face freeze in surprise.

“May I come in?”

Rogan shrugged, not entirely knowing how to respond. “Whatever.”

Eli nodded at the computer on the desk. “Nice kit.” He winced as the music hit a painfully delicious crescendo.

Rogan hesitated for a long moment. “Thanks.”

Eli pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Here’s the key you need to get on the network.”

The song changed and the next was even more jarring than the last. Rogan sensed that Eli was dying to ask him to turn it down, but strangely, he didn’t. He did clench his jaw slightly off-time to the music, however.

Rogan turned back to the computer and started feeding the information Eli had given him into his network settings.

“I made chili, if you’re hungry,” Eli glanced at Fluffy who had shifted on her haunches. He sneezed, gave the dog a frustrated look then turned to Rogan to await his answer.

Rogan was about to decline when his stomach growled. No use in denying he was hungry. And starving himself wouldn’t prove anything to anyone. He shrugged. “Okay.”

Eli backed toward the door. “Maybe we can, uh, talk about what we expect from each other?”

Great. A reading of the rules. Did a guy who’d shirked his duty for seventeen years have the right to lay down the law? Rogan didn’t answer him as Eli began another sneezing fit. Was he allergic to dogs?
Too bad.
Fluffy wasn’t going anywhere even if Eli went into anaphylactic shock or started frothing at the mouth right on the carpet.

“The chili will be on the table in about ten.” Eli sniffed as he closed the door behind him.

Rogan signed in to his email and made a point of taking a full fifteen minutes before going down to dinner. He refused to let Eli think he’d won anything.

Someone knocked on the front door as Rogan reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Eli stepped in from the kitchen. “I wonder who that could—Ahhh! Dammi—er, I mean
darn
-it. I forgot.”

Rogan rolled his eyes at Eli’s too-late vocabulary edit. He’d attended to public school since he was five. Did Eli really think he’d never heard swear words? And for God’s sake, did he remember nothing of Becca?

Rogan stepped back as Eli opened the door. Two couples stood on the front porch. “Hey guys, it’s been a crazy day. I totally forgot you were coming,”

“What’s going on?” one of the women asked.

“Come in, come in.” He motioned them through the door.

Rogan stepped back toward the stairs.

“I want you all to meet my—” He cleared his throat. “—my son, Rogan.”

There was an exclamation from all four. It figured Eli wouldn’t tell anyone he had a kid. How nice to be someone’s dirty little secret.

“You all remember Becca Lafayette?”

“You dated her in high school, right?” asked the blonde pixie, who had her hand tucked in the elbow of a tall dude with long hair.

“Right. Becca is Rogan’s mother. She’s going out of the country and brought him to stay this morning,” Eli explained, giving the barest facts without much commentary or emotion.

Before Eli could close the door, the dark, curly-haired chick from next door, whose name Rogan couldn’t remember, opened the screen door and stepped in, carrying what looked to be pie.

“Hey, Rogan. Getting settled in?” she asked before even saying hello to Eli. She had a really pretty smile and he liked that she didn’t seem afraid of him, unlike his fa—er,
Eli
.

The two women in the foyer seemed to tense up and the looks they gave Curly were frosty. What did she do to them?

He shrugged, refusing to smile at her, knowing it would mean giving up too much ground. Even if he didn’t hate her.

She chafed his arm with the palm of her hand as she passed, then whispered conspiratorially. “I know it’s hard to imagine right now, but I bet in a few weeks, this will feel like home.”

She really was nice. It was the first moment since Becca had told him about his “father” this morning that hadn’t totally sucked.

He wanted to tell her that no place ever felt like home and it would be a miracle if he was still here in a few weeks, but he let it pass as Eli turned to him to introduce the rest of his friends who looked at least as uneasy as Eli, if not more so.

“Rogan, I’d like you to meet some old friends of mine. You met Maddie this morning. This is Chloe and Gray Kyleson.” He pointed to the first couple. The second couple looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place why. “And this is my sister, Sophie and her husband Jay.” That caught Rogan by surprise. She looked nothing like Eli. With her dark hair and complexion, he would have guessed she was at least part Asian or Filipino, maybe.

Sophie gave him the once-over, as if she expected him to steal her purse or something. It irritated him. Why couldn’t she be more like Maddie?

“Rogan, is it?”

“What can I say? My mother was going through her Irish phase. She does phases. Now she’s headed off to Tibet to find herself. Evidently Tibet is the hub of spiritual enlightenment.”

It would take a lot more than a trek through Tibet to enlighten Becca, but Rogan resisted saying so. Even Rogan had to admit, Becca wasn’t a horrible person. She just consistently made horrible decisions, always hoping that the next decision would be the right one. One that would make her a better person, or make their lives more stable. Usually, her decisions had the opposite effect.

Everyone got very quiet after that. Good. Maybe they’d leave. Not that he had any great desire to spend “quality time” going over Eli’s list of rules and regs.

Rogan knew he’d never sat through a dinner where conversation was so stilted and uncomfortable. There was definitely some tension besides his arrival and he suspected it revolved around Maddie. Rogan finished his chili in record time then scooted back his chair without excusing himself. “Later.” He knew Nana would roll in her grave if she could see his total lack of manners, but he barely cared.

The expected barrage of questions started before he even hit the stairs. He paused to eavesdrop, sitting on the bottom step and scratching Fluffy’s head.

“Friendly kid.” This from the big guy—Gray.

“I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Eli said.

“He’s had a lot thrown at him in for one day.” He thought that was Maddie, but it could have been the other chick. Eli’s sister
. Weird
. He had an aunt. There was a significant pause and Rogan wished he could see their faces. He tried to ease back to the edge of the wall so he could see around the corner. Someone walked across the kitchen floor and he stepped back. No need to risk it.

Maddie actually argued in his favor. “Well, sure. It looks like he shops exclusively at Hot Topic, and I’m sure his music will take some getting used to. But he’s kinda feisty. I like him.”

Eli said something else, but Rogan couldn’t make it out. He didn’t believe for a second that Eli was agreeing with her.

What had Becca been thinking leaving him here? He shrugged then made his way up the stairs to his room. At least his father had good taste in girlfriends—Becca notwithstanding.

He checked the time. Tinkas was probably in the game. He sat down at his computer and logged in to
League of Legends
. He punched the friends button, found her, then began keying into the chat window in the lower left corner of his screen.

\whisper Tinkas Good to see you here. How’s my favorite arcane mage doing today?

Tinkas: Good. I’m your favorite?

DarkWizard: Sure.

Tinkas: Haven’t seen you on in a couple of days.

DarkWizard: I moved. I’m staying with my old man now.

Tinkas: You moved AGAIN?… Wait—Thought you said your dad was dead?

DarkWizard: Surprise! ~rolls eyes~ So guess where I am?

Tinkas: ??

DarkWizard: Ohio

Tinkas: You know I’m in Ohio too, right?

DarkWizard: Yup. What part?

Tinkas: Classified information.

She’d always been fairly vague about where specifically she’d lived. He hoped she wasn’t some forty-five-year-old skeeve pretending to be a seventeen-year-old high school junior. That would be too creepy for words… particularly since she was the closest thing he had to a friend, even if she wouldn’t tell him where she lived.

Tinkas: Are you OK?

DarkWizard: Yup.

Tinkas: That’s good. You ready to kick some butt?

DarkWizard: Yup.

He wondered, and not for the first time, what Tinkas was like in real life.

Chapter Three

Maddie heard the creak of a footstep in the hallway and levitated several inches from the ground. Adrenaline raced through her system as she whirled her body around facing the upstairs hallway.

“Want slave labor?” Eli asked, clearly having no idea that he’d scared her to death.

“How’d you get in?” She held a palm to her throat to catch her racing heart before it jumped out of her chest.

Eli held up the key in his hand. “Spare key. We knocked but you didn’t hear us.” Concern slashed two lines between his eyes. “Everything okay?” He stepped toward her.

Maddie nodded, trying to pull it together. “You startled me.” After all the creepy-weird things that had happened in D.C. before she left, she hadn’t yet managed to decompress. She gave Eli a smile to show him everything was all right, even though it wasn’t.

The heat of Eli’s regard as he studied her for a moment longer caused her face to warm. Rogan came around the corner, his shoulders hunched, his fingers buried in his pockets. Today, his jeans were blue and full of rips, but he’d maintained the black everywhere else. Maddie stifled the urge to give Rogan a hug, feeling sure he hadn’t had nearly enough in his lifetime, but instead latched onto an opportunity for diversion as she fought a fairly intense desire to mother him. “Hey, Rogan. How’re you doing this morning?”

He shrugged in a classic teenaged non-committal gesture that made her smile and Eli’s shoulders visibly tense.

“Put us to work.” Eli glanced around at the towers of filled, half-filled and empty boxes stacked around the room.

She hesitated. Could they really pretend that nothing was different? On the other hand, did she want to dig through her three and a half decades of her parents’ stuff by herself when she had willing help? “I’d love help.”