“How old were you when he left?”
“Four.”
“And how old were you when your mom passed?”
“Eight.”
“She died from an overdose, right?”
My defensive eyes snap up to his. “She didn’t kill herself.”
“Hey”—he leans forward, resting his arms on the table—“I never said she did.”
“Sorry,” I huff. My elbows hit the table, and I drop my head into my hands. A surprising tear escapes. I discreetly wipe it away on my sleeve. “It’s just that everyone says she killed herself, and I know she didn’t.” My eyes lift to his. “She would never have left me like that, not on purpose.”
There’s a look on his face—kindness but something more…concern.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks softly.
I shake my head. “I don’t talk about…what happened—ever.”
The only person I ever really talked about it with was Dex.
“Well, maybe it’s time you did.” He stands. “I’ll make us some coffee, and then you can talk.”
I watch Tom, confused. He says nothing. The only sounds are the kettle boiling and my thudding heart.
Tom places a mug of steaming coffee in front of me, and sits back down, holding his own mug between his hands.
I push away the half-eaten bowl of cereal, my appetite gone. I wrap my hands around the mug, pulling it closer.
“So, you were eight when she died.”
“Yeah. My nanny and I went away on a school trip for a few days. When we returned home, I found my mother’s body on her bed. She’d taken a cocktail of pills and vodka. She’d been dead for a whole day. She was there all alone.”
A stupid tear escapes, but I quickly catch it.
“She was only twenty-nine years old when she died.” My teary eyes meet his. “Seven years older than I am now.”
“Too young. But then, they say the great always die young.”
I can see on his face that he’s thinking of Jonny Creed.
“You miss Jonny.”
His gaze hits mine—hard. “Every damn day. So, after your mom passed, you went to live with Rally?”
“No. I went to live with my Aunt Steph, my mom’s sister, and her husband, my Uncle Paul. They already had a kid, Dex, my cousin, who became my brother overnight.” I take a deep breath. “Rally didn’t want me.”
The angry look on Tom’s face makes the hurt from Rally’s rejection surface. I try to shrug it off like it doesn’t matter.
“It wasn’t a surprise,” I say, trying to sound unaffected. “I barely saw Rally after he’d left us and married Tanya.”
“He’s been married a few times now, right?”
“We hit wife number seven last year. Olga, the Swedish supermodel, who is two years younger than me.” I roll my eyes.
Tom chuckles a deep sound.
I take a sip of my coffee. “That’s just what Rally does. He gets smart, talented, beautiful women—well, maybe calling Olga smart is pushing it.”
I give a cheeky smile, and Tom laughs again.
“And he destroys them. He did it to my mother. To the world, I know it looked like she was okay, but she wasn’t. Sure, she carried on touring and recording, but she was broken.” My eyes lower to the table. “I used to hear her crying at night when she thought I was sleeping.”
Tom reaches over and squeezes my free hand.
Liking his touch too much, I pull my hand free under the pretense of needing it to lift my coffee cup to my mouth.
“She was medicating to get through the days. I didn’t know. I should have seen it.”
“How exactly? You were a kid. Trust me, as a grown-ass man, I watched Jake fall to pieces in front of me, and I didn’t realize it was happening until it was almost too late. Some people are just really good at concealing stuff.”
I look at Tom, surprised. Surprised that we’re having this conversation. Surprised that there is this side to Tom.
But most of all, I’m surprised because I’m telling him these things. I’m opening up to him. Now that I’ve started, I don’t seem to want to stop.
“But Jake’s okay now,” I say.
“Yeah, but no thanks to me.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a good guy, Tom.”
“You’d better be careful, Firecracker. I’m gonna get to liking these compliments, and I’ll start to demand them all the time.”
“You’re a mut.” I grin.
“Better.” He winks.
“I’m not a good guy—well, I wasn’t, but I’m working toward becoming one.”
I look at his sincere face, a little shocked at his blatant honesty.
“You’re not a bad guy. A bad guy is one who has his four-year-old daughter deliver divorce papers to her mother.”
Tom’s features tighten, anger firing up his eyes. “He did what?” His tone is seething.
I conceal my pain by sipping my coffee, wondering why the hell I just told him that. But now, I know I have to tell him the rest.
“The first time Rally came to collect me after he’d left…well, my mom…she kind of lost it when she saw him. She was begging him to come back.” I cringe at the memory, hating that Rally reduced my mother to that.
“Of course, Mom was upset, so I started crying. Rally picked me up and carried me out of there before dumping me in his car. I couldn’t stop crying, so he took me for ice cream. The entire hour we were in that ice cream parlor, he spent talking on his cell. Then, he said he had business to attend to and had to take me home. He pulled up in front of my house and didn’t get out. He handed me a brown envelope and told me to give it to my mother. It turned out the envelope contained the divorce papers, and he’d gotten me to serve them to her.”
I remember walking up to the door, and my mother was waiting on the other side. Rally had already driven away before I’d even gotten the door open. Handing her the envelope and how her hand was shaking as she took it from me. I can still hear the desolate tone in her voice as she told me to go to my room. Instead of going to my room, I hid on the landing, watching, as she tore open the envelope and pulled out the papers inside. Feeling tears in my eyes, seeing as she steadied herself against the wall.
To this day, I can still clearly see the look of crushing devastation on my mother’s face.
“Fuck, Lyla. I knew I hated that guy for a good reason.”