so he could tell his. The scariest part is I was about to tell him everything. I was seconds away from doing it.
But he stopped me.
Why?
“Matt, my last name … it isn’t Donovan.”
“What?”
“It was just a cover. If we got caught, we were told to tell you we’re Donovans, to throw you off the scent. My mom thought your hatred of them would blind you to the truth.”
“What truth?”
“About who we are. About who I really work for.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He swipes through and then turns it to show it to me.
It’s a photo of Jason standing with a female cop. She’s wearing the full uniform. The badge gleams against her chest. I look closer, and see the similarities. They have the same face shape, the same hair color, and even the same nose.
This can’t be happening.
“I’m not a Donovan,” he says. “My last name is Kendricks.”
I look at the woman again.
His mom.
Jason isn’t who he said he is.
He’s the son of a cop.
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You’re the son of a cop?”
“I am.”
“And this whole time, you’ve just been trying to get to know me so you can tell your mom about my family.”
“More or less, yes.”
That all sinks in.
“Shit,” I say.
“But, Matt, listen to me. I couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t do what?”
“The scheme. I couldn’t finish it. It’s why I told you, before you told me anything they could use.”
“If you think I’m going to believe anything you say now…”
“What else could I be hiding? What else could there possibly be?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I do recall thinking something similar the last time you did a big reveal about who you are. I thought: He wouldn’t have another secret. There’s no way. And yet, here we are.”
“I know. And you never fully trusted me, did you? You always picked up that something was off.”
I feel tears prickle. “Actually, I did. In the end, I did.”
“Oh.”
“So you know, good job. You’re very good. Have you ever thought about going into acting?”
Tears fill his eyes, too.
“Why are you crying?” I ask.
“Because I don’t want to be this person.”
I do hate seeing him so put out.
Then I remember he deserves it.
“I wouldn’t want to be you, either. You might be the worst person I’ve ever met. You slept with me.”
He just nods.
“You made me think I’d made a friend. Do you even know how big of a deal that was for me?”
“No, I know. You told me, remember. At the hospital.”
I’m sort of surprised he remembered that.
It was all fake.
Yet he remembered.
I take him in. I sort of can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but he looks like a rookie cop. With his crew cut and fit body, he fits in a lot more with that side of the law. I guess that’s part of the reason I was so drawn to him. He’s never belonged to my side of the world.
I get why that was appealing to me.
“This trip … was it just to get me away from my family?” I ask.
“Yeah. It was pretty obvious you wouldn’t tell me anything. I was getting nervous, because I thought the longer I was with you, the more in danger I was in. So I needed to push you. Coming to LA was Mom’s idea. The whole scheme was, actually.”
“What about your friends? Couldn’t they have given it away?”
He shakes his head. “They were in on it. You never went to my real school or met my real baseball team. The dance was another school’s that we joined. We hired a few actors to pretend to be close to me, so that you’d trust me more. This was a huge project, man, led by my mom. She was constantly thinking of ways to get you to like me.”
“She sounds like a real winner.”
“You have no idea. She controls everything about my life. I didn’t even want to be a part of the scheme. But she made me. She said I would do it, or I would find somewhere else to live. She said if I didn’t, she’d get rid of my college fund and my trust.”
“You expect me to feel sorry for you?”
“No. I just want you to know why I did it.”
“Why doesn’t really matter to me. You still did it.”
He bows his head. “I know.”
“You could’ve said no.”
“Have you ever said no to anything your family has asked you to do?”