Under the Lights (The Field Party #2) - Abbi Glines Page 0,69
hadn’t been spoken at all within the Lawton walls.
When she’d said the words so easily, my chest constricted because it was the first time I’d heard them. I hadn’t been able to say anything in return. Hell, I almost said thank you. It was a gift many take for granted that others have never been given.
In that moment I didn’t have the adequate words for what I was feeling. All I’d been able to do was hold her and kiss her head. Tears had stung my eyes, and the emotion had made it hard for me to say anything. She’d given me hope. I hadn’t realized I had none until her.
If she had a cell phone, I’d at least be able to text her what I was feeling. But that wasn’t possible, and she deserved more than a well-written text message. I had to man up and say it to her. Let her know I loved her.
At this moment though I had to walk into my house and face the shit waiting on me there. Hopefully, Rhett was passed out drunk. I opened the back door and headed for the stairs without listening for voices. If I could avoid them all, I would.
The silence was a relief as I rushed up the stairs and down the hall to the only sanctuary I had here, my room. No one ever came in there but Ms. Ames to clean it. Everyone else left me alone. When I was younger, that made me lonely. Now it is the only way I can live here.
Slinging my door open, I stepped inside, only to freeze when my eyes landed on my mother sitting in the chair across from my bed. I couldn’t remember a time in my life she’d ever been in this room. Seeing her here now was discomforting.
“Hello, Gunner,” she said in a voice that didn’t hold hostility or annoyance like it normally did when she said my name.
“Mom,” I replied, not moving inside any more because my safe place had just become foreign to me.
“Come in and close the door. There are some things I need to tell you. It’s time you know.”
I was pretty damn sure I didn’t want to know any more of her secrets. The last one was enough to last me a lifetime. “If you’re about to tell me that Grandmother Lawton is my real mother or I’m the offspring of an aunt I don’t know about, could you save it? I need some sleep.” My tone was annoyed. Because I was fucking annoyed.
My mother frowned her disapproving cotillion frown she was so good at, and I pointed to the door. “I’m serious,” I added.
She shook her head. “Stop acting like a child, Gunner. It’s time you grew up and became a man. This immature rebellious persona you’re so fond of has to end now. You have an empire to control whether you like it or not.”
I wouldn’t call the Lawton money an empire, but my mother had always acted loftier than we were. Lawton, Alabama, was . . . well for one it was in Alabama. Jesus. It wasn’t like we were the Trumps.
“I’m a senior in high school, not a college graduate. Your other son is in college, and his drunk ass came to the homecoming dance tonight yelling and calling me his uncle. It was a shining moment for the Lawton Empire,” I mocked.
Her face tensed. She didn’t like scenes, and Rhett had caused a major one. Maybe she should be in his room giving him a damn lecture on growing up. I wanted her to love me. Saying I didn’t care was a lie. She was my mother, and I’d tried to make her happy. I’d just never been able to.
She shook her head as if that didn’t matter. “Rhett isn’t the Lawton heir. You are. It’s different for you. And Rhett always expected that it would always be his one day. I think your father thought he’d win in the end. But the will is ironclad. Your grandfather made sure of it. This is all yours when you turn eighteen.”
Eighteen? I’d be eighteen next month.
“You mean my father made sure it was ironclad. If we are going to admit my paternity, then we at least need to claim it and stop acting like the dick you’re married to is my father. I never wanted him for a father. The only good thing about this is he’s not.”