Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,121
Return.
Every time he came back, Mom hoped he was different.
That’s what broke her. Hope.
Hope and her youngest son.
Again and again. Over and over, the same sobbing sigh until it filled the house even when Phil wasn’t there.
The day we put Dad in the ground, I made sure Phil didn’t come back. I found that weak spot of his and applied money and force, and Phil vanished.
We had about six years of not hearing from him. Six years of no Phil drama. And Mom was good. I hadn’t found her crying over Phil’s baby pictures or calling around to his deadbeat friends trying to find him.
She smiled more. Laughed more.
Phil was gone.
And then, a few months ago he showed up at my company, 989 Engines, looking for a job. Singing a song about being different. Stable. Solid. Mom, eyes bright with hope, begged me to give him that job.
Hope. One more time. And, truthfully, I had it a little, too. For Mom’s sake.
Phil lasted all of a week before throwing a tantrum and launching a ratchet set against the wall.
My business partner, Dylan, had to fire his ass.
Mom tried to hide her tears, but I saw them. I saw her slumped shoulder and her downcast eyes. I saw her perceived failure and wanted to tear shit up.
Fucking Phil.
And now this—a wife and kids hidden away in a trailer park. A secret or a lie. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care.
They were not getting close to my mother.
If I had to break this woman into a thousand pieces—I would.
I pulled into the trailer park and drove up the dirt track until I saw Dylan standing next to a shit-box Toyota.
Dylan was a former driver, had bowed out of the life after a crash and fire during a race. He was my business partner, the gearhead behind 989 Engines.
And maybe the closest thing I had to a friend. Which wasn’t saying much.
He’d recently fallen in lust for some woman out here and was now thinking with his dick and not his formidable brain.
Unfortunate.
Unfortunate on several fronts, not the least of which was we’d built a new transmission for race cars. And the transmission had some serious applications outside of NASCAR. It was a game-changing kind of situation.
But Dylan couldn’t see past this girl.
I parked the Porsche and got out, buttoning the button of my suit as I rounded the front of the car. Dylan watched me, the scars on his face pulling tight as he squinted into the sun.
“You’re not going to be a dick, are you?” he asked.
“No. Where is she?”
“In the trailer with Annie.” He pointed to the old RV that had been put up on blocks. I had never seen anything quite so ugly.
“Just,” Dylan said, “try and—”
“What?”
“Be…kind.”
I laughed. Right. Kind.
The ground was spongy from a recent rain, and I dodged a puddle walking up to the metal steps of the RV. I didn’t bother to knock, just opened the aluminum door and ducked my head so I could step inside the dim trailer.
One woman, white-blonde and thin, stood up to greet me like this was a dinner party she was hosting.
I’d put money on this being Annie.
“Hi,” she said, sounding far too chipper. The girl was nervous. I tucked that little ace up my sleeve.
“You must be Annie,” I said with a soft voice and plenty of charm. “You are as lovely as Dylan said.”
She blushed and ducked her head, an awkward Disney princess. I wanted to tell her to be careful. To stop showing me quite so much, her nerves and her self-doubt.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked.
“No, thank you.”
“I’m Tiffany.” The other woman came to her feet.
Shit. She was young. Twenty-five, maybe. She was tall, nearly to my shoulders, which was not insignificant. She wasn’t as thin as Annie, but she had a hard look about her, which wasn’t at all surprising. Any time with Phil would file you down to an edge.
She wore a little makeup, blush that stood out on her very pale cheeks. A pink T-shirt tucked into a pair of khaki shorts made her seem young. Not childish. She wasn’t a child. She was just…young.
Her eyes were surprising, though. They were the color of a storm. And sharp enough to pierce metal.
Tiffany of the sharp eyes and brass balls held out her hand for me to shake.
I took my time but finally slipped my hand over hers and shook it.