Family Man (12 page)

Vince’s heart warmed at that, and he slid an arm around her before kissing her hair. “Thanks.”

She kissed him back. “What else is family for?”

Chapter Fourteen

I’d gotten up early on Saturday for my shift at Full Moon, and the rest of the day was spent on homework until I got called in for someone sick at The Rose. Sunday was my day off from both places, and again, I spent the morning sequestered in my room, studying. When I came downstairs, I found my mother in the kitchen. She’d been drinking, but not too heavily, I could tell. She was in the happy stage. She hadn’t started slurring or stumbling. Yet.

“I thought I’d make chicken parmesan for dinner tonight,” she said to me. She wasn’t looking at me. She was rifling through the open refrigerator.

“I won’t be here, Mom. I’m going out.”

“Again?” She closed the refrigerator door and turned to me. “I’ve barely seen you all week.”

That was true, of course. I did my best to avoid her when she was drinking. “Sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t. “I made plans.”

“But I’m making dinner.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know.”

“What do I do now?” she asked. “Sit here alone? I’m completely alone, all the time, and neither of you even care.”

“You’re being overly dramatic, Mom. I have a date, that’s all.”

“You always have a date.”

“That’s not true. I don’t go out that often and you know it.”

“It’s not fair, Trey. I’m here all day every day. The least you could do is keep me company.”

“What? While you get drunk?” It was a low blow, but I’d long since grown tired of the kid gloves.

“What else am I supposed to do? You leave. Sophia goes to bed. You both leave me here by myself.”

Of course she’d blame us. It was always somebody else’s fault when she drank. She couldn’t ever take responsibility for it herself.

I didn’t bother trying to argue. Knowing she’d take it out on Gram, though, I went into the living room to try and tidy up a bit before she got home. She’d found some part-time work at the local grocery, which I didn’t like because it was too much bending and too many idiots giving her a hard time, but she wouldn’t say no, and it wasn’t like we didn’t need the money. I couldn’t stop her from working, but I could try to make her life easier when she came back.

I’d picked up all the random clutter and trash and was about to run the vacuum when I remembered the bottle I’d kicked underneath the couch several days earlier. Saying a swift prayer I didn’t find anything requiring an exterminator, I slid the sofa out into the middle of the room so I could retrieve the bottle and whatever else was underneath.

There weren’t any bugs, but there wasn’t one lone brown bottle, either. There were at least ten. My heart sank so far down into my stomach that it ached, even before I crouched down to pick one of them up. I knew what these were. I knew why they’d been tucked under the couch. I was pretty sure if I moved the chair where Mom usually sat, I’d find even more.

Cough syrup. Mom wasn’t just drinking again. She was back on the goddamned cough syrup.

The first time she’d done this, it had taken me forever to understand why the hell someone would try and get high off of cough syrup. I hadn’t even known it was possible. Back then I’d still been going to Al-Anon, the support group for families of alcoholics, and one of the counselors had tried to explain to me. Something about some chemical that gave the user euphoria. In medicinal doses it wasn’t much noticeable, but sometimes people accidentally OD’d and figured it out, and if they were inclined to addiction, off they went. Personally I wondered if she hadn’t heard about it that first time we’d sent her to rehab. Certainly she hadn’t learned how to stop fucking herself over and us in the process.

I stared at the bottles, the old rage coming back over me like a tailor-made coat. My whole life had been like this, finding stashes of empty bottles in drawers and cupboards, in bags, more than once in the trunk of the car back when we still had one. Hidden, but not very damn well. I would almost have preferred it if she’d left them out in the open as some sort of defiance. In my younger days I’d have allowed myself to believe the therapists’ crap that it was a cry for help, but I knew now what bullshit that really was. She didn’t want help. She wanted an excuse to check out. If she’d wanted help, she’d have taken it when Gram had cashed in her retirement and sent her to the first treatment center. Or she’d have taken the help when Gram had sent her to the even more expensive center the second time, when she’d mortgaged the house. Or the third time, the place that had seemed more like a resort than anything, when we’d put up my college money and Gram had taken out the second mortgage.

All that money, and the longest it had ever lasted had been six months. That had been after the first center, and we’d had six months of believing maybe it was real. Maybe she was cured. But there was no cure. I understood that after the second center, and by the third one, I knew better than to hope at all. Good thing too, because she was drunk again less than three days after we brought her home.

So much for help. She didn’t want it, and she didn’t give a damn about what we thought, or what we gave up for her. She wanted to pout and complain about how hard it was to have her
disease
. She didn’t care what it cost us or that it hurt us. She didn’t care that Gram was working at a job that aggravated her arthritis just to make ends meet, because every penny she’d put away for retirement during her working years had been flushed down the treatment toilet. None of that mattered to my mom.
We
didn’t matter.

But it mattered to me. Stealing money from Gram’s purse and buying Lucky’s out of cough syrup and vodka? Oh yeah, that mattered a lot. More than anything else in the world.

I dropped the bottle, stood, and shoved the couch back against the wall. The carpet wasn’t vacuumed, but I didn’t dare stay now, not with how mad I was. I’d end up in a fight with Mom, which wouldn’t do a damn thing except make her pout and whine and be more of a mess for Gram.

She wasn’t even Gram’s daughter. Gram shouldn’t have to do anything for her at all. She only did it for me, because if she didn’t deal with it, I’d have to.

Mom called to me from the kitchen, and I ran out the front door before she could catch me.

I wished to hell I wasn’t ever coming back.

I took the EL to Vin’s house, chasing away the darkness finding the cough-syrup bottles had spawned by remembering my last date with Vin, how he’d been so nice, how he’d been so protective and gallant, and best of all, how he’d kissed me. By the time I got to his building, my stomach was full of butterflies. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like a fool while I waited for him to answer his door.

This time at least he wasn’t dressed to the nines. Jeans, and a shirt, open at the collar and untucked. It was nice to see I wasn’t the only one sporting a goofy grin. He had one to match.

“Hey,” he said when he opened the door. “I’m almost ready. Come on in. I have to do one more thing.”

I waited by the door while he disappeared down the hall, doing what, I had no idea. While I hadn’t expected anything specific about Vin’s place, it still surprised me, and since I had nothing else to do, I tried to figure out why. In the end I decided I hadn’t expected something so impersonal. It wasn’t a man cave, full of beer bottles and sports magazines. It wasn’t a mess, but it wasn’t noticeably neat, either. Vin’s place was…plain. Brown couch, brown chair, one end table. The kitchen was dull and serviceable, boasting the standard appliances and nothing else. Mail littered the table. The remote sat on the arm of his recliner. No plants, though. No fish tank. No posters. No decorations at all.

The only thing with any personality was the fridge, which was full top to bottom with pictures of Fierro children. I couldn’t say why, but for some reason it made me sad.

Vince emerged from his bedroom, tugging a gold watch at his wrist. He’d put the gold chain back on too. “I thought we’d take my car. We can use the underground lot by Grant Park. You okay walking that far?”

“Of course.”

He moved closer, backing me up against the door. He brushed my cheek with his fingertips. My heart felt like it might go into overdrive. “Can I kiss you again?”

I didn’t answer with words. Instead, I stood on my toes, put my arms around his neck and welcomed him.

Our two kisses last time had been opposites—one frantic and sexy as hell, the other tame and sweet. This one was somewhere in between but left me as breathless as those had. I suddenly didn’t give a damn about the aquarium.

“We should probably go,” I said. Not because I wanted to, but because I
didn’t
want to, and that scared me. I had a feeling he felt the same way.

“I think you’re right.”

He talked about his family in the car. He’d been at some kind of party the day before. There were so many of them. I spent most of the drive trying to sort out who he was talking about. We parked in the underground lot and meandered our way onto the craziness that was Michigan Avenue.

“The pizza place is right over there.” He pointed up the street. “You hungry?”

“Not yet. Let’s do the aquarium first.”

“You got it.”

It was a bright, warm, sunny day. The wind off the lake was cool and brisk, as always. The cries of the seagulls drifted around us. I wanted to hold his hand, or to snuggle against him as we walked and feel his arm around me, but I wasn’t sure that was allowed. I moved a bit closer, letting our arms brush as we walked. He smiled over at me but didn’t reach for me.

I was a little nervous about the entrance fee to the aquarium. Vinnie had paid for our last date, so I felt it was my turn. At the same time, there was no way I could afford to pay for us both. I decided the obvious answer was to buy my own ticket in and hope he wasn’t bothered by the fact I hadn’t paid his way too.

I made sure I reached the ticket counter ahead of him, but just as I was saying, “One, please,” he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me away from the counter.

“What are you doing?” he teased. “This is a date, remember? You think we’re going stag?”

I felt myself blush. “You paid on Monday—”

“So?”

“It’s only fair.”

He laughed. “I’ll tell you what, if you’re worried about fair, I’ll let you buy the pizza.”

The aquarium was crowded as hell, but still fun. At first Vin acted nervous, looking around to see if people were watching us. Of course they weren’t. Not with the massive displays of exotic fish all around us. The nice thing about the crowd was that we had a perfectly good excuse to stand extra close. When I leaned into him, I thought he liked it. He seemed to welcome the contact.

We were in the midst of so many people, and yet all I could see was him. He was fun, and sexy, and flirtatious. He eclipsed everything. I barely even noticed the amazing displays around us. I wanted only to be close to him, and although I felt I was being foolish and rather obvious, I couldn’t help it. Each casual touch or fleeting caress lit me and warmed me from the inside. I spent each moment longing for the next contact.

“How about that pizza now?” he finally asked.

I checked my watch. We’d been wandering around the aquarium for over three hours. I hadn’t quite realized I was hungry, but his mention of pizza made my stomach growl.

“Sounds good.”

The walk back to the park and down the street to the pizza place was better. He put his arm over my shoulders. That spot against his side felt like it was made just for me. He felt so big and strong, and he smelled amazing. Even though I was hungry, I was a bit disappointed when we reached the restaurant, because it meant moving away from him.

I was halfway through my first piece of pizza when he asked, “How about a movie after dinner?”

I died a little inside when I had to say, “I can’t.”

“C’mon.” Under the table, he nudged my foot playfully with his. “I’ll even let you pick. Any movie you want.”

It was tempting. Two hours in a dark room. In public, so sex wouldn’t be too much of a temptation, but plenty of opportunity for snuggling close and holding his hand. But then I thought about the unfinished homework waiting for me at home, and the fact that my alarm would be going off at 4:30 the next morning.

Would I be able to work, though, knowing I could be off somewhere with Vin, making out like a teenager? Would I ever be able to sleep?

Maybe after the movie he’d talk me into going back to his place.

Maybe I could call in sick to work, or beg Sara to go in for me, if I promised to work next Sunday for her.

I was almost ready to cave and tell him I’d do it when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the screen, and my heart fell. It was my home number. There were two possibilities. The first was that it was my mother calling to lay some kind of guilt trip on me. The second was that it was my grandmother, and she wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency. Neither outcome was going to be good.

“Hello?”

“Trey, it’s me,” Gram said. “Your mom’s in the hospital.”

Cough syrup.

My grandmother was still talking, telling me the details, but it didn’t matter. I knew the score. We’d done this before, hadn’t we? Just like the rehab, just like everything else. We’d even done cough syrup hospitalization before. They’d told her she wasn’t supposed to mix it with Cymbalta, but did she listen? No. Because it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.