Hot Dirty Love (Copperline #5) (26 page)

A wave of something hit me. It ran through me and made me feel a bit weak.

“I thought you might want to know.” I looked up at her with my eyebrows narrowed in warning, but Raven was a bit fearless. She ignored my glare. “You should go.”

“Are you out of you fuckin’ mind?” I asked. “I’ll be in Chicago. Besides, I’m banned from campus, remember? And who knows if she’s even walking. A lot of students don’t.”

She just shrugged. “She is…”

Jesus, I felt sick.

“How do you know?” I asked, my voice coming out a little hoarse. “That shit isn’t exactly put in the paper ahead of time.”

Raven gave me a sheepish glance. “I talked to her.”

“What?" My heart seriously quit beating in my chest. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

“Drew told me what you did for her, and I thought you might want to know if it worked.”

Fucking Drew
.

“It did,” she added.

I tried to cover, although it didn’t sound remotely believable even to my own ears.

“I don’t know what he said, but I left to save my own ass, Raven, not to do some noble shit for her sake. She’s not that important. She was just the match that lit the dynamite underneath my feet.”

Raven smiled. She knew I was totally full of shit.

I was going to kill him…

“He also told me what you said about me… about my feelings for him.”

“What the fuck did I say?”

“A long time ago, back when I was keeping him at arm’s length… when I was trying to run away.”

…mutilate the fucker.

“And what did I say?” I asked warily.

“You were the one who made him realize what I was doing. You, of all people, Justin, saw that he was my whole world.”

I frowned. She was right. In a moment of strange enlightenment, I’d convinced Drew to go after her.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” I muttered. “You’re going to ruin my image.”

“I think your image has suffered already. Like when you took the fall for Rain so she would be able to finish school.”

“So, when Drew was telling you all this shit, did he happen to mention anything about a threesome? Not right now, obviously,” I said, gesturing towards her pregnant belly with my coffee cup, “but maybe in a couple months when you’re done with… that.”

“No,” she said with a laugh, and I shrugged.

“Worth a shot.”

“But," she smiled, and my ears perked up. I hadn’t expected a ‘
but
’ from her. “I think, even if we did offer… you’d turn us down.”

I scoffed at the idea. Me, turning down a threesome. What a laugh that was.

But the honest truth was, I would.

I didn’t go back to Chicago.

Raven’s words played on a continuous reel in my mind as I went through security. As I boarded the plane for the first leg of my flight. As the plane climbed in altitude and I watched the mountains of Montana fade away out the window.

When we touched down in Detroit, I went straight to the airline counter and looked at the agent.

“I need to change my ticket.”

This is crazy… flippin’ bat-shit crazy.

I thought it the whole time I waited for my next flight. Getting on and off the plane. All the way to her door.

As I knocked.

As I heard her footsteps approach.

And as the door opened.

To say she looked surprised would have been a massive understatement. For a second, she looked almost ill.

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

I hadn’t seen her in a couple years. In that time, she’d aged considerably. Deep wrinkles around her eyes made her look incredibly sad. She had a little gray in her hair.

“From Jack, I’m sure,” she sort of laughed awkwardly, referring to her youngest son. My youngest brother. Seventeen and a senior in high school. “I blame the wrinkles and gray hair on Jack. He’s kind of a handful.”

Awkwardness filled the room as both of us tried to maneuver this tense conversation. She spoke so easily of her son. One she cared about. One who was not me.

“Why did you do it?” I asked after an incredibly painful span of silence.

“It was a very difficult time for me,” she began.

Me too
, I wanted to say.
Mostly because of you.

Yet I bit my tongue in an attempt to not lash out at her. It was all I could do. I needed this, be it understanding or closure. Who knew what would really come of it.

I just knew I needed it.

“When I saw that little boy,” she continued, “he looked exactly like you. I didn’t handle it very well.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement,” I dryly replied.

She shook her head slowly from side to side. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You did. Truth be told, I’m still kind of fucked up about it all.”

She frowned. “I don’t appreciate that language, Justin.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, mom," I muttered. “After twenty years you finally say something remotely motherly to me, and it’s to tell me to watch my fucking language.”

She dropped her gaze, duly chastened, and I continued.

“Do you have any idea what you did to me? Do you even have a clue how it felt to know my own mother didn’t love me?”

“I did love you—” she argued, but I cut her off.

“Not like you should have. Not like I deserved.”

“You don’t understand—” she began.

“No, I don’t,” I agreed. “I get that what dad did to you was super dickish. I get that he hurt you, but you left me, too.”

“I tried to be a part of your life, I just…” her voice trailed off and tears filled her eyes. “You were just like him in so many ways. I know it was selfish. As you got older, I felt worse and worse. I just didn’t know how to fix it.”

“You know, the other kids moms never let them so much as spend the night? They cared enough to keep their boys away… while you fed me to the wolf.”

“I’m so sorry, Justin.”

It was weird. As she said that, I believed her. The weird part of it, though, was that she almost seemed relieved that I was here forcing the issue. That I was throwing it in her face.

“You say I was like him,” I said as I leaned forward, “and you’re right. I was. I was turning
into
him. He was the only role model I had. You showed me that nobody really gave a shit, anyway, so why should I even try?”

“You don’t
have to
be like him,” she whispered.

“I know,” I agreed, “but it sure as fuck wasn’t you who showed me that.”

“Dude, why aren’t you in Chicago?” Drew had said as he opened his front door late the following night.

I felt plumb gross after sitting up all night in the Salt Lake Airport trying to get back to Butte. Of all the airports to get stuck in.

But I had made it back. Drew stood there scratching his junk sleepily through flannel sleep pants, as though I’d woken him up. I probably had, though. It was just after one in the morning.

“I didn’t go back to Chicago. I haven’t slept in about thirty-six hours. Do you mind if I crash on your couch? I can explain in the morning.”

No questions asked, he let me.

Now it was morning. My Mofo brethren and their women sat staring at me as I came to in Drew and Raven’s living room. Even the mini Mofos gazed up at me like I had two heads.

I sat up and hunched over, waiting for the questions.

“So,” Denny began, “if you didn’t go to Chicago, where did you go?”

“I went to see my mom.”

“Holy shit,” Cody gasped, “I didn’t know you even had a mom.”

I gave him a screwy look. “How could I not have a mom, you dick?”

“You have never said a word about her,” Drew said in awe, handing me a steaming cup of coffee. “Not even to me. We all figured you were a fuckin’ orphan or something.”

“I sorta wished I was,” I shrugged. “Nothing good to tell about her, really.”

And as the sun began to warm the mountains around us, I came clean—completely clean—about everything.

About my mom and my dad’s fuckedupness and how I felt I could reasonably blame them for being such a screw up in my life. They all agreed.

About Cole and the role he played in everything. How betrayed he’d felt, causing him to strike out at Rain and me.

About Rain. How I’d tried like a motherfucker to do the right thing. How I’d ultimately failed. How running away from Ophir had seemed like my only option to save her.

“You love her,” Felicity murmured.

I rolled my eyes. “Fuck off.”

Eoghan looked up at me. “No-no wood,” he babbled.

Ilsa smiled as she leaned into Cody’s shoulder. “You do love her.”

“Holy shit,” Cody murmured, “it’s the apocalypse… Justin is in love.”

“Fuck off to you, too,” I grumbled.

Eoghan dropped his truck and came over to stand before me. “No-no wood,” he repeated. “No-no.”

“Gerr up ta fook ya bollix,” Denny grinned.

Everyone turned to stare at Denny. Even Felicity, who had actually gotten pretty good over the years at deciphering her husband’s irishisms, looked utterly mystified.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Drew said, busting into laughter.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Speak English, you fucker.”

At this point, Eoghan got a little fed up with me and climbed up on my lap, grabbing my face in his pudgy little hands. “No-no wood.”

What the fuck was he trying to say to me?

Max watched us silently, but also got up and toddled over, climbing up on the couch beside me. He sat there for a minute looking at Eoghan and then looking at me. Back and forth like he was trying to figure something out. Then he settled up against my side. Without even thinking about it, my arm came to rest around his little shape, and he gave me an adorable little smile.