Wrong Kind of Love (19 page)

My hands clinch at my waist and I really want to punch something. “For one you don’t know a damn thing about Grace and me. Second if my brother would bother to take care of his own girlfriend maybe she wouldn’t have to come to me. Third stay out of my damn business. I don’t know how you found out but you better keep it to your fucking self.”

My entire body is vibrating with anger. I should have listened to Kayla last night when she said she saw something. I thought she was just tired. I don’t want anyone to think less of me. I can’t help who I fell in love with. Kayla to me is like a starving man getting run over with a McDonald’s truck. She is something I really want and need but she might be too much to handle. I’m ready for it though. I would follow that girl to the ends of the earth. She is everything to me.

Chance’s face contorts into a sneer and he
’s pushing a finger in my chest. “If you weren’t fucking her in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t have walked in on you. I was coming to tell you where Norma was and that I was leaving.” He takes a deep breath and takes a step back. “I also wouldn’t tell anyone because I’m your friend and I wouldn’t betray you like that.”

In the middle of his rant Teagan walks around the corner, Declan right at her heels. I feel all the color drain out of my face. This is that one moment I never wanted to be alive for. The hurt and anger in my little sister
’s eyes is almost more than I can take. Those eyes used to look up at me with love and trust. I’ve lost that now. I want to fall to my knees and scream.

“I really don’t think this is the place for this
conversation. Or maybe I should say there isn’t ever a time for this conversation.” Declan states his voice void of all emotion.

“Teagan…” I stammer out walking towards her. She steps out of my way, tears in her eyes. I
can’t do anything but cringe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen.” Little does she know I’m not talking about the Kayla thing. I didn’t mean for her to find out like this.

Teagan slaps me
across the face. BOOM. I feel it all over my body. It wasn’t even a great slap, but still it’s the meaning behind it. I’ve hurt my sister far worse than I have ever hurt her before. “You don’t get to say that to me. I always wondered if you two were going behind Jaden’s back but I had hoped not. You have dug your own grave and now you will get buried in it.”

I have nothing to say to her. I’m backed into a corner. I’m protecting two other people’s secrets here. A lot of shit is at stake if I explain to any of them what is really going on. Is this what Kayla has to go through? Even a little bit? She has to hide behind Grace and lie. I’m lying now to some of the most important people in my life. Fuck I don’t know how she can go day to day.

“I think you should leave, Caden.” Declan says to me in his stern voice. Looks like I disappointed the decent one.

I only nod and exit the building. This is the end of that crap. We are telling my parents first and then we are talking to Teagan. I
can’t stand for her to think of me like that for even another minute, but I have too.

I ban
g on the door of her hotel room. She checked out after I made her promise she would stay at my house. After last night though, she got spooked and said I had to sleep with her here.

I’m beyond pissed and
I’m ready for this shit to be over. I’m done letting everyone think I stole Kayla from Jaden. The guy didn’t even want her in the first place. She’s not Ava. Which is a damn good thing because she is mine, end of story.

“
What’s wrong, baby?” Kayla says after opening the door and taking in my face.

“
We have to find Jaden? We have to go to my parents. We have to tell them.” I cup my hands around her cheek and take in some of her light. My beautiful angel. Looking at this face right now makes it all worth it. Like I’ve been saying, I would do anything for her. Now it’s her turn to do something for me. “You were right. Chance saw us last night. We have to come clean. You should have seen Teagan’s face. I never want to see her look at me like that again.”

“He told Teagan? Really?” she says outraged.

“No, she overheard when he confronted me.” I brush hair out of her face and bend down to kiss her lips. “We need to go.” I tell her again softer this time.

She steps away from me and heads into the kitchen. She comes back out w
ith her bag and opens the door, waiting for me to exit. “He’s already there. An important dinner with your dad.” She shrugs as an explanation.

“How do you know that?” I try to keep the jealously out of my voice.

She rolls her eyes at me before striding out the door. “He updated his Facebook.”

Oh.

Feeling ashamed I quietly follow her out to my mustang. We climb in but before I start the car I say, “I’m so fucking nervous.” My hands beat along the steering wheel.

Her hand shoots out and grabs mine. She laces her fingers with
mine and sets them on her thigh. My tension eases a bit, but it’s still there. I want to be there already telling my parents who I love and no one can make me give her up. Mom would die at the scandal but I don’t really fucking care. “I’m nervous too.” She whispers looking out her window.

I squeeze her hand. “It
’s okay. They can’t do anything to you. I, on the other hand can get cut off or yelled at. This is going to be one hell of a conversation.”

“No joke.” She lets my hand go and
starts rummaging around in her bag. She pulls out a glass pipe. She looks at me, then the pipe and then back to me. Her eyebrow rises as if asking for permission. “You mind?”

“You still do that?” I chuckle giving her
a thumbs up.

“Fuck yeah. Nothing will ever make me give up pot.” She pulls the baggie out o
f her purse next. She pulls out a magazine next and sets it on her lap. She pulls out a small amount of weed from the baggie and places it on the magazine. She breaks up the compacted plant and settles it into her glass pipe.

After taking her lighter and a huge hit she passes it to me. I like the way pot makes me feel and all
, but I’m not a stoner. Moments like right now I definitely need it. It’s calming and clears my mind. Exactly what I need.

We pass the pipe back and forth until
it’s all smoked. My brain is in a nice blissfully happy haze. Being stoned is like being simple minded. You can only concentrate on one thing at a time. It’s also easy to be distracted. And horny.

Kayla’s hand finds its way to my thigh and starts to move higher. When it
smooth’s over my dick, my eyes close of their own accord. It feels so good as she strokes me through my jeans.

Before I know it w
e are running off the road and straight into a tree. Kayla slams her head on the dashboard. I wonder briefly why her air bag didn’t deploy. The air bag pops free from my steering wheel and I feel my nose break on impact of my face. My head then hits the window and I know nothing else.

When I open my eyes next
, my mother’s face is the first thing I see. There are new lines forming on her face. She looks ten years older then the last time I saw her. “Mom?” I groan.

Her head pops directly over me as she cups my face. “Oh Caden. I’m so happy
you’re awake.” She kisses my forehead and runs for the door. “He’s awake!”  She shouts down the hall. Not ten seconds later I hear the sounds of twenty different sets of feet.

My dad comes in first, followed by Teagan, Declan, Marcus, Jessica, Forest, and last but not least is Jaden. I forget everyone else as I reach out my hand for Jaden. He walks over to me with a forced smile. I can tell the smile isn’t forced because I reached out for him, but because something is going on.

“What’s up bro?” he says taking the seat mom vacated for him.

“
What’s going on?” I know I can ask him because everyone else will refuse to tell me. He may keep shit about himself too but here and now he would tell me the truth.

“Caden, you just woke up. Now is not the time.” My dad says from the other side of my bed.

“No one asked you.” I say to him. He didn’t bother to tell me I had a little sister for ten years of my life. He can go to hell.

“Caden
Gabriel Harper! You don’t talk to your father that way!” my mom exclaims. Even in a hospital bed she scolds me. God I’m freaking twenty-one years old.

“Look someone tell me what the hell is going on!” I yell. I think I just busted a blood vessel. My nose is freaking killing me, as well as the eggplant on the side of my head.

“Grace wasn’t who she said she was.” Teagan says softly. Tears leak out the side of her face and it’s all I can do to reach out for her. Declan stands behind her, protecting her from everything. Well almost everything.

“I know.” I tell her.

Her face pops up and her eyes glare at me. “Oh I forgot you were sleeping with her! I bet you knew everything! More than her best friend, yeah?”

The collective silence in the room says it all. I’
m so fucked right now. “She dumped me two years ago.” Jaden blurts out. Everyone including me, turn our heads in his direction. I know of course but I wasn’t expecting him to come clean like this.

“WHAT?” My mom screams.

“She wasn’t in Dallas being a cheerleader. She was in Arizona with her older brother. She didn’t even tell anyone she was leaving, so instead of saying I got dumped, I just played like she and I were doing the long distance thing. But all along she wanted Caden anyway. Not me.” Jaden meets my eyes at the end and I give him a nod of thanks.

“
So you knew she wasn’t Grace, either?” Teagan asks Jaden.

He only nods and our sister gets even more tears in her eyes. “She couldn’t tell you, Teagan. She was scared and had no choice. She only told Caden because she loves him. And I only knew because I forced it out of her brother.”

“So does that mean she doesn’t love me?” Teagan sobs out.

Declan takes her around the shoulders
and turns her to face him. “No. It just means the situation was out of her control.” This is why I love Dec. He knows how to fix any situation.

“I for one don’t care who she is or who knew. She isn’t coming around this family anymore.” Mom of
course had to throw her two cents in.

Head
injuries are funny things. See I slammed my head into the dashboard because my air bag didn’t deploy. I walked away with an egg on my forehead and a horrible headache. Caden slams the side of his head into the driver side window and gets knocked out. For hours. He also broke his nose. And I only know this because I saw it happen.

I’ve been locked in
an interrogation room for the past sixteen hours. I called 9-1-1 after the accident. When the police showed, they found my pot and pipe. I told them it was mine and Caden didn’t even know I had it. The idiots believed me.

I
, of course got booked and finger printed. And I’m sure by now they know I’m not who I say I am. I don’t give one ounce of a fuck if they know. I just need someone to come in this room and tell me the love of my life is alive. That he is awake and wondering where the fuck I am. I swear to my brother if someone doesn’t tell me what the hell is going on soon I’m going to go crazy. For real’s.

I mean do I not get a fucking lawyer? Phone call? I do realize I was
doing something illegal. But I still have some rights. I’m going to sue this police station and Ford. Someone should have to pay for this damn egg on my head. Fuck, they won’t even give me any pain meds for it. I’m about to get out of control.

I have my head down on the cool metal table, while one of my wrists is cuffed to the leg. Who the hell am I kidding? They found out who I am, they called Daniel. I know any second that evil bastard is going to walk through that door. My life is over. He is going to take me back to New York and most likely kill me. He
can’t stand to be disobeyed.

My high left me hours ago and here
I’m sitting freaking out and pissed the fuck off. I think the first person who comes in here is going to get kicked in the face. It’s so quiet in here. Only the sound of my breathing. If they want me to go insane then it’s working. I’m on the verge as we speak. And I’m rambling in my head.

There’s
a knock on the door and I roll my eyes. Dude I’m set up in this room, handcuffed to a table. What am I supposed to do? Get up and answer the door? I don’t answer the knock. This room has a two-way mirror. They know I’m awake in here.

The door open
s slowly and I wait without breathing for Daniel to come around the other side. My mouth falls open and my eyes bug out of my head when my tiny brunette mother walks into the room. Her expensive pantsuit is wrinkle free and fits her perfectly. Well I would hope so because she gets them custom made. “Mom?” I squeak out. She was the last person I expected to enter this room.

I look around her out the door for Daniel but I don’t see anything. “
He’s not here.” She states in her cold voice. The woman doesn’t even know what emotions are. She moves to the other side of the table and takes a seat in front of me.

“Where is he?” I would really like to know. The bastard wouldn’t let us go this
easily. We were his possessions. His playthings. Like all men and their toys, they get bitchy and angry when said toys disappear.

“Daniel passed away from a heart attack
three months ago.” She says in her dead voice.

My eyes blink three times before it sinks in. “What the fuck?” I stammer out. No seriously what the fuck? How did I not know this?!

“Apparently he wasn’t listening to his physical trainer. His cholesterol had been high for months but he was stubborn and wouldn’t eat right. It finally caught up to him. It was very sudden.” She says all this with no infliction of any emotion in her voice. I swear the woman could be that dude who does the eye drop commercials.

“That’s really a shame.” I tell her back. I’m fucking free. Mom probably just wants to go back to her life in New York and forget that Aiden and I
existed.

“Well yes it was.” She stops and eyes me up and down. “Why are you blonde? You hate blondes. We will have to fix that as soon as we can.” She gets up from the chair and turns towards the door. “The cops still
can’t find Aiden. I’m sure when they let you out in just a minute, you could get him on the phone?”

“Ummm…yeah?” it comes out a question. If I’m not completely crazy I think she actually cares. Weird.

“Good. This nice police officer is going to uncuff you and then we are going to leave together.” She smiles at me and it’s the first time I can remember in a while that it reaches her eyes.

“Yes ma’am.” I say while a short round man in uniform comes in and uses his keys to uncuff me. I stand up and rub my wrist with my other hand. Damn those fucking things were too tight.

My mom holds out her hand to me and I take it. She pulls me along until we are outside and she stops by a nice rental car. “You drive. We all need to talk.”

I park the rental car outside of a Wal-Mart so mom and I can chat. I don’t really have much to say to her, other then the fact
she’s a horrible mother and I wish she would leave me alone. “I thought you were taking me to see your brother?”

I shrug. “We would have to drive to another state for that. Besides I don’t really think he wants to be found.” I mutter looking away from her.

“Yes I could gather that since you both disappeared in the middle of the night.” She shifts around her seat, bringing my attention to her ring finger. The huge diamond ring Daniel got her is no longer there. I’m surprised she took it off.

“What would you have done?”
Wait that was a stupid question. “Never mind. You wouldn’t have had the balls the run.” I turn towards her and cross my arms over my chest. “Look Mom, I get that you’re pissed. Your children up and leave in the middle of the night without a trace. But I figure with Daniel dead, you could live your life the way that you want. You’re a wealthy widow. No kids to support.”

“Yes I’m all of those things. Heaven forbid I should want to see my kids again.” She mimics my motions and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Well since you didn’t want anything to do with us to being with, I don’t understand why you are here now.” And I really don’t. She could have ignored the fact that I popped back up on her radar. She didn’t have to come down here and rescue me. I certainly didn’t need it. I didn’t have that much pot on me. I would probably have gotten probation.

“You came from my body, I have a right to wonder where you are and what you’re doing.” Why? She never cared before.

“That is bullshit, Mom and you know it. You never cared what was going on before.” I tell her while she looks away from me and out the passenger side window.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I just didn’t have the time to care. Your father was the one who wanted the two of you. Daniel wanted a
ready-made family so he made me bring you along. If I had known he was such a bastard, I wouldn’t have married him to begin with.” She turns back to look at me and I see a touch of regret in her eyes.

I’m starting to get tired of the game. Everything is a game to my mother regardless of who she hurts in the process. “Can we get to the point of why you are here?”

She huffs and pulls out a piece of paper from her purse. “Daniel left you and your brother some money.” She practically throws the paper at me.

I pick it up from where it landed by the drive shaft. I open it slowly and when I see the amount of money on the paper I think I might faint. Aiden gets just as much. It
’s not like we really need it though. My grandparents on mom’s side set us up with trust funds before we were born. We took as much money as we could out of those trust funds and that’s what has been paying for our stay down in the south.

“Why did he leave this to us?” I ask throwing her a puzzled look.

“Because it would have looked bad if he didn’t. Not that it matters to me. You and your brother are taken care of now. I don’t have to worry where you’re at or what you’re doing.” I think her heart is in the right place. Or maybe not.

I drive the rental car to the hotel I’m staying at. Mom refused to be in Arkansas for another minute and takes off the second I’m out of the car. Good riddance.

I call Aiden before I even get inside the hotel. “Hey little sister. Fix your boy problems yet?” he asks.

I laugh before shaking my head. “Yeah I have that straightened out. I also have some other stuff straightened out.”

“Like what?” I can hear him moving around on his end and I assume he is going to a quiet place so he can talk.

“Well for starters, Daniel is dead.” I tell him how Caden and I got into the car accident. I tell him they called mom when they figured out I wasn’t who I said I was. Then I tell him how she threw Daniel
’s money at me and left.

“That’s typical mom. As long as we have money
, she thinks we are taken care of. She is the reason people need to have a license to have children.” We both laugh at that. We talk for a little longer but I soon realize that I have somewhere I need to be.

In Caden Harpers arms.

The doctors sent me home hours ago. I have a thing on my face keeping my nose straight. And an eggplant on the side of my head. I look fucking sexy. I also have a whole bottle of pain pills and they make me feel awesome.

I’m l
ying on my bed at my parent’s house and all I can think about is Kayla. Mom refused to let me see her. You can guess where I told her to shove that. I can’t drive since I’m on the pain meds. Oh and I totaled my fucking mustang. Mom went on a tirade about that one. Whatever I can afford another one off my paintings.