Lorelie Brown - Riding the Wave

A soft gasp came from Sage. Shaking fingers rose to her mouth. She slipped down from her counter-height perch, but she didn’t go far. She only leaned back against the wall, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her.

Avalon knew the feeling. Her blood had slugged to a chillish hold and her stomach churned. And Hank Wright hadn’t even been her actual father.

She’d always thought him a good man. Fathering a second son, not by his wife . . .

She could almost understand where Tanner had been all this time. Almost.

“I fought with Dad because he refused to tell you. And I didn’t think it was my place.”

“You stayed away all those years because of this?” Eileen tugged at the brightly colored scarf over her shoulders. “That’s no reason. No reason at all.”

Tanner sighed again. “I couldn’t look at him. Not here, in this home that you poured so much work into. I couldn’t look at him without losing my mind. And I couldn’t bear hurting you like that.”

Avalon crossed her arms over her chest, holding in the hurt. She couldn’t fall apart, not when Sage and Eileen were so shaken up. And they weren’t the crying, sobbing mess she wanted to be. She drew a deep, shaky breath. Not her place, really. She had to get herself under control.

Even if it felt like Tanner was picking apart her very dreams. She’d always wanted her marriage, whenever she had one, to be like Eileen and Hank’s. Respectful and loving—and apparently fake as hell.

Eileen kept shaking her head as if she could deny what Tanner was saying. “There’s no way you could possibly know that. It’s not like he would have told you.”

“He didn’t. I met the woman. In Tahiti, the second time I went for the ASP.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder at Avalon. He was almost as much of a mess as Eileen. Definitely more than Sage, who stood so quietly. Pulling into herself without ever moving an inch. “I tried talking to Mako back then, but he wasn’t having any of it. I think he resents me. Resents all of us. It’s made him an asshole.”

“That’s enough of that.” Eileen held up a hand before she stood on shaky legs. Tanner reached for her again, but she stepped back, out of his hands. “No reason for talk like that.”

“Mom, there’s something else you should know.” Tanner stood up as well. Behind his mother, he reached for her, only for his hands to drop again. “Mako has apparently given an interview. He told everything.”

Eileen’s hand shook when she reached up to pull her shawl closer around her shoulders. Her knuckles stood out in stark relief. “I suppose that’s his right,” she said, but her voice broke on the words. Her fingertips rose to her temple. “I have to go lie down.”

Sage tried to stop her as she walked out of the room, but she wasn’t having any of it. She held up her hand again, her neck curved down in a way Avalon had never seen before.

Tears prickled at the back of Avalon’s eyes. This was awful. So horrible that she didn’t even have words for it. Her stomach flipped over and over as the pretty little world she’d been permitted into fell apart. But she had to hold it together. If it was this painful for her, she couldn’t imagine what it felt like to Sage. God, to Eileen. She had to be falling apart inside. Avalon scratched her nails into the tender skin inside her elbows. The pain made her hiss, drawing her back down to earth. She didn’t exactly have the right to fall apart when Sage and Eileen needed her.

Eileen stopped at the foot of the stairs. “How long?” she asked, her back to them all.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Deep lines carved around Tanner’s mouth.

“How long was it going on? From start to finish.”

He rocked back on his heels, shoving his hands in his pockets. His chin lowered to his chest. “I don’t know.”

“I didn’t think you would.” Her sigh was as soft as the summer breeze coming in off the waves. “That right there . . . That’s why you didn’t have any right to keep this secret, Tanner. Because you waited until your father was dead, I don’t have anyone to ask.”

That had gone about as well as Tanner had expected it to. Something along the lines of dropping a nuclear explosion in his mother’s living room. Or like feeding her to sharks. His stomach churned so hard that he thought he might throw up. He hadn’t had this awful a feeling since that disastrous night in Tahiti when he’d first seen Mako’s mother.

His mom walked upstairs with slow, careful steps. She seemed a shadow of what she’d been a few moments ago. And he’d done that to her.

He’d have never told her at all if it wasn’t for Mako giving that goddamned interview, all to make trouble. Tanner’s guilt was a live, slithering thing. It turned his insides upside down. He’d carried these secrets for so long. He shouldn’t have had to be the one to see Eileen’s face fall apart when she heard.

If anyone should have had to deal with that, it was Hank.

The picture to the right of the stairwell was of Tanner and his dad, posing on the beach after Tanner’s first junior win. He’d managed to avoid looking at it all night. Hank Wright had been a big man, even two inches taller than Tanner was when grown. At twelve, Tanner had barely come up to his ribs. But he’d been so ridiculously happy that he’d have a trophy that could go alongside his dad’s.

And it had. In the trophy case, right next to Hank’s early-eighties World Championship, because winning mattered in their family. It wasn’t there anymore, though. No telling where the shiny trophy had gone now.

His mom’s feet disappeared past the line of the landing, heading up to her top-floor bedroom. That didn’t mean he was off the hook.

Avalon stared at him. Her eyes were flat gray with something incredibly painful. How did she think he felt, huh? He hadn’t wanted to hold on to all this horrible stuff for a decade.

That left Sage. Except, by the time he turned around, she’d disappeared.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered.

“She probably went down to the beach.” He’d never heard Avalon speak so quietly before. She ducked her head, effectively hiding her eyes behind her thick fringe of bangs. The line of her plump mouth was a decided frown.

“Don’t blame her.” He’d be at the beach as soon as he could get away from this disaster. And Sage had always been a private person, prone to nursing her hurts in silence.

“Oh, I don’t blame her,” Avalon said, her eyes slitting until they were barely more than dark glimmers, even in the bright lights of the living room. “I don’t blame her at all. I blame you.”

He’d been expecting the blow, but that didn’t mean it was any easier to take. His guts felt like they’d been stirred up, then smashed back in upside down.

“Of course you would.” He made himself shrug, since he’d expected it all along. But his mom’s condemnation had hurt more than he’d expected. More than he wanted it to. Adding a thick layer of scorn from Avalon tipped him over the line. He had to get the hell out of here.

He wasn’t going to stick around and listen to her crap all over him. No point in that. The fact that he managed to not slam the back door behind him had to be a win on some level, but he didn’t much care.

The night had gone quiet. Even the college kids had seemingly quit for the night. Only a soft breeze swished palm fronds. Tanner was halfway down the block, toward his rental house, when he heard another sound.

Footsteps shushing over sand-dusted sidewalk. He drew his shoulders back. He wanted to get home. It was kind of sad that a rental house would feel more homelike than the place he’d left, but at this moment he needed quiet. Somewhere that wasn’t totally saturated with thoughts and memories of his dad.

He didn’t need Avalon chasing him and rubbing his nose in the shit storm he’d unleashed.

But her hand wrapped around his forearm, no matter how he’d wished she wouldn’t. She was noticeably smaller than him, delicate-looking with her narrow shoulders and slim hips, but her grip said otherwise. She dug in with surprising strength, trying to drag him to a stop.

Plus, she had nails.

He finally stopped, but Christ, he didn’t want to look at her. He stayed where he was, fists deep in his pockets and his gaze locked on the bare inch of beach he could see at the end of the street. “What do you want, Avalon?”

“You think you can dump shit like that and bail?”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” He spun on a heel. Since the moon was the only glow, her skin looked paler than normal. Almost ghostlike. It looked like it had when they’d been sitting on the roof together.

Going back to that moment would be nice, but it wouldn’t happen. Not after everything. The shock of seeing Mako in his mom’s kitchen had been nothing compared to the devastation he’d seen on his mom’s face. Just like he always feared.

“Was I supposed to sit around the living room and wait? Twiddle my fucking thumbs in case my mother decided to speak to me again?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Her chin was tilted forward like a bulldog’s, filled with determined intent. Her mouth pulled into a small knot. “It’s called being there. For your family. Not that you’d have any experience with it.”

“I don’t need your crap, Avalon.” He turned again, stalking away. The reverberation up his calves said he might be stomping, but he didn’t particularly care. The shits given might be mighty, but not by him. “I’ve got enough to deal with.”

Her footsteps clattered along behind him until she drew up even at his side. The arms she swung had fists at the end. Who exactly did she plan to beat up? Tanner?