“Why is foster care so close to your heart?” Mina asked as she swished her dress in her hands, allowing the hem to dance along her feet. “I never get a straight answer out of you.”
She wouldn’t, either.
She didn’t need to know why this particular subject was so near and dear to my heart, because then I’d have to explain it all, and honestly, that wasn’t going to ever happen.
Not when Laric didn’t know that I was his father and didn’t want to know.
When I’d been fifteen, I’d slept with a girl that I thought was it for me. Only, the next morning, I’d woken up and she’d been as distant as the setting sun and hadn’t wanted anything to do with me.
The more I tried to get information out of her, the further she pushed me away until eventually, she went as far as moving out of the school that we attended.
It was at that point that I’d given up.
Only, I shouldn’t have.
I’d done the unthinkable and had backed away, written her off, and hadn’t realized that by doing so I was also writing off my kid.
Fast forward a year, and she’s accusing me of ruining her life, asking for cash from my asshole of a stepfather, and telling me that she gave away my kid and that there was nothing I could do about it.
The bad thing was, at that age, without my stepfather’s support, there was nothing I could do about it. To make matters worse, my stepfather agreed with the bitch and helped her hide him from me.
It took me half of my son’s life to figure out where he was, and by that time I was fully entrenched into things that I really shouldn’t be entrenched in.
Not and have a kid.
So, I’d left my kid to who I’d assumed were better parents since he’d been adopted. Only, Laric’s adoptive father, apparently, hadn’t liked him all that much and had abused him after the death of his adoptive mother. But Laric hid it so well that I hadn’t realized it was even happening until well past when I could fix it for him.
That’d partially been why I’d adopted Bruno the way I had. Bruno had been the same age as Laric was when I’d seen him, and I’d felt like I could help him even if I couldn’t help my own son.
“No reason,” I lied.
Mina looked at me skeptically. “Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“He knows you weren’t born yesterday, baby,” Tunnel’s dark, rusty from use voice said as he curled his arm around his wife. “You ready to go?”
Mina turned in her husband’s arms and pressed her lips to his.
“No,” she said. “You go play ghost and leave me and Lynn to dinner. I want to do a few things while I’m here. And you’re early. I haven’t eaten yet.”
He snorted and let her go.
“I’d join you, but I’m not dressed correctly,” he said, gesturing to his faded jeans, black t-shirt, and MC cut.
“You did that on purpose,” Mina countered. “You knew that you were going to get here on time, you were just hoping that I wouldn’t make you stay. You want me here, but you don’t want to be seen with me… why?”
He shrugged.
“Let’s go,” I scoffed at them, unsure what the hell was going on but unwilling to dive anymore into it since I’d want to know what all was going on, and Tunnel wouldn’t tell me that.
Tunnel, like me, was an entrepreneur, and did what he wanted to do and got paid to do it. Sometimes it was bad stuff. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it was bad. And never did he share about his work unless he absolutely had to. Not with his wife, and not with me.
Most assuredly not with me, because he didn’t want me in his business.
Not that I could blame him. As his uncle, I found myself worrying about him when he did things to put his life in danger, and I especially didn’t like it when he made his wife scared.
Needless to say, he was very careful about what he did and didn’t share.
Mina, narrowing her eyes, latched onto my suit-covered arm and turned her head away from her husband.
“Come on,” she said. “The faster we get this over with, the faster we find out what’s really going on here.”
I led her inside, handing my keys off to the valet that was dressed as a clown.
“Why are you dressed as a clown?” Mina asked my unspoken question.
“Boss says to do it, we do it?” The valet shrugged. “I don’t pretend to know what he’s thinking. The theme is a circus, though. So that might be why. I wouldn’t wear the shoes he wanted, though, because I was going to be getting into people’s cars and driving them. Can you imagine me wrecking someone’s Porsche because I was wearing freakin’ clown shoes?”