“Excuse me?” Caden says. “This is my home. You can’t kick me out.”
“It’s over for you here,” Nate says. “There’s nothing left. You’ll never have a relationship with us again and I can promise you that mom will never forgive you, not for this. Your only hope is to go and see if that whore and her skank ass daughter will take you in.”
Caden’s eyes go hard as he looks from son to son. He takes a step back and I realize we’re done for the night. “This isn’t over,” he tells the boys, just as he had told Trish.
“It is, dad. This is one fuck up you’ll never come back from. Go live with your other family. We’re done.”
With that, Caden takes another step back before letting out a heavy sigh. A moment later, he turns and walks up the stairs, hopefully, to pack himself a bag.
Nate turns towards his brother and searches his face. “You ok?” he questions.
“Yeah,” he grunts, looking away before walking out of the room with his head down low.
Nate turns to me and slowly walks over. He puts his hands down on the table on either side of my waist and leans into me while letting out a heavy breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would get that out of hand.”
I bring my hand up and rest it against his racing hearts. “It’s ok,” I murmur. “Are you alright?”
He shrugs his shoulders and presses his lips together. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s a lot to take in.”
He rests his forehead against mine and I bring my other hand up and around him, holding his body close to mine. “I love you,” I tell him. “Think of this as your new beginning. We took out the trash and now it’s time for a clean slate.”
“I guess,” he murmurs. “It’ll just take a while to sink in.”
I nod my head and push up off the table. I take his hand in mine. “Come on,” I say as I start leading him towards the den. He follows on with a sigh and we fall down into the couch together, tangled in each other’s arms.
I rest my head against his chest as his thumb rubs back and forth over my shoulder. “Do you think Jess will be ok?” I murmur.
A scoff sounds at the opening of the den and I look up to find Jesse standing with a bottle of bourbon and three shot glasses. “I’ll be fine after this,” he explains.
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” I grumble as Jesse flops down into the couch beside us. We push ourselves up and untangle our limbs as Jesse starts pouring drinks. “You couldn’t have gotten something a little nicer than bourbon?” I question as I look at the brown liquid.
“Nope,” he grunts. “You want to party with the big boys, you got to drink what we drink.”
I scrunch my face up as a body appears before us, holding up my preferred drink of choice. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Trish says as she hands me the bottle of Vodka. “If you’re going to party, you party right.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I tell her as she drops down beside Jesse and steals one of his unused shot glasses.
Nate raises a surprised eyebrow at his mom, but nonetheless, accepts what’s happening. I mean, a lot of shit has gone down tonight and after dealing with it all for the past year, the woman deserves to drown her sorrows. “Um,” Nate says to his mom with a cringe. “There’s probably a few things you should know.”
She holds up a hand stopping him. “Nope,” she says as she grabs the filled glass of vodka and throws it back. “I heard the whole thing, I don’t need to hear it again. I was at the top of the stairs listening and from now on, he’s Voldemort. We don’t speak his name.”
“Deal,” Jesse says, slamming his empty glass back down on the table and instantly refilling it before sliding one down to Nate, making wonder how the hell we’ve all lost our fathers in such a short time and how I ended up drinking with our moms when in usual circumstances, they’d both run for the hills if someone suggested getting wasted with their kids.
Half an hour later, both bottles are nearly empty and when we hear the sound of the garage opening before the distinct sound of a car backing out, we all burst into uncontrollable laughter. “Shit, he’s actually gone,” Trish says with tears in her eyes.
“Yeah,” I grunt as my head starts to spin from the vodka. “Look at it this way,” I tell her. “Nate now has somewhere to park his Mustang.”
Trish’s face drops and her mouth pops open as she looks to Nate. “Tell me you didn’t buy a Mustang?”