Off The Cards: Faking it #2 Read online

  "Nate…" I shook my head in confusion. "This makes no sense."

  "I didn’t know you loved me then. Christ, Andi, I thought the complete fucking opposite. I never thought I stood a chance with you. Your daddy sure as shit made that clear to me on enough occasions. All I was trying to do was protect my niece." Jerking off the sofa, Nate paced the small space. "She's my niece, Andi. She's Callie. Sweet little Callie." He ran a hand through his hair again, and this time he pulled at the ends. "Fuck, you of all people know what he'd do if he found out about her. He has money and power and pull. Your daddy would have taken Callie from Kim. And I couldn’t live with myself if I let her suffer the way you did. I couldn’t sit back and watch that bastard suck the life out of her like he did with you!"

  "Nathan!" I felt like my world was crumbling down around me. This was bad. So bad. Dread bloomed inside of me like poisoned ivy, infecting everything it came into contact with. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

  Please say no.

  Please let me be wrong.

  Please lord don’t make this my reality…

  "Clive is Callie's father, too," Nate choked out, shredding any last lingering hopes I had that this was a nightmare I would wake up from. The words were out now and they couldn’t be taken back.

  'This isn’t true!" Staggering to my feet, I pressed my thumbs to my temples as I desperately tried to comprehend what Nate had just said. "It can't be." Callie was my half-sister? Kim had been with my father? My mother knew about this? "No." I shook my head over and over. "No, you've made a mistake."

  "It's true," Nate whispered, making a beeline for me. "I'm so fucking sorry," he added before claiming the final step that separated us. Reaching out, he tucked my braid behind my ear, his brown eyes searing me, before settling his hands on my shoulders. I felt cold to the bone, but when his hands touched my skin, warmth trickled into me.

  My voice broke off and I craned my neck upwards to look him in the eye. "So Callie is mine and Jackson's…"

  "Sister," Nate filled in, visibly flinching. "I guess."

  "This is too much," I whispered, reeling.

  "Try being ten and having all this shit going on around you."

  My head snapped up. "You knew back then?"

  "Fuck no!" Nate shook his head. "I didn’t find out until sophomore year of high school. Do you remember when Kim moved out of state with Trey when we were in middle school?"

  I nodded, remembering exactly what Nate was referring to.

  "Remember when she came back?" Nate asked. "Callie was a toddler and she and Trey were married."

  "I remember." Kim had left Springhill for almost two years. I remembered because Nate had cried real bad that summer. When Kim moved away, Nate had been left on his own with their mother. It had been a real dark chapter in Nate's life.

  "Happened back then," he filled in. "Right underneath my goddamn nose and I never guessed a thing."

  "But you and my mom…" I shook my head and forced myself to suppress the shudder of unease that was rippling through me. "Where does you being with her come into all of this?" I didn’t want to hear it, but I knew I had to know.

  Releasing me, Nate took a few steps back and resumed his pacing, leaving me standing in the middle of the room getting dizzy. "It was right around the time school was wrapping up for the summer. The plumbing was out here. Nothing fucking new, but anyway… I'd been working all damn day and looked like shit when I stopped by your house. Jackson was heading over to see Jennah Elizabeth. Remember her?"

  "Yes." Of course I did. She was Jackson's first and only serious girlfriend. He turned all manwhorish and slutty after she moved to England. "Keep going."

  "Well, Jackson told me I could use his bathroom to wash up – said he wouldn’t be long." Breaking off, Nate tipped his head back and let out a pained groan. "Your mom was drinking real bad that summer. Anyway, she followed me into the Jackson's bedroom, cornered me and confronted me about my sister and Clive."

  "She knew?"

  Nate nodded. "Don’t ask me how, but she'd found out about Callie that day." He looked at me with a pained expression. "She was going crazy, baby. Spouting all kinds of shit."

  "What did you do?"

  "Nothing! I didn’t have a goddamn clue what she was yapping on about," he admitted with a helpless shrug. "Thought it was the booze talking. She was accusing me of having a homewrecker sister. Kim, of all people. I mean, come the fuck on." Shrugging, he added, "Besides, it wasn’t the first time she walked in on me in the shower."

  "What do you mean it wasn’t the first time?" Now I was shouting. I couldn’t help it. This was beyond messed up. It was sick and twisted and I was disturbed just hearing about it.

  "Inappropriate comments, and real fucking personal groping…" Nate shook his head and sighed. "Your momma's always had some sick fascination with me, Andi. Fuck if I know why, but it's the truth." He waved his hands in the air helplessly. "I used to brush it off. Pretend I didn’t notice, but she took it further that day. She propositioned me."

  "Ugh. I can't believe I'm hearing these words." Staggering over to the sofa, I sank down and dropped my head in my hands. "This is so gross."

  "I left," he was quick to assure me. Walking over to where I was sitting, Nate crouched down in front of me and placed his hand on my knee. Even though I knew I should, I didn’t push him away again. I physically couldn’t. "I turned her down, Andi. I got dressed and I and left. I went straight to Kim's place and confronted her."

  "Did she deny it?" I swallowed deeply. "Being with my father?"

  Nate shook his head. "The minute I told her what had gone down with your mom, Kim started crying and panicking. It was as plain as the nose on her face that your momma was telling the truth. "

  My stomach churned. "Oh God."

  "She was a mess, Andi. Made me promise I'd do whatever it took to keep it buried. I owe my sister a lifetime of taking care of me. Of course I promised her." He stared at me with fearful eyes. "I went back to your house, tried to talk your mom into keeping quiet. She was persistent. She was fucking raging, Andi, and hell bent on telling your father. On using Callie to her advantage in a divorce settlement…" He paused and exhaled heavily before whispering, "But then she stopped talking about divorcing your dad and she started…" He swallowed deeply. "And she started talking about something else she wanted. Something more than the divorce..."

  "You," I choked out.

  Nate nodded guiltily. "She offered me a deal; sex for her silence." His voice was filled with self-loathing when he said, "I took it." Exhaling heavily, he added, "I figured that even if she tried to go back on her word after we… then I'd have it to hold over her." He shook his head again. "She'd have a hard time getting a penny out of your dad if she slept with her son's best friend, and I thought it would be enough to buy her silence on Callie's paternity. Because I swear to you now, Andi, the only thing I was thinking about was keeping that little girl safe and out of harm's way." He balled his hands into fists. "I watched you growing up. I've spent my whole life with you. I've seen the way you're treated in that house, like a second class citizen, and I fucking hate it." He released a sharp breath. "I couldn’t change things for you, but I could for her."

  "I think I'm going to be sick."

  "Tell me what else I could have done, Andi?" his tone was a mixture of defensiveness and desperation. "Let your father take Callie away from Kim?" He raked his fingers through his hair, clearly agitated. "I did what I thought was the right thing for my family."

  "And what about my family, Nathan?" My voice cracked, just like my heart. "What about me?"

  "What about you?" he shot back hoarsely. "You think I wanted to drag you into all of that? Damn, Andi, all I wanted to do was keep you safe from all this shit."

  "Why didn’t you tell me?"

  "Why do you think?" Jerking to his feet, he glowered down at me. "I hated myself for what I did, Andi. I couldn’t fucking bear the thought of you hating me, too."

  "Ma
ybe I could have…"

  "You couldn’t have done a damn thing," he shot back angrily. "You think I wanted it? You think I wanted her?" He shook his head in disgust. "Worst fucking moment of my life, Andi. I couldn’t get clean. I still feel fucking dirty."

  "Wait." I turned and stared at him. "Does Trey know?"

  Nathan took a long time before answering me. "No," he finally replied. "At least, not that I know of."

  "So you've been keeping all of this to yourself…"

  "Yep."

  "But you had to know that we could never be together if you were with her?" My voice was small but my words were full of pain and uncertainty.

  "All I knew was I never had a chance with you anyway," he shot back. "I'd been informed on plenty occasions that you were not for me."

  "You shouldn’t have touched me, Nathan," I sobbed brokenly. "You shouldn’t have let it get this far with us."

  "I tried to stop it," he roared. "I fucking pushed you away. I kept away from you. I was cruel and mean. Christ, Andi, I did everything in my power to keep this from happening – to keep us from happening. But you wouldn’t walk away and I'm crazy in love with you." He threw his hands up. "You have no fucking clue how hard it was for me to push you away every damn day for the past two and half years." He let out a strangled sigh. "Goddamn, I got myself involved with Dallas Holloway to keep you at arm's length and it didn’t work. You still got under my skin like no one else."

  "What else?" I sobbed. "If there's anything else you're keeping from me then I need you to tell me now."

  "Afterwards, she pretended like nothing had happened and so did I. I forced myself to believe it was a horrible fucking nightmare, and it worked. The secret stayed buried." Nate laughed humorlessly. "You know, for the longest time I actually believed I'd dreamt the whole damn thing up."

  "What changed?"

  "What changed was Jackson caught your daddy with my girlfriend at the beginning of summer," Nate replied flatly. "Dallas was banging your dad in the guest room in your house." Nate shook his head. "Everything went to hell from there."

  "What happened?"

  "You mean after Jackson tossed her ass out and beat the shit out of your dad?"

  "Yeah." I blushed. "Afterwards."

  "I wasn’t upset, Andi," he admitted. "I'd been with Dallas for two years and I felt nothing when we broke up. Her betrayal brought out zero emotions in me. All I felt was relief. I was free again and fucking thrilled at the thought. I made the mistake of telling her that."

  "God, Nate." I flinched on Dallas's behalf. I didn’t like the girl, but hearing that must have sucked.

  "She knew about what had gone down between me and Liv," he choked out. "Not the reason behind it, but I fucking spilled my guts to her on a drunken night out a year or so back." He stiffened when he said, "What you heard her say the other night was Dallas's way of twisting the truth. She wanted to hurt you and make me suffer at the same time. She knows what you mean to me. She knows I'm serious about you and she can't fucking stand it. So she threw my deepest secret back in my face like a bomb. And just as she imagined, it blew right up in my face."

  "This is… awful." I sat numbly on the sofa, trying to digest everything that had been thrown at me. "Nathan, you should report my mother for what she did to you." I knew what I was saying, there would be terrible implications and consequences, but it was the right thing to do. "You were coerced into having sex. You were only sixteen years old." I shook my head and forced my knees to stop shaking. "All of this is so wrong."

  "You want full disclosure?" he asked then, ignoring my previous statement.

  I nodded. "Nothing less."

  "Football?" Nate released a ragged sigh. "I quit the team because of her, too – because she told me to."

  "What?" I gaped. "But you were so good." He was better than good. Nathan was on the right track to playing college football. "You told me you quit because you needed to make money?"

  "Well, I couldn’t exactly tell you I quit because your momma was blackmailing me, now could I?"

  "What possible purpose could she have for making you do that, Nate?"

  "Because she could, Andi. Because she could, baby. Plain and simple." He paused for a moment before admitting, "She wanted round two. Guess it was her way of getting revenge on your father for screwing around with Dallas. I refused. So she punished me by dangling my niece's future in front of me like a goddamn play toy."

  "This is no way to live, Nathan."

  "You got a better idea?" he tossed back wearily before sinking down on the sofa beside me. "Because I'm all ears, Andi."

  I opened my mouth to tell him no, I didn’t have a better idea, but the trailer door smashed inwards, distracting me.

  "Well, well," Becky Cole slurred as she staggered through the doorway with a huge burly man in tow. "Lookey here, Caleb. If it aint my baby boy. And by the looks of things, he's gone and got himself an uppity girlfriend from the north side." Becky whistled dramatically for effect. "And a Davis! Dang, boy."

  "Momma," Nate warned, growing rigid beside me. "Quit it."

  "Hush, boy," Becky cackled as she balanced herself by wrapping her arm around the huge man beside her. "I'm only playing with you." She laughed cruelly then. "Ya'll know as well as me that you're not knocking boots with a girl like her." She sneered down at Nate like he was a cockroach. "You aint worth shit. You know that, boy? You were born in this trailer. You're gonna die in this trailer."

  A huge swell of injustice and rage coursed through me then. How could she treat Nate like this? He was her son. He was the one who stayed and cleaned up after her mess and paid her bills when she forgot – which I knew was almost always.

  Horrified, I watched as the man produced a small clear bag of white powder from his jeans pocket. He didn’t seem to give a crap that we were here and could see him handling illegal drugs. My father's an attorney, I felt like screaming. "You said we'd be alone, woman," the man said, speaking for the first time. He looked at Nate with annoyance and me with lust.

  I was instantly frightened.

  That fear evaporated when Nathan reached out and took my hand, entwining our fingers, making me feel safe with just his touch. I cast a sideways glance at him and was comforted by the brown in his eyes. His eyes were safe. I'd come to learn a long time ago that those eyes meant safety.

  "And we will be," Nate's mother replied. Turning to Nate once again, she pointed a long red finger and said, "Scram boy. Me and Caleb here need some privacy."

  I had expected Nate to cause a scene. Instead, he stood up, waited for me to follow, and then led us both out of the trailer, never once looking in his mother's direction.

  "Ms. Cole?" I called out when I reached the doorway. Nate frowned at me in confusion. He didn’t know what I was doing, but I did. And I knew I would never forgive myself if I didn’t say something tonight.

  "Yeah?" Becky slurred. She turned to face me and that's when I noticed the white powder on her nostril. "What'd'ya want?"

  "I just wanted to let you know that Nathan and I are a couple." I wasn’t sure where this was coming from, or why I was blatantly lying, but I couldn’t stop myself from speaking up for him. After all, he'd done it on enough occasions for me. "And I wanted you to know that I love your son and he is worth a great deal more than what you tell him." Steeling my spine, I added, "And I also wanted to let you know that you have cocaine dripping from your nose. You have a good night now."

  Having said that, I turned on my heel and rushed out the door with a shocked looking Nate.

  ****

  Chapter Seven

  "THAT WAS AWESOME," Nate chuckled as he yanked the passenger door of truck open and helped me in. "You have a good night now," he mimicked my words before bursting out in another fit of laughter. When I was safely inside, he slammed the old rust ridden door closed with a loud clang before jogging around to his side and hopping in. "Damn, baby. For a moment there, I thought her head was gonna spin around."

  I fastened my
seatbelt and pressed my palms to my cheeks. They were glowing from a mixture of anger and embarrassment. "I'm sorry if I overstepped the line."

  "Are you kidding me?" Nate turned and gaped at me like I'd grown a second head. "Andi, that was the hottest thing I've ever seen." He turned fully in his seat so that he was facing me. "No one has ever done that for me," he added softly, the amusement shining in his brown eyes settling into a soft, blazing heat. "Thank you."

  "You’re welcome." My cheeks continued to burn, but lust was the predominant reason now. "I don’t like it, Nate," I added when he cranked the engine. "How she treats you?" I clenched my fists and bit back a growl. "It makes my blood boil."

  "Don't worry about it, Andi," he drawled as he reversed his truck out of his spot before tearing off through the trailer park. "I can take care of myself."

  But you shouldn’t have too…

  "Where are you going to sleep tonight?" Worry churned inside of me.

  "Didn’t I tell you?" Nate slapped his hand against the steering wheel. "My truck's a two in one most days."

  "Nate, don’t joke," I scolded, feeling helpless.

  "If I don’t joke about it, I'll break," he replied, tone serious now, not looking at me. "And I refuse to let her break me. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "I'll take you home."

  "No, wait. I want to see her first." I turned and looked at his side profile. "Kim," I clarified. "I want to hear it from her."

  "It's after midnight," he replied in a worried tone.

  "I don’t care."

  "Andi…" Twisting his neck from side to side, Nate rolled down his car door window and exhaled. "Callie –" His voice broke off and he ran a hand through his hair. "She doesn’t know any of this." He glanced sideways at me, expression pained. "Trey's the only father she knows."