Unbeloved (Undeniable #4)(42)

“Best git on inside the damn house before that food she’s cooking you gets cold.” His father gestured impatiently toward the house before pocketing the keys and exiting the truck. When Jase still had yet to do so, wondering again if coming here had been a mistake, his father began banging needlessly on the passenger side window.

“Don’t make me tell you twice, son!”

With a heavy sigh, Jase pushed open the door. Vertigo hit him hard as he tried to step down, and he would have fallen on his ass had his father not caught him around the waist and dragged him back upright. Embarrassed, he cursed and spun out of his father’s grip, sending his fist into the door of the truck. The metal dented under the impact, and too late he realized that this wasn’t his truck, but Cage’s.

“Fuck,” he shouted, clutching his throbbing fist.

“Hey now!” Grabbing his arms, his father yanked him backward, quickly tucking him into his side before he could stumble again. Keeping one arm looped around Jase’s waist, he started them for the door.

“It could be worse, son,” Walter muttered as he guided him up the porch steps. “You just remember that, it could always be worse.”

“It couldn’t,” Jase slurred, suddenly feeling a whole lot drunker than he had only moments ago. “I f*cked it all up, everything, everyone. I made a holy f*ckin’ mess.”

“Don’t be blasphemous in front of your mama, now.”

The door opened just as they reached it and standing behind the screen was Jase’s mother. Unlike Walter, Doreen had aged gracefully. Her long gray and white hair was still thick with curls, her delicate features remained intact despite the many wrinkles that had taken up residence over the years. And her eyes, his favorite feature on her kind face, were still as big and as blue as ever.

“The prodigal son returns,” Walter announced flatly.

Her expression was a mixture of happiness and sadness, her eyes filling even as she tried to smile. “Jason,” she said tearfully, pushing open the screen door and holding out her arms.

“He’s covered in his own mess,” Walter grumbled.

“I don’t care,” she snapped. “He’s my son.”

His father had to help him up the remaining step, and then he was in the house, the smells of home enveloping him as his mother’s arms wrapped tightly around him.

Jase couldn’t help it, he broke down, because apparently that was what he did now, he cried. All the damn time.

“Shhh,” she said, hushing him while rubbing his back. “There ain’t nothing wrong that we can’t fix, you hear me? Nothing wrong that we can’t fix.”

He didn’t believe her, but he didn’t mind the comfort either.

Guiding him to the bench in the hall, she helped him sit before sinking to her knees and starting on his boots.

“No, Mama,” he said, bending down only to get swatted away.

“Gimme that vest of yours,” Walter said, already pulling it from his shoulders. “Coat too.”

About to hang both up on the coat rack, his father turned back to him, his brow raised. “Deuce know you’re here?”

Jase shook his head. In fact, no one knew because he had no idea where his cell phone was. Probably in his room at the club where’d he’d last seen it. Lot of good it did him there. He could only imagine Deuce’s face when he tried to call him and found his phone in his room.

“All right then. I’ll be givin’ him a call while your mama does whatever it is she’s doin’.”

“Don’t tell him everything,” Jase called after him.

“I won’t,” he yelled back. “But Deuce is a smart man, pretty sure he’ll be able to fill in the blanks.”

Jase sank back against the bench, feeling another wave of worthlessness slide through him.

“Jason?”

“Hmm?”

“Jason, look at me.”

His energy quickly waning, Jase used every last bit of it to straighten his neck and look at his mother.

“You’re a Brady, aren’t you?”

Oh, f*ck him in the ass with a goddamned fork, it was the Brady family speech.

“Yeah, Mama,” he muttered. “I’m a Brady.”

“And what do Bradys do?”

“Beer, barbeque, and rodeo?”

“Jason . . .” His mother’s tone was that of a warning, and Jase fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Bradys love each other,” she snapped. “Bradys show respect for one another. Bradys work hard, Bradys are honest, and Bradys do their best.”

“Mama,” he said. “I’ve f*cked up every single one of those at one point or another, some more than once.”

“Last one,” she continued, ignoring him. “What is it, Jason?”

Swallowing back the quickly forming lump in his throat, he looked off down the hallway to where he could see his father talking on the old rotary phone. He couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could only imagine what Deuce was telling him. The thought of them swapping stories made him cringe.

He turned back to his mother. “Bradys forgive each other.”

Smiling, she gave him a quick pat on the knee, finished pulling his boot off, and then went to work on the other.

“The girls won’t forgive me,” he whispered.