Wrong for You (Before You #3)(50)

“Alec,” Brad responded, his voice thick with emotion and his eyes pained.

Alec didn’t say another word and he squeezed Violet’s hand even harder, but she didn’t complain.

“Do we need another chair?” Brad nodded in Violet’s direction.

Alec looked toward Violet, taking in her pale eyes that looked almost silver in the morning light. Her cute cupid lips pulled into a smile that brought out the identical dimples. Even now, she took his breath away. He turned back to Brad. “No. Violet isn’t staying.”

She squeezed his hand before slipping it out of his hold. “I’m Violet Emerson,” she said, holding her hand out to Brad.

“Brad Reed,” he responded, shaking her hand.

“Nice to meet you. Alec, I’ll be back in an hour.” She kissed him on his cheek and patted him on his back before exiting the restaurant.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Brad asked when they sat down.

“Why?”

“She seems like a nice girl.”

“Too nice for me, you mean,” Alec snapped.

Brad held up his hands. “I didn’t mean that. I meant it as an icebreaker.”

“Well, Violet isn’t any of your business.” Alec scanned the menu in front of him ignoring Brad altogether while they sat in awkward silence until the waitress appeared.

“Are you ready to order?” she asked, pulling a pen from behind her ear. She was older, if her gray hair was any indication, which meant he wouldn’t have to deal with her recognizing him. She definitely wasn’t part of the Chasing Ruin demographic.

“You go first,” Alec said.

“I’ll have the country omelet and a cup of coffee.”

The waitress looked pointedly at him. “And you?”

“What are the pancakes of the day?”

The waitress chewed on the end of her pen for a moment. “Huckleberry.”

Alec chuckled. “Seriously?

The waitress rolled her eyes. “Yes. This is Montana in the summer.”

“No. I wasn’t criticizing. I’ll have the huckleberry pancakes and coffee.” Pancakes weren’t normally his first choice, but they were Violet’s favorite, so he had to taste them.

When the waitress walked away, Alec leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs to the side, and crossed his ankles. “So my mom said you wanted to talk.”

Brad sighed, weariness seeping out of every pore. “You’re probably curious why I wanted to meet after all this time.”

“We could start there.”

“My sons were going through some papers and found your birth certificate and the restraining order against me. Did your mom tell you about that?”

Alec swallowed, his throat suddenly thick with too much emotion. He didn’t realize he had half-brothers. “She mentioned it. I didn’t know if it was true. She’s not exactly a beacon of honesty.”

He nodded and pulled some papers from his briefcase resting on an empty chair next to him. He slid the papers in front Alec. “Here. You can see it for yourself. You don’t have to take my words at face value.”

Alec didn’t move for a few moments, as he tried to convince himself he didn’t care, but in the end, his curiosity won out. He scanned through the documents, noting the accusations of threats of physical harm against him and his mom. Shrugging, he slid them back to Brad when he’d seen enough. “What do you want me to do? Give you an award for staying out of our lives and not challenging the lies in there?”

“No. I want you to understand why I stayed away. I had gotten married and my wife was scared and pregnant with twins, your brothers, and I didn’t want to put her through a bitter legal battle. It was a high risk pregnancy.”

Alec folded his arms across his chest and lifted one eyebrow. “Do you want me to say you made the right choice so you can be absolved of the shit my mom put me through?” He tried not to get so pissed that he couldn’t finish the conversation, but he didn’t need another person asking for forgiveness. First his mom and now the father who couldn’t be bothered with the fact that his bastard son didn’t have food to eat for days on end as a kid.

“No.” He dropped his head and a flush slid up his neck. “I just want you to know why I didn’t do anything when Jim died.”

“Great, and what about the years after Jim died when my mom didn’t come home for days at a time because she was too drunk or stoned to remember she had kids?” Alec slammed his hands on the table. “Or better yet, what about when I stopped by your house asking for money because my sister and I hadn’t eaten for days and your precious wife slammed the door in my face?”

Brad’s face paled. “I didn’t know about that,” Brad said, his voice low and shaky.

Alec scoffed. “Well then, you’re dumber than I thought. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, though. I mean who f*cks their brother’s wife and then lets that same woman outmaneuver him with some bullshit restraining order? She was a f*cking alcoholic, drug addict…give me a break.” He pulled out his phone and texted Violet to pick him up. This conversation was a dead end. He couldn’t stand the thought of spending another thirty minutes listening to Brad’s excuses.

“Cecilia wasn’t Jim’s wife when I was with her. She was always my girlfriend, not Jim’s, and even when I left for college, we stayed together, but then I came home one Christmas break and my parents told me that Cecilia and Jim had married.” He looked away, looking weary. “I get why she did it, but it hurt.”