ALEC
When Oliver had killed Mom, I hadn’t thought I’d be burying both of my parents at the same time.
I stared down at the two six-foot holes that my parents had been lowered into hours earlier. The rain had started pouring twenty minutes ago, but Maddie hadn’t left my side as she held an umbrella over my head.
Teeth gritted and hands balled into fists, I tried to bite back my frustration. But it came out in a loud, rugged shout as I fell to my knees at the foot of their graves. “I hate you both! For everything you did to me and for everything you were too busy to do. I hate you for all of it. Every single last bit!”
My fingers dug into the mud, and I ripped the wet grass right from its place in the ground.
“I deserved more,” I said, voice dropping to a sob. “I fucking deserved more!”
“What happened to Mr. Wolfe?” Oliver whispered to Maddie behind me.
“Not now, Oliver,” she shushed.
“Did he—”
“He killed himself.” I dropped my gaze to his casket sitting in the dirt. “Asshole.”
Dad had had enough money to get out of almost anything, but he must’ve had secrets that he had been hiding, even from Mom. Secrets that he would much rather, quite literally, take to his grave than have them spill out while on trial for murder.
“Alec,” Maddie whispered, grabbing on to my sleeve, “you’re shivering.”
“Wait in the car for me,” I said.
Because I wasn’t done giving them a piece of my mind. I had always been the good kid, always worked hard to get perfect grades and be Redwood’s top hockey player, and all they had done was fuck up my life. I had never talked back to them. I had let them do whatever the hell they wanted. And when I’d had that gun pointed at Mom, I still couldn’t pull the trigger.
But now, they deserved to hear everything that I had to say about them.
Now, it didn’t matter what they heard because they couldn’t talk back, they couldn’t judge me, and they really couldn’t destroy my life any more than they already had. I finally had the autonomy and the power to myself.
“Go, Maddie,” I urged, gently nudging her toward the car. “It’s cold.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, still standing next to Oliver. “I’ll stand here with you for as long as you want to stand here. You’re the person I love the most in this world, and you’re not going through this alone.”
My chest tightened, and I intertwined my fingers with hers.
The low hum of a motor switched off behind me, the rain still falling hard around us. Oliver glanced over his shoulder and stood up taller, giving someone a small smile and moving out of the way.
“Thought I’d catch you here.” Coach squeezed my shoulder from behind. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine.”
“People who are fine don’t say they’re fine.”
I pressed my lips together. “He barely showed up to my birthday parties, growing up. He came home every other weekend, if I was lucky. Didn’t know about anything that I was going through. Cheated on my mom, which screwed all of us the fuck up.” I paused. “So, I’m fine.”
Instead of releasing me, like everyone else had, Coach pulled me into a tight hug. “You’ve always been a son to me, Alec. If you ever need to talk or want to have dinner or anything, come find me. You’re always welcome in my home.”
“Thanks,” I croaked out, my voice cracking. “I appreciate it.”
And while my arms dropped by my sides because I couldn’t hold them up anymore, he held me tightly and refused to release me. It was a hug from a man I had always wished were my father.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, glancing at Maddie and Oliver. “Alone.”
After handing me the umbrella, Maddie gave me a supportive smile and headed to the car with Oliver. I stood in the rain, still soaked, no matter how long Maddie had held this umbrella over my head, and lifted my gaze to Coach.
“I don’t know if this is a good time to tell you,” Coach said, grimacing and gazing down at his feet. “And I don’t know what you’ll think of me when I do, but it feels right. We’re both all alone now, and … you deserve to know the truth.”
“What is it?”
“Your father—”
“Cheated on my mom?” I asked, almost knowing what he was about to say.
He raised his brows. “She told you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
I shrugged emptily. I didn’t know what was the truth anymore and what was a lie. She had said so much shit—done so much shit—to me that I … I didn’t even want to think about that bitch anymore. I hadn’t cared about her since I had found out she tried to kill Maddie.
“What’d you come here to tell me, Coach?” I asked.
He ran a hand across his face. “Alec, a while before your parents married, they split up for a bit because your mother suspected that Wolfe was cheating on her. She never found evidence of it at the time, but during their split …”
“What happened?” I asked blankly, not really giving a shit.
“We were together.”
I snapped my gaze up to him. “What?”
“She didn’t want to stay with me because I never had the kind of money Wolfe did, so she left me about a month later and …” He took another long pause. “And a week after that, she announced her pregnancy.”
My jaw slackened. “She … are you?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just couldn’t let you go off to college and never come back to Redwood without telling you. I’ve watched you grow up away from me for so long, and getting the chance to coach you, son, has been my proudest moment.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I found myself throwing my arms around him and pulling him into the tightest embrace of my life. “I’d never think of you any differently. Being coached by you has changed my fucking life. Thank you. So much.”