Saturday night, Tobias walked around Maddox’s house, wishing he were tired enough to shut off his mind and go to bed. He’d spent the evening with Uriah again. Since he’d been helping Uriah in the orchard, he’d had plenty of time to get to know him, not only during the day but in the evenings. For the past two days Uriah had insisted, if Maddox wasn’t home, that Tobias join him for dinner. They’d eat together, play some chess and watch the news. Maddox would appear whenever he could and finish out the evening with them. Then Uriah would press them to take something home—the leftover lasagna or even some of his wife’s pickled beets from the pantry, which Tobias loved—before he said good-night and turned in.
Tobias really liked the old man. He wasn’t sure how he would’ve made it through the week without him. From the beginning, he’d wanted to adjust to regular life and make good, not only for his own sake but for Maddox, so that he wouldn’t cause his brother any more problems. Now he wanted to make Uriah proud, too. Uriah seemed to think well of him despite his past, kept telling him he was a good man and he was going to be fine. How a guy who was a total stranger not too long ago could gain that kind of faith, Tobias couldn’t even begin to guess. But the interest and care Uriah offered him made a big difference. Every time Tobias was tempted to call his mother—out of guilt or loneliness or even boredom—he thought of his new job and reminded himself to stay away from Jill. She’d only screw him up, try to get him involved in something he was better off leaving alone. Uriah had given him an anchor to cling to.
Still, keeping his mind where it needed to be was a struggle, especially tonight. Maddox had joined them earlier—until he got a call and rushed off before Uriah went to bed. Although he hadn’t told Tobias what was going on and had tried to pretend it was about Jada, Tobias could tell by his brother’s reaction that wasn’t the case. He was pretty sure it was Jill who’d interrupted Maddox’s evening and that something was seriously wrong. His brother had told him to sit tight, that he’d be back in the morning, but now that he was no longer with Uriah, Tobias couldn’t decide what to do with himself.
When he turned on the TV, the noise only made his anxiety worse, so he tried to call his brother. He needed to find out exactly what’d gone wrong. But Maddox didn’t answer, and although he finally broke down and called Jill, she didn’t pick up, either.
“Damn it,” he muttered as he paced back and forth in the living room. What was going on? He knew Maddox was trying to act as a firewall between him and their mother, but if she’d been hurt...
Tobias couldn’t stay in the house another second. Problem was he didn’t have a house key. Since he was home all the time, he hadn’t needed one—until now. He left one window cracked open so that he’d be able to get back in when he returned, locked the door behind him and started the long walk to town. He was supposed to stay out of sight, but it was getting late. What were the chances he’d run into anyone who knew the Brookses? Even if he did, he’d been a skinny teenager the last time anyone from around here had seen him. Chances were he wouldn’t be recognized, not if he went to town alone and kept to himself. He just needed an outlet, a distraction, some way to while away the hours and siphon off the excess energy until he heard from Maddox. He hated to even think it, but he was afraid his mother had overdosed and, while he harbored a lot of resentment when it came to her, he also felt a sense of duty, and the desire to love her and be loved by her, despite all of their past differences.
A gentle breeze stirred the trees as he churned up the ground beneath his feet. He was walking so fast he was almost running, but he needed to move. He also needed air. Space. To feel he was no longer being restrained.
He wouldn’t cause any trouble, wouldn’t even interact with anyone.
For a weekend, it was slow at the Blue Suede Shoe. Jada had invited Tiffany to join them, and Atticus had invited Donte, his best friend, but there were only another fifteen or twenty people at the bar.
Jada sort of wished there was one less—that her brother had left Donte at home. But Donte was also celebrating. Although he hadn’t been hired by New Horizons, he’d managed to get on at McGregor High School as a PE teacher, and he was proud of that. He kept hitting on her, trying to get her to dance with him—and then trying to pull her too close when she did—but she didn’t find him attractive. It was crazy, but she was too infatuated with Maddox to even look at other guys.
“Have you heard from Maddox?” Tiffany asked.
Jada shot her a look, warning her to be quiet even though Atticus and Donte were at the bar, talking to a couple of girls they seemed to know, probably from school.
“What?” Tiffany spread her hands out as she laughed. “The music is so loud I can barely hear myself think. I doubt anyone outside this two-foot circle has any clue I’m even talking.”
Still, Jada was bugged that she would bring it up. Maybe it was just that she didn’t want to tell Tiffany what she had planned for fear Tiffany would tell her the truth—that she was just digging herself in deeper. “We’ve been keeping in touch a little,” she said, downplaying their interaction as much as possible. “What’s going on with you and Aaron?”
She grimaced. “He hasn’t called me, not since he left town.”
“You’re kidding! He was so into you.”
“Guess not.” She rolled her eyes. “I feel like such a fool. He’s burned me before. I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
Feeling guilty for being so consumed with her own problems that she didn’t even know her best friend was suffering disappointment of her own, Jada reached across the table to squeeze Tiffany’s hand. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but then she seemed to spot something across the bar that made her mouth fall open. “Oh God, is that who I think it is?”
Jada followed Tiffany’s line of sight—and her heart dropped to her stomach. Sure enough, Tobias Richardson was standing right inside the door, only about ten feet from her brother.
Two things hit Tobias at the same time: the fact that Atticus wasn’t the only member of the Brooks family at the Blue Suede Shoe—Jada was there, too; the bar was empty enough that he saw her the second he walked in but by then it was too late to change his mind—and the proverb “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
When he’d first reached town and stumbled upon the Blue Suede Shoe, which was about the only place still open, he’d been careful to check the lot before going in, and had been glad he did. He’d spotted the wheelchair lift on the back of the pickup parked in the accessible spot near the door and had known instantly that it belonged to Atticus. Maddox had mentioned the kind of vehicle Jada’s brother drove when he warned Tobias to stay out of sight, so there was no confusion.
Being confronted with it while in his current frame of mind rattled him. He’d turned right around and headed back to the orchard and the house where he was currently staying with Maddox. But the farther he got from the club, the more he’d started to question his motivations in avoiding the victim of his crime. Was he running because he didn’t have the courage to face him? Or did he have the guts to stand up and publicly take responsibility for what he’d done? To apologize despite the anger and recriminations he’d likely face?
He hadn’t attempted to do anything like that so far. Tobias had sent one letter to the Brooks family, way back when he first went to prison, which they hadn’t answered. But he’d done it at the request of his brother—no doubt Maddox had been praying it would help his own situation with Jada—so it hadn’t even been Tobias’s idea. And simply writing a note required a lot less effort, energy and risk. To address the man he’d crippled for life in person was far more daunting. It required dropping all of his defenses, opening up and leaving himself completely vulnerable in an emotional sense, and that wasn’t his strong suit. He’d spent most of his life keeping his guard up. That was the only way he’d been able to survive his childhood and then prison.
He kept telling himself it wasn’t necessary to approach Atticus, that even Atticus would rather he not do it. But he couldn’t let himself off that easy. A small but strident voice in his head insisted that he owed Atticus at least that much, especially since his written apology had come before he realized how permanent the destruction he’d caused really was.
So, halfway hoping that Jada’s brother would have left and the opportunity to apologize would be gone with him, he’d turned around. And once he’d returned to the bar and could see that Atticus’s truck hadn’t moved, he’d stood outside, wrestling with his reluctance as well as the fear that announcing his presence in Silver Springs, especially in this way, would only make things worse for his brother.
After fifteen or twenty minutes of stepping back into the shadows every time someone came in or went out of the building, he’d decided that he was tired of hiding out like some kind of coward, and he’d stepped inside.
The moment Atticus saw him, he dropped his drink, which shattered on the floor. But Tobias didn’t give him the chance to say or do anything else. If he hesitated for even a split second, he’d lose his nerve.
Careful to keep a respectful distance so that no one would mistake his intentions, he drew a deep breath before forcing the words he’d rehearsed over and over during the previous half hour out of his mouth. “I’m sorry for what I did to you thirteen years ago, Atticus.” His pulse was racing so fast he was afraid he might have a heart attack if he didn’t get the hell out of there, especially now that the eyes of everyone else in the place had turned to stab him like knives, but he wasn’t finished. Clearing his throat so that his voice wouldn’t crack—being humiliated by breaking down in addition to causing such a scene was one of his greatest fears—he forged ahead. “I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t intend to harm you. But that’s no excuse. The ramifications of my actions have been catastrophic, and because of that, I don’t expect you to accept my apology. I’m not even asking you to. I just want you to know how badly I wish I could take it back, and that you don’t have to worry about me now that I’m out of prison. I will never take anything that will impair my judgment again.”
He saw Jada bump into a chair and shove it out of the way as she scrambled to reach her brother, but he didn’t wait to see if she had something to say to him. After slapping a twenty on the bar to pay for the drink Atticus had dropped, he walked out.
“This is your fault, you know,” Jill said.
Maddox was trying to distract himself by reading a magazine while waiting for hospital personnel to come get his mother so they could x-ray her shoulder. She’d injured it when she slammed into a Ford Expedition five hours earlier. Fortunately, no one else had been hurt. The other driver had been checked out and released, but there was significant damage to both cars, and his mother would face legal consequences.
He lowered the copy of People—his only option for reading material since his phone didn’t get good reception inside the hospital. “My fault you were high, ran a red light and could’ve killed yourself and/or someone else?”
“I was only high because I can’t take the stress of what I’m going through. I lost my job yesterday, but you don’t care. You don’t give a damn about me!”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here if that were true,” he said. “There are better things I could do on a Saturday night.”
“Could’ve fooled me. You haven’t called in forever.”
“You mean since I gave you everything I had in my wallet? I wonder why I might not be eager to talk to you again right away.”
“You’ve talked to me once since then—to tell me to leave your brother alone,” she grumbled, glaring at him.
“Want to tell me how you lost your job?” Although it required some effort, he was careful to keep his voice mild. Getting angry wouldn’t help.
“I was laid off,” she mumbled.
“Would your manager use those words if I called him?”
Suddenly, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “He’s had it out for me for a long time.”
“If I had to guess, that became a problem when you started using again.”
“Quit trying to blame me for everything!” She winced because she’d leaned forward and managed to jerk her injured shoulder. “You think you’re so clever.”
“Not so clever. Just clever enough to stay sober. You’d be amazed how much that helps you navigate difficult problems and build a productive life.”
“You haven’t had the challenges I’ve faced,” she grumbled.
He lifted his eyebrows. “No, I’ve had other challenges.” She was one of the biggest and always had been. The hardest part was knowing she always would be.
An orderly parted the drapes that separated his mother’s space from everyone else’s in the emergency room. “Okay, Ms. Richardson. Time to take you up.”
“I need some more meds,” she said. “I’m in terrible pain.”
Maddox had to grind his teeth to stop from voicing his opinion. He suspected his mother was trying to take advantage of even this situation, but he couldn’t say for sure that she wasn’t in terrible pain, and neither could anyone else.
“I’ll talk to your doctor, see if he can give you anything more,” the man said, and Maddox held the drape so she could be wheeled out.
“You coming?” She glanced back at him when he didn’t fall in step at her side.
“No, I think you can survive an X-ray on your own. But I’ll be here when you get back. I’m going to call Tobias.” And before he did, he was going to try to think of something he could say that would make this not sound so bad. Since Jill had been driving under the influence and had been cited for it at the scene, she could be facing jail time. At a minimum, she’d have a stiff financial penalty, which she had no way of paying. So, of course, she’d look to him.
He sighed as he watched the orderly roll his mother to the elevator. Then he scrubbed a hand over his face and headed for the exit. For whatever reason, cell reception was better outside.
He stared up at the night sky, so velvety and warm—in direct contrast to the frustration he felt inside—while he waited for the call to go through.
“Finally!” Tobias said as soon as he picked up.
Maddox walked over to another part of the grass. Someone had come up beside him and lit a cigarette. “You sound pretty wired.”
“I am. Haven’t you been getting my texts?”
“Probably. Haven’t checked. I’m at the hospital and reception isn’t the best.”
“Is Mom okay? And don’t pretend this isn’t about her. I know it is.”
“She’s fine. Fortunately, so is the guy she hit.”
“She got hurt doing that insurance scam she tried to get me involved in?”
“No, this was something else entirely. But it could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s all I’ve got,” he admitted.
“What happened? Don’t tell me the guy who beat her up came back again. Because if he did, he and I are going to have a serious conversation.”
“That isn’t it. We won’t be able to help her out of this one.” Maddox explained, minimizing where he could, but when he finished, Tobias still cursed.
“It’s no wonder I’m so screwed up,” he said. “Do you believe this bullshit?”
“Honestly, sometimes I don’t.”
“You’re the only normal one among us.”
“Don’t say that. You’re as normal as I am, if you choose to be. Just don’t follow her lead.”
“Well, you might not be so encouraging when I tell you that I was also involved in a bit of drama tonight.”
Maddox stepped even farther away from the entrance. “What are you talking about? You and Uriah didn’t have a problem...”
“No, but I ran into Atticus at the Blue Suede Shoe.”
Maddox sank onto the bench nearby. “What were you doing there?”
“I saw his truck, so...”
“So?”
“I went in to apologize.”
Unable to remain sitting, Maddox stood up. “What happened then?”
“He dropped his drink.”
“Anything else?” he asked, wincing as he imagined it.
“No. After I said what I was there to say, I paid for his drink and left. I have no idea how he took it.”
Maddox stared down at his feet as he tried to figure out if this would turn into a new problem.
“Maddox?” Tobias said.
“I’m still here.”
“I felt like I had to do it. I wanted to do it. I hope you understand.”
He remembered how he’d hovered outside Jada’s house, wanting to offer his own apology. Of course he could understand. “You did the right thing,” he said. He just wasn’t sure that was the best thing for him.