“Travis! Sweetie!” she rasped and hugged him but then backed off into the door again. “Are you here for the party? The bonfire’s over there.”
“Hey, Brenda! Who’s there?” called out a male voice, followed by yet another, and Knight groaned, understanding why his sister advised him against visiting their mother tonight.
“My big boy Travis is here. You know, the biker,” she called back, slurring slightly.
“Tell him his mother needs some fun on New Year’s too,” called out the second man, laughing loudly.
Knight squeezed his hands into fists. He’d kind of hoped Elliot would not see this kind of thing. “Bad time?” he asked.
Mom pouted and shook her head. “Not the best, sweetie. Come over tomorrow?”
“Do you have five minutes before the three of you start swapping fluids?” he snapped.
“Oh, Travis…” She frowned and covered her cheek as if she had any modesty left. “Fine, but let’s step outside.” She went down the two steps into the freezing cold and pulled out a cigarette from somewhere inside her tank top. “That your friend? Brenda,” she squeezed Elliot’s hand as he mumbled his name.
Knight rubbed his eyes. There was no point in prolonging this agony. “Is my dad really my dad?”
Mom’s eyes went wider, and she lit herself the cigarette. The warm light coming from the inside of her home only deepened the wrinkles on her prematurely aged face. “Honey… that’s some heavy shit. Where’s this coming from?”
There it was. She wasn’t even denying it.
“I just want an answer, okay? You don’t know the fathers of most of your kids. Do you know mine?” he asked, pushing his hands into his pockets.
A multicolored firework exploded above them like the antithesis of Knight’s emotional state. He was more of a black hole.
Mom took a long drag of smoke and wouldn’t look at him. “I’m not sure baby. It was a long time ago, and you liked all that stuff about Ray’s family so much, I couldn’t break it to you. It’s not like it matters, it’s Ray who brought you up, right?”
Knight raised his arms and hissed through his teeth. He pulled off his jacket and exposed all the Mercier names on his forearm. “Doesn’t matter? I carry this man’s past on my fucking skin! And you didn’t bother to tell me? He was a fucking useless human being. He beat you black and blue and did nothing with his life!”
She spread her arms in frustration. “What do you want me to do about it, Travis? That’s why I divorced him and didn’t even keep his name! You were still a baby, and he was already fucking some slut from 209. So I dumped his ass in the end, even though I still loved him!”
Knight groaned and crossed his arms on his chest, unable to keep still. “Twenty-nine years. You just let me believe it.”
Her eyes watered as she smoked with even more dedication, and he hated her for those tears, because he was powerless against them. “You were so happy with that stuff…”
Knight gave up and let his shoulders slouch. What else was there to say? “So you have no idea who it was that you got pregnant by?”
Mom grabbed his hand and shook her head with the most miserable of expressions. “Sorry, baby. I don’t want to make something up, since it means so much to you.”
Knight pulled her in for a hug and closed his eyes, feeling guilty over confronting her, even if he had the right to be angry. “Those guys inside, are they okay? Can I leave you with them?”
She hugged him back and dropped the cigarette into the snow. “They’re good guys, honey. Don’t worry about me.”
He sighed and pulled back, feeling somewhat lighter. “Happy New Year, Mom.”
“You too, baby. Is there anything more you needed?”
Knight looked over his shoulder, at Elliot, who leaned against the car to give them as much privacy as possible under the circumstances. He’d come here to leave Elliot at his mother’s, but he didn’t want him to listen to a drunken threesome or risk one of the men getting homophobic all of a sudden. And Elliot’s own trailer wouldn’t do either. With none of them knowing the real extent of Fane’s power, nowhere was safe without Knight to guard Elliot.
“No. I just wanted to know that. Have fun tonight.”
Mom gave him one more hug and a tobacco-scented kiss on the cheek before saying her goodbyes and going back inside.
When Knight turned around, Elliot was hugging himself in an attempt to stop shivering. Only then did Knight realize they hadn’t taken his jacket.
Elliot gave Knight a questioning look. “Not possible for me to stay?”
Knight shrugged. “Nah. No fucking way. We’re going home,” he said and opened the passenger door for Elliot.
The hesitation was shortlived, and Elliot sat in the car. “Won’t Laurent be in danger if I’m there? Won’t Beast… kill me?” he asked as soon as Knight was in as well.