I walked through the front door of my house, feeling even more excited to race after practicing with the turbo one last time. I wanted to make sure I was ready, and since Brandon talked me into getting a turbo, injectors, and new head studs, I needed to get a feel for my Charger with all the extra power. I was good at driving; I always had been. And racing for the last few months only strengthened that trait.
I stopped at the threshold of my house as the unwelcomed thought filtered through. Was my real dad a good driver? It was thoughts like that that made my skin crawl. Guilt threatened to suffocate me from every angle. I felt like complete fucking shit every time I let myself wonder about my real dad. Who he was.
What he was like.
If he had a family.
If I had any other siblings.
That last one especially fucked me up.
I never wanted to replace Christian, and even having the mere thought of adding another sibling into my life made me almost double over.
This was exactly why I needed to race tonight. I needed to get out of my own head. Take a breather. Feel nothing but the rumble of my engine and the leather on my steering wheel.
As I all but ran through the hallway heading upstairs to change to get ready for the race, I faltered at the sound of his voice.
“Son?”
I paused with my back toward him. Fuck. What was he doing home?
Slowly, I spun around. My chest began to feel tight again, but I put on my mask and acted nonchalant. “Hey, what are you doing home?”
My dad leaned against the far wall closest to the kitchen. His dress shirt was rolled to his forearms, and his dark hair was laying in a disheveled mess on the top of his head.
I looked nothing like my father. I always thought I took after my mother. I mean, we both shared the same light hair and light-blue eyes, but now that I knew my dad wasn’t actually my dad, I wondered if I took after my mom, after all. Maybe it was my real father I took after.
I kept an even face as another guilty thought entered my head. My father shrugged. “I had a couple of days in between trips. Thought I’d spend some time with you boys tomorrow. I assume you both are busy tonight.”
I grinned. “Well, you know what they say, Saturdays are for the boys.”
My father chuckled before turning sincere. “Did you do something to your Charger? It sounded different when you pulled up.”
Again, I kept my face steady. “Nah, just some tuning to make her run smoother.”
I couldn’t decide if he bought it or not, but nonetheless, he changed the subject. “So, tomorrow? Text your brother and tell him I want to have lunch with you boys, maybe even dinner, too. I never know what mood I’ll catch Christian in, so it’s up to you to make sure he gets word.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, waiting for me to agree. My dad and Christian had a rocky relationship just months prior. But after the Hayley situation, and how my father actually stepped up for once and helped Christian out, they’d stopped arguing so much, and he’d actually put in some effort—like spending the next day and a half at home and having dinner with us.
He never used to do that—even when Mom was alive.
And that was part of the reason why I didn’t know if I could ever tell Christian the truth. It would open up that fresh wound that was finally beginning to heal.
I stared at my father for a few more seconds, a question right on the tip of my tongue that I knew I needed to keep in. My heart was ruthlessly beating against my rib cage, almost begging me to poke the bear.
My mouth opened, but I closed it. I began to turn away, my pulse drumming underneath my skin. Just let it go, Ollie. But then I snapped my attention back over to him, his furrowed brow meeting me halfway. “Dad?”
“Is everything okay?”
“What did you do the day you found out Mom was pregnant with me?”
My gaze was set directly on him. I was waiting for the tick of his eye. The flinch of his features. But there was nothing. Instead, his gaze stayed level with mine as he stared.
“Why do you ask?”
I shrugged, trying to hide my disappointment in not being able to read him. He was as bad as Christian. They did not wear their emotions on their sleeves. They were both stoic, for lack of a better word. If I wanted information out of Christian, I had to dig it out of him. It was going to be the same way with my father.
“Just curious.” Fuck, make something up. That’s a sketch answer. “I was just thinking about how close Christian and I are in age and wondered how you felt about it. I just wondered if you and Mom were happy we were so close in age.”