thirty-four
dean
The whiskey in my hand had been my friend for the past forty-eight hours. I stood, staring out the window of my living room, while Rush sat on the sofa, waiting on me to respond to his questioning. I didn’t have an answer for him. He was going to be waiting awhile.
“Dean?” He said my name again.
I glanced back at him. “Can’t you let me wait in fucking silence?” I asked him.
“I’ve given you silence, and your time is up,” he said. “This isn’t just about you. It doesn’t only affect you. There is a kid. Your kid. According to Blaire and Dr. Moses, he looks just like me at that age. That means, I’ve got a brother. A kid. One who not only looks like a Finlay, but also got your talent.”
These were things that I had thought of already. The first time I had seen Cam, I’d thought he looked familiar, and then I’d thought it was because of the photos in their apartment. Now, I knew. He did look like Rush had at that age. They had the same smile. How the fuck had I missed it? Then, there was Cam’s talent on the drums. It was uncanny. It wasn’t average. He was gifted. He loved the drums the way I had once loved them. It was what he wanted to do most in life. I had been the same.
Fuck! He was nine years old.
“Nine years, Rush. She took nine fucking years away from me.”
Rush didn’t say anything, and I turned to look back at him.
“Why do I feel like you’re taking her side? First Blaire and now you,” I said accusingly.
Rush shrugged. “I didn’t meet her. But I trust my wife. She’s an excellent judge of character. Plus, she made some damn good points.”
“Fuck her points!” I roared. “If this is my kid, he has lived a life of poverty. He didn’t grow up in a mansion on the beach. He lived in God knows where when he was born. He has known hunger. My kid has been hungry. He’s had a hard life. He didn’t get the life I gave you!”
The anger began to rise up again as I thought of what kind of life a teenage girl would have put my son through. While I had been living in luxury and the best money could buy, he had been living without everything.
“I grew up in a home with a mother who was mentally and emotionally damaging. The only love from a parent I got was from a rock star who was often stoned or drunk when I was around him. I had everything money could buy, but what I really wanted was a fucking mom. One who tucked me in at night. One who was there to hold me when I cried. One who I could depend on. I didn’t get that, Dean. But … my brother did. Poverty or not, the kid has a damn good mom. I’m not just going by Blaire’s assessment of her either. I’m going by what the private investigator you put on her ass two days ago told us. He praised her, Dean. He said she was an excellent parent. So, be mad at her. Be furious if it makes you feel better, but remember, you fucked a seventeen-year-old girl. A foster kid at that. And you don’t remember it. She had no one. She was a kid. Yet here she is, ten years later, with your son. He’s healthy, happy, and fucking talented.”
Rush stood up then and pointed a finger at me. “If he is my brother—and I fully believe he is—then Brielle will be welcome in my home. She’ll be invited to holidays. She’ll become my wife’s friend because Blaire will want that. She won’t be excluded. She doesn’t deserve that.”
“She could have contacted me,” I interrupted him.
Why didn’t he care that my child had been kept from me?
“How the fuck was she supposed to do that? She was a kid! A homeless kid! Jesus, Dad, look at it from her side. How was she supposed to do that? And fuck it! You should have asked for her ID. Made sure she was legal.”
“What about when she saw me again? She didn’t tell me then. What’s your excuse for her? Hmm?” I asked him.
“It had been nine years,” he said. “She’d been his only parent for nine years. She was an adult, and she was protecting her son. You’re Dean Finlay. She was scared. Scared you’d change their world.”
“She let me into his life. She let me fuck her. She let me care,” I replied, suddenly very tired.
“And you are holding that against her? You should be counting yourself lucky that she trusted you enough to let you near him. She didn’t hide him from you. She let you into his life. But first, she was his mother. She had to make sure it was safe. You fucking her was her own bad judgment,” Rush said, then shook his head. “Sometimes, I forget how differently you view the world. The majority of your life, you’ve lived in fame. Well, Dean, welcome to the real world, where people have to think about their choices. They have to weigh the outcomes. They can’t just make up their minds and know that, if it’s a shit show, someone will clean it up for them. We aren’t all rock stars.”
My phone rang in that moment, silencing us both. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out. I knew the number. I’d been waiting on this call.
“Hello?” I said as Rush watched me closely.
“The boy is yours, Dean,” Dr. Moses said on the other line. “Wasn’t a question in my mind after getting a look at him, but this is proof. He’s a Finlay. He’s your Finlay.”
“Thanks,” I said and ended the call.
When my eyes met Rush’s, he nodded, not needing to hear it from me.
“You’ve got a week. One week. Decide what you’re going to do. Because in one week, I will meet my brother with or without you.”
I stood there, holding my empty whiskey glass, as my oldest son walked to my private entrance before leaving me alone.