Dorie Graham - Espresso In The Morning

Tears pricked Claire’s eyes. She refused to let her mother see. “How can you be so unsupportive?”

“I’m just trying to help you see this objectively. You have to think of Grey. How do you think this will affect him?”

Tears rolled down Claire’s cheeks. She hadn’t considered her son in all this. It would be hard to keep it from him if she pressed charges. Phil Adams was a public figure, at least on a city level. Would it be in the news? Would Grey hear about it at school? He might not understand, but he’d be devastated to learn she’d been hurt this badly....

Claire inhaled slowly now and straightened. The only thing she and her mother had ever agreed on was keeping the entire mess from Grey. Wanting to protect him from the horrific truth, Claire hadn’t made a fuss.

As her heart thudded, she fumbled with her phone, breathing a sigh of relief once she had the music cranking from the device. Nodding, she lost herself to the ripping notes of an electric guitar.

* * *

ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON Lucas raised his beer in salute to the tombstone that barely showed the wear of the past two years. “Cheers to you, Toby,” he said. “I’m still pissed at you, bud, but sometimes I think you got the better end of this deal.”

A rough breeze whipped around him, making him shiver. September twenty-eighth had dawned unseasonably cold for Atlanta. He squinted into the clouds covering the sun. A sixteen-wheeler pounded along the highway hidden behind a thicket of Georgia pines and maples. He took a long drink from the bottle. The thudding of the tires echoed through his mind, as he thought back....

Lucas slammed his fist against the door. “Toby, open up. Open up or I’ll break down the damn door.”

Was he too late? The door swung open and Toby Platt stood, squinting into the haze of the day. His hair hung in an oily curtain around his gaunt face. He reeked, as though he hadn’t showered in weeks. Rather than scowl, as would be his normal response to such an interruption, he stared at Lucas, his eyes blank.

Ignoring the fear curling through him, Lucas pushed his way inside. The stench of rotting food and unwashed clothes mixed with the rank odor emanating from his lifelong friend. Lucas fought the impulse to gag. Instead, he drew a steadying breath and opened all the windows, letting in as much fresh air as possible.

He turned to Toby, who still stood in the doorway, frowning at the passing day, as though he couldn’t remember that the world existed, let alone what it was.

“When was the last time you ate?” Lucas didn’t wait for an answer.

He moved to the kitchen, to examine the refrigerator. Half a rotten head of lettuce, an empty milk carton and a jar of mayonnaise sat on the shelves. He rummaged through the cabinets, but couldn’t find anything to fuel a man who’d once given him hell on the football field.

He nudged Toby toward the bathroom. “I’m taking you out to eat, but you’re definitely showering first.”

He’d gotten his friend cleaned up, taken him to eat, and then made him an appointment with the V.A. Lucas had stayed with him that night, and then driven Toby to the appointment the following day. He’d stuck around for as long as he could, sleeping on the lumpy couch, cooking and cleaning up Toby’s tiny efficiency. Therapy and antidepressants had seemed to do the job and Lucas had gone back to his life, thinking they were out of danger.

But they weren’t.

“You’ve got some nerve coming here today.” Contempt laced Louisa Platt’s voice, drawing Lucas back to the present.

He turned to face Toby’s sister. So, she hadn’t softened toward him over the past couple of years. He couldn’t blame her.

Her gaze darted over the beer in his hand. She said, “You think this is some kind of celebration?”

He shook his head. “You know he was my best friend, Louisa. No one misses him more than I do. If I’d known—”

“Well, you should have known. You’re the one with the medical training. How could you not have seen what was happening? You should have been there for him. Then maybe we’d still have him. You owed him at least that after all the trouble you’d brought on him in the past.” Her voice faltered. She nodded toward the tombstone. “He should never have followed you into the marines.”

“We both needed to get away.”

“Because of you. Because you dragged him into that gang in the first place.”

Lucas gripped the neck of the beer bottle. “I never meant for him to get hurt.”

“Hurt?” The accusation burned in her eyes. “He was literally broken, in both body and spirit. He didn’t walk for months. If you had left him alone, maybe we could have avoided this.”

Lucas stared at her, unable to dispute her claim. He’d gotten into some stupid stuff in high school and Toby had gone along with him, not always willingly. Sometimes he went just to keep Lucas out of worse trouble than he’d be in on his own. Neither of them had come out of that time unscathed. But Toby had been scarred in a way Lucas hadn’t realized until it was too late.

Then, in the marines, Lucas had been an EMT and medevac pilot, not a shrink. Guilt still churned in his gut. He’d missed the signs. He’d gotten caught up in a stupid love affair during that last leave. Who was the woman? He couldn’t remember her name or even picture her face.

“I’m sorry.” No matter how many times he uttered them, the words fell flat. He left, fleeing the accusation in her eyes.

Nothing had changed in the past two years. Louisa was right. If anyone could have helped her brother, it should have been Lucas.

CHAPTER THREE

CLAIRE GAZED AT her sleeping son on Friday afternoon, overwhelmed with regret. Becca and Amanda’s voices drifted to her from one of the back rooms. Claire brushed the hair from Grey’s forehead. She hated to wake him. He’d been exhausted again that morning, but now his young face had softened. Surely, she’d known such peace once. It seemed so long ago.

What she wouldn’t give to feel that again.

The quiet of her sister’s house pressed in around her. “Grey? Grey, honey, time to go.”

When he didn’t respond, she gently shook his shoulder. He opened his eyes. She folded her arms as a floorboard in the hallway creaked.

It’s only Becca.

She pressed her lips together as her son groaned in disappointment. Heaven knew he needed the rest, but they had to get out of there.

“Hurry up. We’ll be late for soccer practice,” she said and grabbed his backpack from the floor. “Did you finish your homework?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Grey reached for his bag, but she threw it across her shoulder, and headed for the door.

He hurried after her, half running to keep up. She didn’t breathe until they reached the car. He slipped into the passenger seat beside her as she cranked the engine and the radio exploded with the screeching of an electric guitar.

He winced, and then turned down the volume a notch. Claire frowned, but didn’t turn it back up. At least they’d escaped Becca’s tomblike home.

“Why don’t you like quiet?” he asked, annoyance coloring his tone.

She shrugged and said, “Quiet is overrated.”

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t normal to always crank your music, to have the TV and the DVD player and the computer going at the same time. You don’t sleep. You don’t like quiet. We’re never home. It’s soccer, or kickboxing or wall-climbing. It isn’t normal. We didn’t used to do all that. What happened? Why does it have to be so crazy now?”

She didn’t answer, just bobbed her head along to the music, her attention on the road. The “normal” Grey wanted no longer existed for her, though she’d give anything to have it back again. Why couldn’t he accept their life without all these questions? She didn’t have answers, not ones she could share.