The Sweetheart Rules (19 page)

The words hovered over him, like one of those clouds over a cartoon character.
It wasn’t your fault.

“Yes, it was.” He’d known from the beginning that it was his fault, that he had let himself and his mother down. He should have stepped up when his father died, instead of hiding away in his room. “I should have stopped my mother from inviting that monster into our lives. I should have stopped him, protected her. Been brave enough to…” He shook his head and cursed.

Shit. Where was he going with this? Why was he opening this can of crappy worms? He looked up at the ceiling again, but the loops of white didn’t offer solace. They seemed instead to be giant question marks.

“To what?” Diana asked.

The clock on her bedside table ticked away the time, waiting, waiting for him to say the words. Outside, the pool gurgled its water song. And beside him, Diana waited for him to be ready, to open that last door to the guilt Mike had tried so damned hard to keep at bay.

“I should have been braver. Tried to…” He shook his head and cursed. “I tried, so hard, so many times to… to fight back, goddammit. I never did. I never hit him back. Never stopped him. Never got up the fucking guts to throw him out the door.” There, he’d said it. The truth about who Mike was, deep down inside. A coward, a boy who had stood by and let this happen instead of being the man his father would have wanted him to be. The guilt clawed at him, thick and strong. His eyes burned and his throat clogged. “I was a coward, Diana. A goddamned coward.”

“No, you weren’t. Oh, Mike, you are the bravest man I know,” she said, her voice breaking. She leaned closer, not away, closing the gap between them instead of widening it. He couldn’t see the ceiling or the loops or anything but her wide, trusting, gentle green eyes. “You did nothing wrong. Not a damned thing. Not. One. Damned. Thing.”

“I—”

She shook her head, cut him off. “Mike, it wasn’t your fault.” Then her words softened and her eyes filled, and she leaned in even closer, until the world filled with Diana and the soothing whisper of her words against his lips. “Oh, baby, it wasn’t your fault at all.”

Diana held him against her chest until the words sank in and trickled past his guilt, his pain, his regrets. One word after another, paving a path across the scars in his head.
Not one damned thing. Not one damned thing. Not one
.

A balm of forgiveness settled across Mike’s conscience. He listened to Diana’s voice, her soft sweet voice, saying it over and over again—“It wasn’t your fault”—and for the first time in a very, very long time, Mike knew what home felt like.

A little while later Diana roused herself out of a drowsy, satiated, half-sleep state. What an amazing night. Not just the making love part—that had rated right up there at a hundred on the Richter scale—but the moments afterward when he’d opened his heart and told her about his childhood.

That horrible past explained so much about him. Why he had joined the military. Why he had no parenting guidebook instilled in him as a child. Why he stuck to schedules and order like they were lifelines.

She realized they were such similar creatures, she and Mike, both wounded by their pasts and surrounded by brick emotional walls. Mike had broken down some of his walls tonight. Maybe it was time she did the same. Opened up. Let him in. Trusted.

Mike drew her into his arms. “Hey, you’re awake.”

She chuckled. “Barely. Somebody wore me out.”

“Speak for yourself. I did all the work.”

She arched a brow. “All of it?”

“Okay, you did your fair share, especially the third time.” He grinned. “Though my memory is already fading. Maybe we need an instant replay.”

She laughed again, then glanced at the clock: 11:40. In an instant, the internal mom alarm began to sound. “Jackson should be home by now.”

“Maybe he came in and you didn’t know it.”

She slid off the bed, crossed to her dresser, and pulled on some sweats and a tee. “If he came in, the dogs would have barked. I’m going to call Eric’s mom. Maybe the movie got out late.”

It took five words to turn the warning bells into a full-out panic alarm. “Jackson didn’t go with us,” Charlene said. “Eric asked him to go, but at the last minute, he said he had other plans. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

“He didn’t say a word to me.” Where did he go? Did she forget that he’d mentioned a change in plans? She thought back. Jackson, walking out the door, giving her a little wave.
See you after the movie, Mom.

“I’ve really missed seeing Jackson,” Charlene went on in her chirpy, friendly voice. “Except for the camping trip, we’ve hardly seen him lately. I remember when that boy was over here so much, I considered giving him his own room.” She laughed, then sighed. “I guess it’s inevitable that once they start at a new school, they make new friends. Maybe that’s who he had plans with tonight, one of the kids from Prince Academy. Do you want me to wake Eric up and see if he knows?”

There’d been no mention of any friends from Prince Academy, Diana realized. No kids had been coming over. There were no Xbox games in the living room or pizza parties by the pool. There was no one here at all—a drastic change from the days when Jackson had so many friends at the house, it felt like Diana was running a school.

Jackson hadn’t been hanging out with Eric. He hadn’t made any friends at Prince Academy. He was somewhere else—and he hadn’t told her where. “No, that’s okay,” she said. She doubted Eric was any more clued in to Jackson’s life than she was. By the time Diana hung up the phone, the panic was clawing at her throat. She took in a deep breath, tried to concentrate. To think.

But when she tried to recall a single detail about Jackson’s friends and hangouts for the past six months, she drew a total, horrifying blank. She flipped out her phone again and started to dial Jackson’s phone, then remembered she had taken it from him this morning after he’d back-talked when she told him to clean his room. Diana sank into a chair and clutched her phone so tight the metal left an impression on her palms.

“Is everything okay?” Mike asked.

“I have no idea where my son is. No freaking clue.” The words came out of her slow, stunned, frosted with the ice-cold truth that she had lost track of her only child. “He doesn’t have his phone. I have no way to reach him or find him. He was supposed to be home twenty minutes ago, and Jackson never, ever misses curfew.” Her heart filled her throat, blocked her airway. “Where is he?”

Mike cursed under his breath. “I think I know where he is. Let me get my keys.”

“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “How do
you
know where Jackson is?”

“I followed him one day. He said he ended up there by mistake, but I think he was lying. I hope to hell I’m wrong, but…” He met her gaze. “I don’t think I am.”

“What do you mean
by mistake
? Where did he go? Why would you think he was lying?”

“I could be completely wrong about this, Diana. Let’s not worry about the what ifs until we know what we’re dealing with. Okay?”

Until we know what we’re dealing with.
That sounded even worse. A hundred questions tumbled through her mind as they got in Mike’s car and started to drive through Rescue Bay. As the manicured lawns and pristine streets gave way to weedy overgrowth and abandoned buildings, the questions multiplied, and the dread in her stomach became a churning storm that threatened to drown her. She rarely ended up driving through this side of town, abandoned in the foreclosure disaster that had hit Florida hard. She saw it on the news often, though. On the crime report.

“Why would he come here?” she asked.

Mike stopped the car, shut off the engine, and draped his hands over the steering wheel. His mouth was set in a grim line. “If you want my guess, he’s feeling a little lost and trying to fit in with the other kids. That combination doesn’t always make for the smartest decisions.”

Diana glanced at the house beside them. The paint had faded to a dingy brown and broken siding hung off the exterior like ragged clothes on a stooped old man. No one lived here. And no one would come here for any reason other than trouble. Trouble like… drugs, alcohol. Diana shook her head. “Jackson wouldn’t come to a place like this. I mean, yeah, he’s had his issues and we’ve been going through a lot with his father, but Jackson knows better than to get mixed up with kids like this.”

Didn’t he?

Mike didn’t say anything.

She swallowed hard, then pulled on the handle, got out of the car, and waited for Mike to join her. The porch stairs protested their approach, letting out creaks and cracking sounds. “Should we ring the bell?”

“This isn’t the kind of place where you need to ring the bell.”

The foreboding words caused Diana’s steps to hesitate. Mike had to be wrong. Jackson would never come to a place like this. He knew better. Hadn’t she lectured him a hundred times about drugs and alcohol?

“Stick close to me,” Mike said. “Just in case.”

There wouldn’t be a just in case. Jackson wasn’t here. He was at a friend’s house. Lost track of time, that was all. This was a wild goose chase.

Mike took her hand and together they entered the house. In the dim light, the smells hit Diana first. Human excrement, vomit, rotting food. And weed. Even she, who hadn’t been a teenager in a long time, recognized the dank, musty smell.

She glanced at Mike. His mouth was set in a firm, tight line. He clasped her hand tighter as if to say,
It’ll be okay. Trust me.

Her gaze skipped over the battered, peeling walls, the torn, broken furniture, the stained, threadbare carpet. A half-dozen teenagers lay sprawled across two mismatched sofas that were so old and worn, the plywood frames showed through the faded floral fabric. The teens stared at Mike and Diana, wary, angry.

“Yo!” A lanky boy with a couple missing teeth shouted at them. “You need something, dude?” Then his gaze narrowed with suspicion and he leaned forward. “You ain’t with the po-lice, are you? Cuz ain’t nobody here doing nothin’ wrong, officer. I swear.”

“My… my son. Is he here?” She almost didn’t want to ask the question, because she didn’t want to know the answer. Jackson didn’t hang out with kids like this. His friends were people like Eric, who kept straight As and played on the soccer team. “Jackson?”

The teenager snorted. “Lady, I ain’t narcing on nobody. You want to find him, look around.” He waved toward the room, his movements slow and exaggerated. The other teens snickered, then went back to their drowsy haze.

In an instant, Mike was across the room, his fist curling around the front of the kid’s shirt. The teenager’s eyes widened, and he backed up, bare feet scrambling for purchase on the sofa. “I’m only going to ask this once,” Mike said. “Where’s Jackson?”

The boy nodded in the direction of the next room. Mike let him go and he sagged back onto the couch. He brushed out the wrinkled circle on his shirt. “Shit, I woulda told you. No need to get your panties in a wad, dude.”

Mike didn’t say a word, just took Diana’s hand again and led her to the kitchen. She saw Mary first, the slim golden retriever mix lying on the floor by the door, her dejected face on her big paws. The dog spied Diana and Mike, scrambled to her feet, and dashed over to them, as if saying,
You’re here, finally. Take me home.

Jackson stood against the counter, red hot anger blotching his face. A girl stood to one side of him, tall and thin in leopard print skinny jeans and a skimpy white tank top that skimmed her midriff. Dark kohl lined her eyes, a stark contrast to her platinum blond hair. She watched Mike and Diana while taking puffs from a cigarette propped between two fingers.

Jackson shifted his body in front of the girl. Protective? Or embarrassed that his mother was there?

“What are you doing here?” Jackson said.

“Looking for you,” Diana said. “It’s midnight, Jackson.”

“So what? I don’t answer to you.” He turned away, back to the girl.

Diana wanted to snatch him up and haul him out of there by his hair. Jackson’s disrespectful attitude charged the air and struck a match to her worries, shifting all that stress into a flaming rush of anger. Instead, she tightened her hands at her sides, and said in an even, low tone, “Jackson, we are leaving. Now. And if you choose to disrespect me again, there will be consequences lasting all the way until you graduate college.”

Jackson muttered something to the girl. She laughed and put a hand on his arm, then pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a faint pink circle behind. He turned back toward Diana, with such intense hatred in his eyes that she almost took a step back. “Fine. Let’s go.”

The three of them didn’t say a word until they had exited the house and climbed back into Mike’s car. As soon as the door shut, Diana spun in her seat and faced her son. “What were you thinking—”

“Why’d you have to embarrass me like that?”

“Those kids were doing drugs. Did you know—”

“Those kids are my
friends
, Mom. You freaking ruined my life tonight.” Jackson slumped into a corner of the car and turned his face away.

Mike drove while Diana kept up a one-sided lecture the whole way home. Jackson ignored her, his arms crossed over his chest, his chin set at a stubborn angle. As soon as they pulled into the driveway, Jackson barreled out of the car and charged into the house, Mary at his heels.

Diana and Mike got out of the car and stood in the driveway. She sighed. “What am I going to do with him?”

“Talk to him. Yelling at him is just going to go in one ear and out the other.”

She scoffed. “Everything I say goes in one ear and out the other.” She wrapped her arms around herself, warding off a chill only she felt. “I’m just glad he was okay.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Do you think Jackson was doing drugs, too?” she asked.

Mike hesitated. Too long.

“You do, don’t you?” She stepped back, mouth agape, staring at him. “If you followed him and saw that place, then you had to know that was a drug hangout. Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

Mike let out a long breath. “I figured Jackson was smart enough not to do anything stupid. Listen, I was like him when I was a kid, angry at the world, dabbling in bad choices, but I got myself together and stopped before things got too far off the rails. I talked to him a few days ago about it, and he seemed to understand that he was getting off track, and said he wouldn’t go there again.”

“A few
days
ago?” Fire erupted in her brain. How could Mike not say anything? How could he counsel Jackson when he barely knew her son? “Let me get this straight. You talked to my child, made an assessment about him, and then gave him advice, all without bringing me into the conversation? When you knew there were
drugs
involved?”

He sighed. “I didn’t know for sure that there were drugs involved, Diana. The place is a dump, yeah, but that doesn’t automatically mean drugs.”

“It doesn’t mean garden parties in the backyard, either.”

“Listen, I’m sorry. I should have said something. I just thought Jackson was going to make a good decision and—”

She jerked away from him. “In other words, you, the man with no parenting experience, are going to make decisions for me, his
mother
. Who has raised him, pretty much single-handedly, for fifteen years. Where the hell do you get off making those choices for me?”

“I wasn’t trying to make choices for you. I was just trying to let Jackson make them. You need to let him try and fail, Diana. He’s a smart kid, and—”

“He’s
fifteen
, Mike. Fifteen.” She shook her head and cursed. “And you, of all the people in the world, are going to try to tell me how to raise him? The last thing I need is another part-time father for my son.” She sucked in a breath, held it until the inferno inside her became a manageable fire. “Just get out of here and out of our lives. I don’t need advice from a man who can’t even be a proper father to the two he has.”