Page 45 of The Hook Up
“Oh. Are you close with your mom?”
“My mom died when I was two,” he said.
He clenched his jaw, remembering the distaste in Anna’s mother’s eyes. “I’m not raising him,” she’d growled at the social worker who’d come to check on them after Ty’s dad got hauled off to prison again. “He looks just like that son-of-a-bitch who spawned him.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ellie said, shaking Ty back to the conversation. She sounded more heartbroken than he would have expected, and he wondered why he was telling her any of this. It wasn’t like him to volunteer so much personal information, and he kicked himself for putting a damper on their conversation. He tried to think of something more cheerful to say, but Ellie beat him to it.
“Your sister—what’s her name?”
“Anna,” he said. “She’s getting married in a couple months.”
“That’s wonderful,” Ellie said.“Are you in the wedding?”
“I’m walking her down the aisle.” He heard the pride in his own voice and wondered if Ellie heard it, too. “She asked me last week.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said. “I’d always thought I’d have my brother do that when I got married. Our parents died when I was still pretty young, so he basically raised me.”
“So, Jason walked you down the aisle when you married Henry’s dad?”
“No, we ended up eloping.” There was a hint of sadness in Ellie’s voice, though he heard her trying to hide it. “Chuck wasn’t big on weddings, so we ended up going to Vegas.”
Ty scrubbed a hand over his chin and made a mental note to do whatever it took to ensure his sister had more pleasant wedding memories than Ellie did. “Your brother seems like a good guy,” Ty said. “He always goes out of his way to chat up the staff when he visits Miriam.”
“Yeah, he’s the best,” Ellie said. “He’s been like a father to Henry.”
Something knotted sharp and hard in his chest, but couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
He cleared his throat. “What did you call to ask me?”
“What? Oh, right—sorry, I almost forgot.” He heard her take a deep breath and braced himself for the question. “Henry’s school has this musical production coming up on Thursday night. They had a parent all lined up to film it, but the guy has to travel for work at the last minute. They’re trying to find someone else to fill in with a video camera, and I was wondering if maybe you’d be willing to?—”
“You said Thursday?”
“Yes. This Thursday.”
Ty hesitated, hearing his sister’s voice in his head.
“Thursday works! OrMonday, or Tuesday, orWednesday—pretty much any day next week is good for me.”
But he didn’t want to be like his dad, always changing things at the last minute. Even though he wanted to help Ellie out, he had to put his sister first.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said. “I have dinner plans with my sister that night. I’m meeting her fiancé for the first time.”
“Oh! That’s great. And no problem. It’s not a big deal.”
“Some other time, maybe,” Ty said, feeling like a Grade A jerk. His sister’s words were still echoing in his head, but now they weren’t the ones about the date. They were the other words.
“My mom had so many different boyfriends after Dad left, and they were all such jerks. Between that and Dad making all kinds of promises he’d end up breaking because he was going back to prison, I kinda learned a bad father figure is worse than none at all, you know?”
“Sorry,” he said to Ellie, wishing there were some way to make it up to her.
It’s better this way,he told himself.Easier to draw lines, to set boundaries. To make sure no one gets hurt.
“It’s no problem at all,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll find someone else. Don’t worry about it.”
She sounded sincere, but Ty felt like a dick anyway. His chest was tight, and he wanted to pull her against it and feel the knot of tension release. He wanted to run his hand down her back, stroking her hair, kissing the crown of her head the way he’d done last night.
But none of that was in the cards for him.
