Page 245 of Handsome Devil
I didn’t expect an ounce of sympathy for any of it. And it didn’t look like I’d be getting any.
“I’m not my father,” I told her. Because with my grandmother, there was even less point dancing around the point than there was with my mother. “I’m not Brett Easton, and I’m never going to be.”
“Is that so?”
“He had sex with my date, the night of my high school grad.”
My grandmother leaned back in her chair. She seemed to absorb that. Then she said, “Sit.”
I sat down in one of the chairs facing her desk. “Look,” I told her, “I was really sad when Granddad died. But I’m not going to lie. I was more scared than sad. I wasn’t ready to carry the weight of this inheritance… and everything that came with it. The position in the company. The expectations.”
It was shameful. I could hardly believe I’d just told her that when her partner, my grandfather, died, I didn’t mourn his death as much as I feared for my own future. But it was the truth. As much as I loved him and as much as his death hit us all, hard, I took that event, that loss, selfishly. Same way I took most things.
My grandmother didn’t say anything for a long moment. What was she supposed to say to something like that?
Finally, she spoke. “And you’re ready now?”
I looked up at her wall, at the framed photos of her and my grandfather over the years. The years that they’d built this company—this empire—into what it was.
“I need to explain something to you, Grandmother.”
“Then explain.”
“I’ve hated my dad for a long, long time, for being selfish.” I met her eyes. “Out in Vancouver, I’d have house parties at my place. His place. And some of the girls from my school… they flocked to him. He ate it up. I heard them talking about him at those parties. And at school. Brett Easton, the great college football hero. They wanted him. He was happy to give them what they wanted.”
My grandmother didn’t exactly look surprised. “I would say your mother never should’ve married him. But he gave us you. You were the one good thing that came out of that man.”
Yeah. And that was about the kindest, most loving thing I’d ever heard my grandmother say directly to me.
“I was mad at Mom, for leaving him,” I went on. “I was fourteen, and he was my dad. He was still my hero. I was even madder when she sent him away. When he left us and moved back to Vancouver, I blamed her. When she said I could go live with him the next year, to finish high school, I thought it would be the best thing to happen to my life. Instead, I grew up. I saw my dad for what he was. By the time I was sixteen, I quit football because I couldn’t stand to be like him. But I still couldn’t see itall. I should’ve seen it, maybe. Maybe then it wouldn’t have hurt so much, all at once, like it did.”
Yeah. Maybe. But one thing I’d learned firsthand: there was probably nothing in life that could prepare you for walking in on your dad fucking your grad date.
“He never did do anything of use in that house, did he,” my grandmother said.
“Nope. He played video games. He surfed the internet. He drank and he gambled and he womanized. And he betrayed me.”
“That should never have happened,” she said. “I told Christiana. She should never have sent you to live with him. I made sure you had the very best schooling while you were there. But I suppose the damage was done. Christiana said you needed to learn. You needed to see your father for yourself.”
“Yeah. I saw. I lost all respect for him that night. It was… horrifying. Humiliating. Honestly, I think my date agreed to go to grad with me so she could end up right where she did that night, anyway. In Brett Easton’s lap.”
“You’ve never been as skilled in choosing women as you have been with the rest of it,” my grandmother said.
Was she implying my marriage to Devi?
Was she testing me?
“I chose Devi, Grandmother. I kissed her that same night. At the grad party. She was my best friend’s date, and I kissed her. I couldn’t have been more like my father that night.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes. I think I loved her long before that.”
“So then you’re nothing like your father.”
“If that’s true, why don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you, Dane. That doesn’t mean I don’t need to test you, from time to time.”
