Page 68 of Wheelie's Challenge
Sofia gathered all the newspaper articles and went inside. Wheelie sat on the couch staring at the muted television, a drink in his hand and a bottle of Jack on the table. She padded over and put the clippings down on the coffee table. He didn’t even look at her. The tension stretched even tighter between them. She walked away and went to the closet and took out a broom and dustpan.
Cutting through the family room, his coolly impersonal tone broke the stillness. She froze in her tracks.
“Leave it. I’ll clean it up.” He brought the drink to his mouth.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“I said to fuckin’ leave it alone.”
Irked by his coolness, Sofia threw the broom and dustpan on the floor. “I’m sorry about Kendra, and it makes me sick to my stomach that Russ did this to her. I can’t believe it, but then I can since all we ever knew as kids was violence.” His stare drilled into her. She licked her dry lips and shook her head. “I’m not making excuses for him. I’m just saying that Russ… really all of us should’ve gone to therapy. Anyway, I feel so horrible about all this, but I didn’t do it to Kendra. I had no part in this and no one knows what he did.”
“Your mom does.”
“No, she doesn’t. She would’ve told me.”
Wheelie took a sip of Jack and cradled the glass in his hand. “She wrote a letter to the judge saying some bullshit about the fucker’s background and that it was an accident.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Wheelie quirked his lips then his eyes narrowed. “I guess dishonesty runs in your family.”
Sofia’s stomach churned. “What do you mean?”
There was a long, brittle silence.
Wheelie cocked his head. “The asshole lied to you. Your mother lied to you. And you fucked me behind Tigger’s back.”
If he would’ve stabbed her through the heart it wouldn’t have hurt as much as his words. She swallowed hard and bit back tears. “That’s so unfair! I didn’t have the affair alone. Anyway, you pursued me.”
“I wasn’t married, and if you wanna think I did all the chasing, go right ahead. Remembering shit different from what really happened seems to be another trait that runs in your family.”
“Why are you being so mean to me? I didn’t kill your sister!”
The chill between them seemed to grow.
“I didn’t say you did.” Wheelie reached over and poured more whiskey into the glass.
“You’re acting like it. How can you blame me for what my brother did?”
“I’m not blaming you.” He took a sip.
Sofia clenched her hand until her nails dug into her palm. “If you knew I was Russ’ sister would you have pursued me?”
Wheelie stared at her stone-faced and she shriveled a little at his expression. Her heart thumped against her ribcage as the seconds turned into minutes. She felt the nauseating sinking of despair. His silence spoke louder than any words he could utter. Spinning around, she fled from the room and ran upstairs.
Sofia packed as much as she could in her suitcase, hope still coursing through her that at any minute Wheelie would burst through the door and hold her close, telling her he loved her and that was all that mattered. But the door stayed closed.
When she went downstairs, Wheelie sat in the same position, doing a good job of killing the bottle of Jack on the table. Glancing at him, she fought the urge to go over and smother him in kisses and apologize for being Russ’ sister, but she realized that was ridiculous, so she walked past him; he never even glanced at her.
Sofia pulled out of the garage in her SUV and headed to Colorado Springs, the tears she’d been holding in for the last hour streaming down her face.
Chapter Nineteen
Coming home fromwork, Wheelie’s bitter words from the night before kept echoing in his ears. When he opened the garage door, disappointment gnawed at him when he didn’t see Sofia’s car. He turned off his bike and took out his phone hoping she sent him a text while he was riding, but all that greeted him was a blank screen. Wheelie pressed his lips together and walked into the kitchen.
The stillness in the house enveloped him; it was suffocating and stifling. Wheelie threw his keys on the counter and trudged up the stairs. Many of Sofia’s clothes still hung in the walk-in closet, and he buried his face in her tops, breathing in her scent. His insides twisted and the hole he had in his heart since the night before ached like hell.
I was so pissed off last night that I said shit I didn’t mean. I gotta make this right.Sofia was very important to him, and he’d wanted her for a very long time. It had just shocked the shit out of Wheelie when he’d learned that the fucker who destroyed his mother and his life was her brother. “What the hell are the chances of that? It’s like one of those fucked up talk shows the club girls are crazy about,” he said out loud, his voice sounded tinny in the empty house.
