My One Night: An On My Own Novel by Carrie Ryan (life books to read .txt) 📕

gaze, then looked down at his hands. I slid mine into his open palm, and he squeezed it, but I didn’t do anything else. Didn’t say anything else. I just let him think.

“I guess I’ll start at the beginning. My mother liked drugs, selling herself for drugs, and was the worst possible mother ever.” He didn’t look at me, but I still froze, my hand on his. “Don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?”

He looked up at me then, and I nodded. “Of course. I don’t know what there is to say to that anyway.”

“Nothing, really. Mom was a terrible mother. She was worse, I think, when Aiden and Cameron were born. They’re twins but have a different father. Mom ended up getting in trouble with something or other and lost Aiden and Cameron to the system. They bounced around for a bit and finally ended up with Jack and Rose Connolly here in Denver. Brendon was in the system as well, and the Connollys started with a foster program with all three. When they were able, they adopted them all formally.”

“Wow,” I whispered.

I nodded, swallowing hard. “Aiden and Cameron were even split up for a bit when they were younger, but Rose and Jack did their best to get them back together. And it worked out in the end. Except for, somewhere along that path, my mom decided to get pregnant again. This time with a different dude, another lowlife. And she had me.”

I met his gaze, and he shrugged. There was such sadness in his eyes, with a little bit of anger mixed in.

“She wasn’t the worst mom at first. She tried. I got cereal—the off-brand stuff, but that was what we could afford, and that was fine. We didn’t have lunch or dinner on most days. I ended up getting myself to school when I could, at least at first. Mostly because the elementary school was a block away. But then she found a new dealer, and he ended up becoming her pimp.” He cringed at that. “It was easier for her to keep the lights on if she had a job. And that was the job she liked. And while I have a whole idea in my head, I can’t judge sex workers for the jobs they do. Though I can’t help but judge my mom. Because she was only doing what she did because she wanted drugs. And she wanted to keep the lights on in the house. For her. I was barely a thought.”

He let out a breath. “I was eleven years old when she asked for help. She couldn’t do anything anymore, and Cameron came out.”

My eyes widened. “Cameron?”

“We were out west by then. Cameron was twenty-one. He ended up raising me out there. Aiden and Brendon didn’t come, but that’s not my story to tell, you know?”

I nodded.

“When I turned eighteen, it was just Cameron and me. Mom was long gone. Dad never contacted me. I had no idea who he was, other than a name on a birth certificate and the fact that he was my sperm donor. But when I turned eighteen, I made a couple of mistakes. Didn’t apply for college and lied about it.” He groaned.

“What?” I asked finally, confused since that didn’t sound like the boy I knew now, the one sitting right in front of me.

“Yeah, I thought I’d be in a rock band. I play guitar,” he added, shaking his head. “And drums. Not that great, though. The guys in my band all promised that we’d stay in LA and make something of ourselves. Their parents weren’t working two jobs, and didn’t own a bar, and weren’t working themselves to death like Cameron was. And their kids didn’t lie to them.” Dillon groaned. “I told Cameron point-blank that I had applied to college. When he found out that I hadn’t, that my dreams of making it big in a band were in place, he just looked at me like he didn’t even know me. I was an idiot. I still have no idea why I even followed that path. It’s not like I actually see myself as that person.”

“I can’t see you as that person.”

He smiled then. “I don’t know. I think it was just a little too much. Cameron and I were barely speaking at that point. We didn’t really know each other. Yeah, I lived with him, but I didn’t know that he was there because he loved me. I thought it was just because he felt like I was some responsibility. And then I wanted to know who his brothers were and why they weren’t my brothers and why they weren’t there, and it turned into this whole thing where I didn’t understand anything. My friends ended up going to college, and I haven’t spoken to them since. They thought I was a fucking idiot. And I was, but they were willing to push me in that direction. Honestly, I think they just wanted to see what would happen when the deadbeat kid didn’t make it.”

“Where are they? I can beat them up for you.”

Rage filled me, but Dillon squeezed my hand.

“Don’t worry about them. I don’t care what they do with the rest of their lives. I figured out what I wanted to do. It took Cameron and me moving to Colorado, but after Jack Connolly died and the will was read, he left the bar to the three of them. They had to work together and somehow become a family again. I won’t bore you with the details of that, but they all ended up doing pretty well, and I somehow got three brothers and three sisters along the way.”

“Wow,” I whispered. “I didn’t know that. I mean, my family is pretty normal. Or as normal as you can be with two hyper-attentive doctors who expect the most out of you. But it’s not the same at all.”

“Everybody has their problems. Mine just tend to be a little more dramatic,” Dillon said