Maybe he needed to start one with Liam. With both of them in relationships, they didn't spend as much one-on-one time as before, and he missed his buddy. Kicking back, he enjoyed his breakfast with Liam and the easy friendship that had been a constant in his life for so long.
After Liam left for his appointment, Slade headed out. The weather was gorgeous, so he opted for the Harley.
He was riding high when he knocked on Tiffany's door, ready to spend some time with her.
When she answered the door, he could see the tension in her pale face. Shoulders hunched and wringing her hands, she led him to the sun room. "Thanks for coming over."
"Sure. Is anyone else home?"
"James took the kids to the beach. I told him I wanted to do this alone."
Slade lowered himself onto a small wooden chair. She looked too tense. "So..."
Tiffany sat on the middle couch cushion. Close but not too close. She pressed her lips together and then let out a low, slow breath. "There's something I need to tell you. I've wrestled with whether I should, but I feel guilty, and I don't want there to be any secrets between us. Because if it ever did come out, I want you to hear it from me."
His gut tightened. Slade leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. "What's wrong?"
"A year after the adoption, when I was sixteen, I overheard someone at my parents' church gossiping about how I'd gotten pregnant at fifteen and that Jeannette had adopted you. I learned her name then, but nothing else. After that, I stopped attending services there. When I saw Jeannette's obituary in the paper five years later, I contacted a lawyer about trying to get you back."
He tensed. Not what he'd expected to hear on his drive over. Instinctually, he guarded his heart, ready for it to break. "So, what happened? How did I end up with Liz?"
"I was twenty-two and pregnant with Melanie. My husband at the time was a... a very difficult person. Emotionally abusive. But back then I hadn't yet found the courage to leave him. He refused to raise another man's son. It was too hard to fight him. I didn't have much money or enough to support myself, let alone you and a baby. So I gave in."
He stood, his legs shaky and his mind racing. Once again, he felt like the boy living with his aunt, a flat out inconvenience. "You gave in. Do you have any idea what my life was like? I lost the only mother I'd known, and then was sent to live with her aunt, a woman in her fifties who had no desire to raise a child but did it for the money she'd receive to take care of me. She gave me a roof over my head, but that was it. I was basically left alone. I grew up unwanted, regardless."
"You didn't tell us that part when you talked about living with Liz."
"You said you’d hoped and prayed for years that I was happy and loved. Letting you think that I had been seemed kinder than telling you the truth."
She flattened a hand over her heart. "I'm sorry. Back then, I was still young. So scared."
Scared. The one word pushed his button. Damn in, he'd been scared. "You don't think I was young and scared at six, when my mother was suddenly gone? Or when I was growing up in Liz's house, knowing she didn't love me or want me there? Or when I turned eighteen, and had to get the hell out because that's when the money cut off?"
Tiffany's eyes widened and tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'm horrified. I don't know what to say. I thought I was giving you a better life."
Anger and hurt swirled as old memories surfaced and unleashed fresh pain. "Well, you didn't. It was hell. The loneliness and feelings of worthlessness swallow you whole. Even now, do you have any idea what my relationships are like? How hard it is to trust people? How long it takes me before I believe someone isn't going to disappear?"
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah. I am too." The urge to move, to leave, was too strong to resist. He looked for his leather jacket, then realized he'd never taken it off. "I need to go."
She didn't say anything, or if she did, he didn't hear her. He started up his bike and the engine's roar drowned out his thoughts.
As he traveled back to L.A., the familiar ache opened in his chest with the need to do something daring, to feel that burst of adrenaline flowing through him to take away his pain. He'd held off for weeks, on Dom's advice, and because being with Savanna calmed that ache. But Tiffany's revelation, that she'd abandoned him twice, rocked him to his core.
He needed something big to fix it. Something he'd never done before.
His motorcycle swung into the lot of Savanna's apartment building before he realized what he'd done. Once there, he couldn't leave without seeing her. He parked next to her car and cut the engine.
She must have heard his arrival or seen him coming. The door swung open before he knocked.
The smile fell away from her face when she met his gaze. "What's wrong?"
He reached for her hand. "Let's go BASE jumping."
SAVANNA
SAVANNA BLINKED AT his request and tugged his hand until he came inside. "Are you crazy? I'm not jumping off the side of a cliff with nothing but a baggy suit as my means to the ground."
"You can do it with a parachute too. From a bridge or a skyscraper. My buddy at the skydiving place can hook us up."
"Isn't BASE jumping illegal in most places in the US?"
"Only if you get caught. Come on, what do you
