Page 55 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

AUGUSTUS

My chest hurt. It hurt real, real bad.

“Mom?” Was that my voice I was hearing? It didn’t sound like me. My body had gone numb, my ears roaring with blood as soon as I lifted my eyes to the shop door and saw the ghost of my past standing right in front of me. “What are you doing here?”

“Auggie.” That voice breathed out, both relieved and apprehensive as she looked around herself. Taking a step further inside she landed her eyes on me. They bounced everywhere, from my head to my arms, to the gloves I was just stripping off my hands as she walked in. “It’s actually you.”

I was, without a shadow of a doubt, going to be sick. Just looking at her made my head hurt. It made my face burn and my stomach clench, and my skin crawl, and made me want to run away.

She looked just like Mar. Always had, and I guess always would.

For a short second when I looked up earlier, I thought the world had stopped.

I thought the sky had opened up and spit my little sister out in front of me in a crazy turn of events.

Reality soon set in, my eyes adjusting on the clean slacks, modest wool coat, and short hairstyle the woman was draped in.

It was all Mom. She had something of a glow about her.

It had dimmed a lot after Mar disappeared, but it was something that was innate to her.

I felt it even now as she stared at me from her spot by the door. I hated it.

“Yeah. That tends to happen when you walk into my shop, Mom,” I said.

“Auggie, is that how you want to be after all this time? A smart aleck?” She held no contempt in her voice. She rarely did.

I sighed, surprised I even had that much air in my lungs after holding my breath for so long. “How would you like me to react?”

As if she wasn’t in the middle of a tattoo shop full of people she didn’t know, Mom spread her arms wide. Her designer bag swinging on her elbow and her short hair flipping over her ears. My ears started ringing. My throat stinging, my head swimming.

Dammit.

Couldn’t she just be an asshole? Dad had no issue doing it.

Couldn’t she just hop on the bandwagon and make this easy?

Say something insulting and make me never want to see her again?

I didn’t want to see her. I hadn’t wanted to see her.

But not because I hated her. I didn’t want to see her because of the opposite.

And looking at the woman who brought me into this world yet also stood by and watched as my sister walked out of ours, I felt conflicted.

A sharp elbow broke me out of my trance.

Gerald, ever the old-fashioned gentleman, was looking at me like he had no idea who I was.

Like he was appalled at my behavior right now.

I didn’t blame him. I was sort of appalled too.

He nudged me forward, trying to get me unstuck from the spot I was rooted to.

“Go give your mom a hug, son,” he said, stern direction prevalent in his voice.

I’d have to thank him later. If not for him, I may not have picked up my lead feet and walked over to her.

I may have just stared at her forever, and that may have just killed her.

I didn’t want that. I sure as hell wanted her to leave, but I didn’t want to be any meaner than necessary to make that happen.

Wrapping my arms around my mom for the first time in a decade felt weird.

For so long I had run down to the kitchen and slung my arm over both her and Mar’s shoulders and planted sloppy kisses on their faces.

For so long I had this person, having her right in front of me was almost like she never left.

Which really, really hurt my chest. And as her thin, familiar arms wrapped around me in return, I felt something crack inside of me.

Something I always knew would crack if I saw her again, even just once.

I shook as I wrapped her up tighter, pulling her into me in an almost frightened grip. All at once I didn’t want to let her go.

“My baby, look how big and grown you are now,” she breathed. Patting my back and allowing me—her literal grown adult son, to hold onto her like he was a child who’d had a bad dream. “I’ve missed you.”

I pulled away. Yanked myself away like I was wrenching a nail from a wall.

It didn’t phase her, her eyes just running along my face, my clothes, my ink.

She reached a hand out to touch it, my arm I think, but scared out of my mind, I jerked it back.

The motion made her eyes widen and water as she looked up at me.

I cleared my throat though it was useless. “There. You got what you wanted. Now what?”

“Can we talk?”

“We’re talking,” I said. “Can’t do much more than this. ”

“Alone, Augustus,” she huffed, her eyes bouncing behind me at our audience. “It’s important.”

Staring at her, I didn’t actually see her. Instead, I saw the other possibilities. The possibility that I wouldn’t want her to leave. The possibility that all this tentative resolve I’d built up around her would come crumbling down in the span of a short conversation.

But then I did see her eyes. Warm but maybe a little desperate. Familiar but tired. Soft but determined. And it reminded me of something. Someone . Someone I’d only known for a year but would give my all for. I’d known my mother my whole life. I could give her one conversation.

With a hand I was afraid to touch her with, I led her to the back rooms away from everyone. She looked cold. I’d at least let her warm up before kicking her out.

In the break room I immediately went to make her tea. She wasn’t a coffee kind of woman and she always enjoyed soft herbal teas, or at least she used to in another life when I’d known her better.

For too long I contemplated if I should give it to her or not. She’d probably enjoy it. Even ten years wouldn’t change that. But we didn’t have any lemon or even the raw sugar that she liked, and—And what was I doing ?

I wasn’t supposed to be making her comfortable, I was supposed to be getting her out of here.

Using silence as a shield, I forced myself to finish making the tea without thinking too much about it.

Using the time without my eyes on her, I slammed my walls up, telling myself that it was only because she’d caught me off guard that I had this tiny, but also huge feeling that I missed her. Them. Everything .

Because I didn’t. I didn’t miss anything but my sister and I sure as hell didn’t miss the world that drove her away.

And I was well to remember that as I turned back to the woman who gave birth to me.

My hands only shook a little bit as I set her drink down in front of her, though my heart was quaking.

“Is someone dead?” I finally asked as I sat across from her at the simple breakroom table.

“Augustus, don’t speak like that!”

“Why not?” I asked. “Why else would you be tracking me down after this long. Calling me every day, having people find me—” I broke off, suddenly feeling like an idiot.

Because of course it wasn’t Mar calling me all this time.

Why would she? Of course it was my family trying to track me down for some unknown reason.

I was an idiot for even getting my hopes up.

“Why else would you suddenly be here after not giving a damn for so long?”

“I’ve known where my son was, Augustus. Everywhere you go, each time you leave, I know.

Just because you haven’t wanted to be that doesn’t make you any less mine, young man.

” Her voice shook. She was getting upset.

But did I care? Could I care when she was saying things that hurt my brain? My heart.

She’d known where I was? What I was doing? I never really hid it, but knowing that now felt shocking in a way. It gave me this weird sense that I’d missed out on something. That I’d been wrong.

Leaving was the only thing I could think to do all those years ago when the suffocating weight of the world around us felt like it cared more about trivial things than what really mattered.

My dad was a big contributor to that, refusing to stop working even for a short while in order to really find out what happened.

And then later when I found out what he did—or didn't do, I just… I just had to go.

If Mar had to leave, then so did I. End of story.

So should I really care that I was upsetting my mother? Someone who sat by and watched passively as our world came crumbling down?

I shouldn’t, but I did. The fact didn’t stop the hurt that slid between my ribs, though. “Forgive me for not thinking you had it in you to keep up with something once it was gone. ”

She sucked in a breath, the blow landing right where it was meant to but not feeling triumphant in the least. It just made me feel every bit as miserable as I was. Too many memories were swarming me every time I looked up at her and recognized someone familiar. I needed to get her out. Now.

“Sorry, Mom—just, what do you want?”

“I can’t just want to see my son? Have I not earned that after all this time? Or do I truly have to lose both of you forever?”

I sighed. “You didn’t do much to keep us. Not me and definitely not Mar.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she said as she clasped her hands around the ceramic mug. “Augustus, your father is selling the company.”

I tried my damnedest not to react, but I’m pretty sure I choked a little. “What’s that have to do with me?”