Breaking his gaze, I put my all into practice. I forget he’s even here, and what he could want. I focus, hard. Determined to make this year better than all the rest. Not for him. Not for anyone else. But for me and my goals.
By the time practice comes to a close, I’m panting from exertion. Most of the girls are too out of shape, and they’re huffing and puffing like they just ran a five-mile marathon. Sweat sticks their clothes to their skin as they continue to walk it out, trying to level out their breathing.
Sitting on the floor, my breathing returns to normal fast. Unlike them, I try to keep in shape year-round. It only makes it easier on me when these grueling practice start in the late fall-early winter. I stretch out my quads and focus on cooling down from a grueling workout. I’m about to switch to the butterfly stretch when a shadow appears above me.
Not even looking up, I say, “What do you want?”
“Hi, Jess.”
“What. Do. You. Want?” I ask again, then chance a glare in his direction.
He looks uncomfortable, probably because of my icy greeting. Well, what did he expect? I called him out on it a few months back, and he claimed he “mysteriously” had received nothing from me. He could have looked into it, but did he? My guess is no, because if he had, then I still wouldn’t be living with the piece of shit that birthed me.
“Do you think we could talk?”
I would rather do anything else besides that if I can. I don’t know what’s going on with my father, but he needs to get his shit straightened out. He’s acting like a child, and that’s saying something coming from me.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I keep stretching. There is so much I want to tell him, but with the distance he put between us, I don’t feel like I can relate to him anymore. I know I can’t trust him, and that hurts what little bit of heart I have left.
“I can explain for my silence.”
Sure, he can. That’s what all people say when they know they’re in the wrong. They automatically jump in with excuses and half ass apologies. I’m not going to buy it, though.
“So, you have been ignoring me.” I huff out a laugh. “Figures.”
He steps forward, his hand reaching for my shoulder. My entire body stiffens, and to my relief he thinks better of it, pulling his hand away. “Not because I wanted to.”
“Then why?” I jump up from the floor, pinning him with a deathly glare. “Tell me why you thought it was okay to ghost a daughter you are supposed to love for half a year. Explain to me how you can honestly stand there not hating yourself. You had to have known what she was doing to me.”
His eyes leave mine to scan around the gym. I note that most of the girls closest to us are openly staring in our direction, and fuck them, I couldn’t care less if I sound unhinged right now. They just need to pack up their shit and go before I really lose my cool.
“We need to discuss this in private. Can we go to my car?” he asks.
I scoff with open hostility. “I’d rather not.”
“Jessalyn,” he chastises. The deep, demanding timbre in his voice has me stopping short. That’s when I take the time to look at him, really look at him, trailing my eyes from the bottom of his shoes to the top of his hair.
He looks more put together than I’ve ever seen him. He’s in a button down, with the sleeves folded up to his elbows, and pristinely ironed business pants. His loafers gleam under the gym lights and scream money. This isn’t the type of clothing he would normally wear. They seem to fit him to perfection, like he got them personally tailored.
Our family has money, but not this kind of money. All of our assets, according to my knowledge, are mixed in with his business. So, while the business is doing swell, a tiny margin of it is what my father gets. His business is worth multi-millions, but he never takes more than enough to pay bills. He also insisted on putting back into the company to make it larger, more profitable.
“Something’s different.”
He laughs at that. “You have no idea.”
Why does it feel like there’s a double meaning to his words? Like he knows something I don’t, and now, he feels it’s time to let me in on his little secret. I shouldn’t, but I can’t deny the curiosity welling up inside me.
CHAPTER 13
Even though I know I shouldn’t give him the time of day, I agree to talk. After going to the locker room and changing, I grab my things and head toward the side entrance. I meet Coach Rice’s glare with a tight smile of my own, spying him looking toward the side door my father just disappeared out of before he turns his attention back to me. It’s not perceptible, but I notice a shift in his eyes, and it confuses me.
“See you later, Coach.” He doesn’t crack a smile; doesn’t even stop scowling long enough to say goodbye. My eyes flick over him to settle on Coach Darcy, and I wave, but get nothing except icy resistance in return. Something is definitely going on with the two of them. I’d much rather them show indifference instead of open hostility.
Shaking both of them from my thoughts, I push open the side entrance. I shiver against the frigid wind as I make my way across the school lawn, my mind is a whirlwind of questions. I’m intrigued why he’s here, but then I’m sad because it’s taken him until now to make another appearance. Every portion of my life is steadily slipping deeper and deeper into a place I’m unfamiliar with. It’s a void of darkness and pain, nothing of how I’m used to feeling.
I come to a stop, looking all around the parking lot. I come up with nothing; not a stitch that shows he’s even here. It would be like him to make me curious, then drop me like a sack of potatoes. It’s not normally my father’s MO, but he has changed in the last several months.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a black town car parked just up the curb. Tilting my head in its direction, I notice just how expensive and out of place it seems. While most of the kids here have wealthy parents, they aren’t that wealthy. The kids drive fancy cars and such, but they’re not too fancy. Not like this.
This car has tinted windows, so dark you can’t even see anyone on the inside. The rims are black powder coat, with sharp jagged designs. It’s luxurious, without appearing too luxurious. But even I can tell it’s a very expensive ride, and I know next to nothing about cars.
When the back door opens, I glimpse the red paneling and leather interior. The inside doesn’t seem as dark, but it’s still something completely unorthodox for someone in Silver Creek. That’s also when I put two and two together. The tint to refrain someone from looking in, but not someone from looking out. The money and power radiating off it.
“Dad?” My jaw threatens to unhinge when I see him step out of the back door.
I try to think of a way he could have gotten something like this, but nothing comes to mind. Like I said, he merged all of his personal assets back into the company. So, while we’re rich, we aren’t “personally” rich.
An idea comes to me, but I push that down. There’s no way it’s possible, so I will not waste my time on it. My father hasn’t turned forty-five yet; he doesn’t for another week. So, there’s no way he could have access to his inheritance yet. So, what does that leave? Is he a drug dealer now? Because that car is seriously giving off “drug dealer” vibes.
“Like I said, we need to talk.” Without saying another word, he merely holds out his hand and gestures for me to get inside. I’m hesitant in my movements as I make my way across the school’s lawn. My eyes keep traveling between my father and the new car. A car that seems to be his, even though I’m still not sure.
“Where did you get the car?”
The air between us fills with tension, and we’re both silent as we scan each other. My father peers down at me with a look foreign to me. It’s not hostile by any means, but it’s more like the indifference I keep pushing off onto the guys. I guess, yeah, that’s what I would call it. Indifference. Within the span of ten minutes, he’s completely morphed from the person he was inside the gym to someone I’ve never seen before
. He reeks of old money, and if I hadn’t known him as well as I do, I would have never noticed it.
“Stop asking so many questions, Jessalyn. Get in the damn car.” I jolt backward, as if he reached and slapped me across the face. In a sense, he kind of did. My father has never been the type to raise his voice, nor has he been the type to cuss. Maybe there are more things that’s changed since he left, and I’m just now seeing the tip of this new facade.
Doing what he says, I toss my bag inside and slide along the seat to the other side. Leather that feels like butter greets me, and I sink into the seat with a soft sigh. This has to be the warmest, softest backseat I’ve ever felt, and trust me, I’ve been in a lot of them. My eyes drift up in front of me, and I startle when a big hulk of a man meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. His face is impassive, but I can see the clear threat lingering in his gaze. He’s daring me to try something.
Within seconds, my father slides in after me and slams the door behind him. Before I can acclimate myself to my surroundings, he turns to me, saying, “Roll up the privacy glass.“ I watch in amazement as the guy does as my father orders him to do without complaint. When he is out of view and the window is all the way up, my father speaks to me, “I want you to move in with me.”
I sit back in the seat, speechless. He’s supposed to be explaining to me why he’s been icing me, not ordering me to move in with him. I get frustrated with him, with all of this, and flop back into the seat with a murmured curse.
“What happened to explaining yourself?”
“I’ll get to that,” he retorts. Will he, really? It seems he’s trying to cover shit up by adding more on top of it. But I can tell you now, anything you try to bury, it always has a way of resurfacing.
“Tell me.”
He huffs. “Jessalyn, I just said that I want you to move in with me, and you’re stuck on all the other shit.”
“It’s December, dad,” I retort as if it should be obvious, and if it isn’t, I continue, “I’ve only seen you once in the six months since you moved out.”
“I know.”
He knows? Yet, what that tells me is he just doesn’t care. How did my father change so much in such a short amount of time? “What excuse do you have lined up this time?”
“No excuse. It was a shitty thing to do, but I had to do it.” Why? What reason could he have for leaving me with that bitch?
“What about not answering me? Are you still going with the lie you had previously?”
My eyes meet his, and I can tell just from the simplest of glances he’s going to play it up. How many times can you use the same excuse and expect someone to believe it? Once, I get that, because maybe something could have been wrong on his end. Twice? There is no way someone can be ignorant enough. At least, in my opinion.
“I’m telling the truth when I say I didn’t get anything from you. At all.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he truly believes that. However, I saw the messages being delivered. I heard his fucking robotic voicemail every time it picked up instead of him. It didn’t happen to someone else. It happened to me, and I know what I’m talking about. I’m not fucking crazy.
Just his complete ignorance of the fact pisses me off. With a growl, I pull my bag off the floor and rip it open. When I locate my cell phone, I pin my father with hard eyes and thin lips. “You expect me to believe that? Again. I will fucking show you.”
Flipping through my contacts, I’m relieved when my father stays silent. Knowing him, he’s probably thinking of a way to talk his way out of this. I wonder what he’s going to come up with next. Because that shit will have to be good; whatever his excuses are going to be, he better think of it fast. I will want details of every moment, of every day, since he’s been gone. Not because I’m a bitch—I am, but that’s beside the point—but because he owes it to me.
When I get to my call log, I click on the last time I reached out to him. I smile triumphantly when I flip it around for him to see. There is no way he’s going to get out of this one.
Taking my phone, he glances at all the calls I’ve made to him since May. All calls that went unanswered; all calls where I desperately needed him. Thumbing through them, I watch his eyes widen. He flips, and flips, and thumbs his way through. But that’s not what hits me in the heart the most. What hits me is the sadness in his eyes. Then, he stops. He finally takes the time to really look at my phone.
“Jess.” Something in his voice has me shifting in my seat, anxiety festering in my chest. “How are you calling and texting if you don’t even have the right number?”
My heart stalls. “What?”
Jerking the phone from him, I peer at the screen in front of me. He says nothing as I silently read the number repeatedly. It’s the same number I’ve always had for him, because he used to text me all the time. Is he really trying to dodge all this shit?
“That’s not my number, Jess.”
“Um, yes, it is. This is the same number I’ve always had for you.” I get irritated, my movements jerky. “The last time I put your contact information in here is when I got this phone. It was before you left, and we were texting all the time. I know this is the right number.”
“Listen to me.” He grabs my shoulder, twisting me to give him my full attention. “I will call your phone, so you have the right number. No wonder you didn’t notice until now. Every number is the same except for the last digit.”
“But how …”
I don’t get it. My mind is a mess of confusion as I drop my eyes to peer at my phone screen. Why didn’t I see it? His number has been the same for years. I guess, since I thought I put it in my contacts that I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. You know, because it was there.
I watch idly as my father collects his phone from his pocket. He punches a few keys on it, and within seconds, my phone rings in my hand. I inspect the number, noting that he’s right, it is just one digit off. So, that means this entire time I wasn’t even reaching out to him, but someone else. Now that we have that straightened up, I feel kind of stupid. It wasn’t his fault he never answered. It was mine. I just don’t get how.
As if he can read my mind, my father’s words cause a bucket of cold water to douse over my head. Anger ripples through me more than I’ve felt in my entire life.
He lets loose an annoyed bout of laughter. “I’d say that bitch of a mother you have didn’t want you contacting me. So, I assume she took it upon herself to change it in your phone when you weren’t looking. She just never expected me to seek you out before mediation was over.”
“Huh? Mediation?”
He nods. “I served your mother with divorce papers months ago. She’s trying to mediate me to death, hoping she gets a portion of my inheritance if she keeps us held up in court. But that’s the joy of a prenuptial agreement, she’s merely wasting my time.”
That’s when an earlier conversation hits me. “Is that what she was talking about that day? Twenty percent or something like that.”
His eyes jerk to mine, surprised. “You know about that?”
“She was speaking to some guy named Derek, but I don’t know about what.” At the mention of this Derek person’s name, my father’s eyes turn cold. “Um, I overheard her on the phone, saying she wasn’t signing that piece of shit; that she owned that thing. She said some other things, but I can’t really remember. Then, um, she caught me.” I swallow hard, cringing. “It was one time I called you, but you never picked up.”
My father looks like he’s wrestling with something. Then, he asks, “Jess, baby girl—why did you clam up the moment you said she caught you? Is something going on I should know about? You also said something before in the gym—what did you mean by that?”
I can tell him the truth right here and now, which is what I’ve been wanting to do for years. No, he hasn’t been around since May, and he’s changed from the soft version of himself he used to be to a hardened businessman I see now. However, I still feel that sense of safet
y when I’m around him. I don’t have any fear of him laying a hand on me in spite or anger. I don’t cower when I’m near him. I don’t even need to count down the days until I’m eighteen, like I normally do when I’m in the house with Debra.
It’s far from the way we used to be with each other, but so much further in respect to how Debra and I are. There aren’t nights I will his life to end. Wish that he would stop breathing so my life would finally feel normal.
With her, I do all those things and so much more.
So, I tell him the truth. Every. Single. Bit.
CHAPTER 14
I’ve never, in my life, heard my father so livid. Yes, he’s raised his voice to me a few times now, but nothing compared to this. He sounds utterly demonic.
“How many goddamn times have you beaten our daughter, you lousy sack of shit!” he thunders, and damn, even the house moves on that one I think.
“It’s none of your concern!” Debra screeches in return. “Jessalyn belongs to me! I birthed her; I’ve nurtured her …”
“Nurturing her isn’t considered beating the shit out of her for years! How many times has she had to stitch herself up or entertain your pathetic friends after you abused her?! Huh?!” When she doesn’t answer him, a loud crashing sound comes from the living room, making me startle on the stairs. “Answer me!”
“Like I said before, it’s none of your concern,” she growls.
After the initial shock of hearing everything Debra has put me through, my father showed a vengeance I’ve never seen before. Instead of the docile man I had grown up loving, he turned into one of those snappy businessmen I saw at the strip club. The individuals talking about hostile takeovers and bottom lines. He was all business, and all kinds of furious.
Tease Me, Baby: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance (Silver Creek High Book 2) Page 10