“I’m hungry,” he murmured, smiling.
“Me too,” I replied. Somehow I knew that neither of us were talking about brains.
Chapter 37
Together we managed to get my Honda unstuck, but before we headed back to town we returned to where the four-wheelers were parked. We drove them both a good ways into the woods, then I stayed put while Marcus veered off down a trail. He returned on foot about ten minutes later and climbed onto the back of the one I was driving.
“Pushed it into the river,” he explained.
After that, we cleaned ourselves up as best we could. My shirt was inconveniently full of bullet holes and blood, but that was easily remedied since I still had all my worldly possessions in the trunk of my car. As soon as we were presentable, Marcus used my phone—since his had “somehow” lost its battery—to call the Sheriff’s Office to report that he and Ed had become separated in the woods, and that Ed was still missing. I wasn’t sure why he bothered to do that since I knew Ed was still alive, but Marcus merely gave me a grim smile.
“Gotta cover our asses. If Ed never shows up again it’s going to look really funny that I came back from our hunting trip without him and didn’t say anything. And if he does show up, then no harm no foul.”
I had a feeling there was more going on, but I didn’t really want to ask.
I drove Marcus home but didn’t make a move to get out of the car with him. He paused with his hand on the door and gave me a slightly puzzled look.
“Would you like to come in?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But I gotta go deal with some stuff first.”
“Your dad.” It wasn’t a question, and I was relieved to see complete understanding in his eyes. “Will you come back by when you’re done?”
I smiled, relieved for a number of reasons. “You know it.”
Dad was sitting on the porch when I pulled into the driveway. He had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, but I didn’t see any empties beside his chair. He watched me as I got out of the car and walked up to the house, a wary and almost painfully expectant look on his face.
“Didn’t think you’d have the balls to come back here,” he said as I climbed the steps, a sneer settling onto his face as if he knew he needed to have it. “Run out of guys who you could fuck for a place to stay?”
I could only smile. I’d lost my fear of him. I also knew I wasn’t tied to him. Whether I stayed with Marcus or slept in my car, I knew I had options. “That’s not gonna work anymore. I don’t really care what you think of me. I know I’m not a loser.” I leaned against one of the porch supports and crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re the one who needs me.”
He scowled. “I got enough money to get by. I don’t need your know-it-all bullshit.”
“Cut the crap, Dad,” I said. “This isn’t about money, and you know it. You have no one. Just me. Who the hell you gonna turn to if I walk away from you forever?”
Anger flashed across his face and he stood, but I didn’t shift from where I was—simply continued to regard him with a calm that seemed to permeate every fiber of my being. It helped that I’d wolfed down another brainsicle on the way over so that I could be as sharp and aware as possible.
And as fast and strong as possible too, in case my charm and tact didn’t carry me through. I wasn’t going to let anyone smack me ever again. “The funny thing is that I still love you, Dad,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Thinking about the fact that it would kill me if anything bad happened to you and I could have done something about it.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said, voice rising.
“Is that what you want?” I asked, keeping my own voice deliberately low. “Do you want me out of your life?”
His hands unclenched, and his face seemed to sag. “No. God. I have . . . I. . . .” He swallowed. “When your mom. . . .”
“You had to choose between the two of us, and you chose me,” I said as I met his eyes. “And I know you probably regretted that choice a million times.”
Guilt flashed across his face. “It’s all right,” I said before he could try to deny it. “I didn’t exactly make it easy on you. I made a bunch of shit choices. I was a serious fuckup of a daughter.”
He slumped and shook his head. “No, you got it wrong. I coulda given you up to the state and kept your mom.” He ran his hands through his thinning hair. “But I knew she wasn’t right.” He tapped the side of his head. “She was fun and wild,” he went on, “but she couldn’t handle any sort of stress. Never shoulda been a mom. And you . . . you were my little Angelkins.” His voice caught, and he took a quick sip of beer to cover it. “But after she was gone I figured out that maybe I never shoulda been a dad.”
Emotion threatened to squeeze my heart right out of my chest as he lifted his watery eyes to mine. “I never regretted having them take your mom away,” he said. “But,” he took a shuddering breath. “Sometimes I regretted stayin’ on as your dad.” He looked away. “I’d think that if I’d let the state take you, then maybe you’d have ended up with folks who’d known how to rein you in and keep you straight and out of trouble.” He sighed. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t deal with it.”
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak around the big knot in my throat. “Maybe,” I managed to say. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t matter now. I’m clean, I got me a good job. . . .” I trailed off, then sighed and sat heavily on the porch steps. “I can’t take any credit for any of that shit, though. I got lucky. Someone helped me out when I needed it.” I dug my fingers through my hair and grimaced. “I came here thinking I was gonna be all like, ‘oh, you need to do rehab and stop drinking’ but that would be a bunch of hypocritical shit, because I sure as hell never had the guts to go through that.”
“I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “I’ll do rehab, counseling, whatever it takes. Is that what you want from me?” He looked at me, a painful hope in his eyes.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I mean, there was so much I wanted. This whole conversation could end up being a goddamned Hallmark Movie of the Week with us falling into each other’s arms and tearfully promising that everything was going to be wonderful now because he’d stop drinking and I’d be a devoted and supportive daughter. I knew damn good and well that nothing was as easy as that. If I hadn’t been zombified I probably never would have found the strength to stop doing the pills and hold down a job. I never had any desire to. Why the hell should I? I had no pride, no drive. I’d never been able to see a world beyond what I’d always known.
And expecting my dad to become a better person just for me was totally unrealistic.
“How ’bout we start by getting the beer cans out of the driveway,” I said. He gave me a perplexed look, and I resisted the urge to smile. He sure as hell hadn’t been expecting that.
“The beer cans? I don’t understand.”
“It looks like shit,” I told him. “Yeah, it’s funny like ‘Ha ha we’re such white trash’ because we’ve always figured that everyone is gonna look down on us anyway, so why not embrace it, right?” I shook my head firmly. “Well fuck ‘em all. We’re only trash if we keep acting like it. Fuck those bastards.”
He looked toward the driveway, then his gaze swept the rest of the yard and the house. Distaste and regret darkened his eyes. “This place is a goddamn dump.”
I let out a small laugh. “Yeah, no wonder we drink and get high.”
He turned back to me, a ghost of a smile on his face. “So, you’ll stay?”
“I’m kinda seeing someone.” I paused. Probably better if I didn’t tell him just yet that it was the cop who arrested him—and me, for that matter. “But this is still my home.”
“You broke up with Randy?” He eyed me with a frown.
“Yeah. That’s over.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Over for good?”
“Completely over. Dead. Buried,” I said emphatically.
To my surprise he
gave a nod of approval. “About damn time. I always thought you were too good for that loser.”
I burst out laughing while my dad gave me a perplexed look
“You’re absolutely right, Dad,” I said with a grin. “I am too good for him.”
Chapter 38
My dad and I raked up beer cans for the last couple of hours of daylight, then I headed back over to Marcus’s house. But not before shocking the shit out of my dad by giving him a hug. Things were still far from perfect between us, but it was one hell of a start.
Marcus opened the door before I could knock, took me by the hand and pulled me inside. He kicked the door closed and in the next second his lips were on mine, and his hands were tangled in my hair. I pulled his shirt off and oh, yeah, for a zombie he had some seriously awesome abs.
“Hang on,” he gasped after about half a minute of frenzied groping. Somehow I’d lost my shirt as well, and his jeans were unzipped, and I wasn’t really in the frame of mind to “hang on” at all. But he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the kitchen, yanked the fridge open and removed a bowl of what looked like tapioca. He handed me the bowl, pushed the fridge door shut, and snatched two spoons out of a drawer.
“This isn’t tapioca, is it?” I said, taking one of the spoons.
Marcus shook his head, a sly smile on his face. “I think a better name for it is ‘foreplay.’ ”
The pudding lived up to its name. And nothing fell off that wasn’t supposed to.
1 Coming soon from DAW Books
Also by Diana Rowland:
SECRETS OF THE DEMON SINS OF THE DEMON1
My Life as a White Trash Zombie Page 27