“It’s almost nine!”
I pried open one eye and squinted at her. Mornings weren’t my forte. “And? It’s Saturday?”
Reese dropped her forehead down to my chin, and I used the opportunity to smell her hair. The scent was soft and girly, but not overpowering. I wouldn’t mind it lingering on my pillowcase. “And my roommate could be here any minute for all I know.”
“You don’t know what time she’s arriving?”
She shook her head and her hair tickled my nose. “This isn’t exactly how I’d like to meet her though.”
Damn, I hated it when she had a valid argument. Especially when I wasn’t on the winning side of it. I gripped her ass and hauled her up my bare chest before I captured her mouth in a hungry kiss, morning breath be damned.
When I finally let her go, her breathing was ragged and her eyes had that hazy, unfocused look again, the same one she had after she climaxed, moaning my name last night. My hard length throbbed at the memory.
“Fine.” I brushed my lips across hers once more. “I’ll leave. But only if you promise to come to my place tonight.” I tipped her chin up until her espresso eyes found mine. “We’re not finished here.”
“I’ll come.”
“Yeah, you will. Multiple times.” I winked and shifted her off me, sliding out from under the quilt and yanking on my jeans. My dick protested when I tucked him back down and zipped my pants the rest of the way up. “Seven o’clock? I’ll even feed you.”
She scrunched her face.
“What?”
“You feeding me. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. A threat or an enticement.” She tilted her head, her swollen lips frowning. “Can you cook?”
I ruffled her hair and then bent over to whisper in her ear. “I guess you’ll have to find out.”
Her smile spread slowly, like honey melting over a hot biscuit, that dimple I loved so much making an early morning appearance. “I guess I will.”
“You eat red meat?” I confirmed.
Her eyes widened and dipped to my crotch before returning to my face, bright splotches of color staining her cheeks. I chuckled. “That’s not what I meant, but I’ll take it as a yes.”
She pulled the covers over her head. “Leave. For the love of all the little fat cherub angels playing harps in the sky, just leave.”
My lips quirked at her choice of words as I found my shirt on the other side of the room. One shoe was still by the door, the other had landed in a laundry basket. “Seven, Reese. I’m going to tell Oscar to expect you. Don’t be late. He’s perfected the sad puppy dog look.”
“I’d hate to disappoint your dog.” Her voice was muffled from the blanket but the sarcasm came through loud and clear.
“There’s nothing worse than an unhappy wiener,” I agreed.
I slipped out the door before she could say anything else, so she’d be left thinking about my dick.
As I drove away with a goofy ass smile on my face, I debated whether to go all out and make steaks and a salad or do something more casual like shrimp and grits. My phone dinged and my grin morphed into a full-on smirk, thinking it was her with a parting shot.
Marco: I’m free this morning if you want to work on the snare duel.
Annoyance filtered through me but I tamped it down. I’d been trying to set up a time for the last week to finalize the duel with him and he’d blown me off three times. For three different girls, I’m pretty sure. But now, now, he was free.
Me: One hour. Practice room two.
Punching the gas a little harder than necessary, I headed home to shower. At this rate, I’d barely have time to stop for coffee on the way. And I needed all the available caffeine in south Alabama to make dealing with Marco on a non-game-day Saturday morning tolerable. We’d been friends once, I might have even considered him my best friend in high school, but most of that relationship seemed to have crumbled over the years. What remained was more of a reluctant partnership—like when the teacher paired you up in school and that’s not who you wanted to get, but there were worse choices so you kept quiet and made do.
The snare duel was a 64-count chunk of time for me and him to shine.
If we could find a way to successfully collaborate.
The practice itself went about as well as I expected. After wasting thirty minutes arguing back and forth and getting nowhere, we finally decided to split it up into sections. I’d play the first eight counts, then him, followed by a sixteen-count section each, and we’d finish it up with sixteen counts played together with some flashy stick work to show off.
We settled on a Wednesday deadline for our solo sections, which meant all we had to get through today was choreographing sixteen beats. Four measly measures. How hard could that be?
It took two hours for us to agree and another hour for us to perfect it.
Fucking Marco.
Noon had come and gone by the time we’d stowed our snares and gone our separate ways. I had no idea where he was going, which was fine by me. These days, if it wasn’t specifically drumline related, we didn’t interact. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but something about him had shifted subtly over the years. His humor had changed, from laughing at himself to laughing at the expense of others. And the way he treated girls as if they were both disposable and interchangeable left a sour taste in my mouth.
I headed to the grocery store for steaks and fresh veggies. No more of this indecisive nonsense. And I could grill the fuck out of a ribeye. Nothing said peacocking like meat cooked to perfection over a fire. There was a raw caveman element to it that was undeniable.
The Wrangler bounced over the uneven parking lot of Publix as my phone dinged. Dreading a message from Marco and hoping for one from Reese, I checked the screen.
Bastard: We need to talk. I’ll expect you here by three today.
My jaw clenched so hard it almost popped. Fucking hell. Could I not catch a damn break? First Marco and now my father? Nothing ruined my day quite as thoroughly as a mandatory trip to Montgomery for a lecture from the man responsible for half of my DNA.
He’d moved about an hour upstate when I started college, claiming he needed a fresh start.
Bullshit.
More like so he could leave without feeling guilty after I started at Rodner as a freshman.
But it worked out. It gave us both an excuse to see each other less. In fact, we didn’t see each other at all anymore unless he demanded it. And I only went because he was the last link I had to Garrett, which I couldn’t toss aside no matter how much I hated the guy. I rubbed the tattoo on my chest.
Years ago, I’d given up envisioning how different my life would be if Garrett hadn’t died. If Mom hadn’t left and Dad hadn’t lost himself to the bitterness of losing a son and then a wife. If he’d remembered that he still had a son who would’ve given his left nut to have a parent at least pretend like he loved him.
I laughed bitterly and didn’t bother replying.
We both knew I’d be there.
I bought steaks, mushrooms, zucchini, squash, sweet potatoes, and salad fixings. A case of Cherry Coke Zero and a nice bottle of wine covered both my bases beverage-wise. And I picked up a can of whipped cream in case the evening went as well as I hoped. After a pause, I grabbed a second can too. I used to be a Boy Scout and the Be Prepared motto still came in handy on occasion. A box of condoms, the shiny gold foil covered ones, rounded out my purchase.
Confident I was fully stocked for my date with Reese later, I dropped everything by the townhouse and spent twenty minutes playing with Oscar. That dog went crazy over tug-of-war. I gave him a good long belly rub and left him with a new rawhide to chew on when I couldn’t put off leaving any longer.
The whole way there, I played the Shrek soundtracks. Those had been Garrett’s favorite movies. We’d watched it so many times and taken turns quoting the different characters. Donkey was my favorite. Donkey was both our favorites. I did anything I could to make Garrett fresh in my mind b
efore I arrived at Dad’s house. Anything to remind myself why I put up with him.
Despite the best efforts of Smash Mouth, my muscles were tense with the impending confrontation when I pulled up the brick-paver driveway and parked in front of the three-thousand square-foot house he lived in alone. I used to think the size was excessive, but these days I recognized that he needed all that space to hold the ghosts of the family we used to be and might have been. Or maybe he needed the fifteen-foot cathedral ceilings to have room for all his lingering bitterness.
Six bedrooms in that house and none of them were mine.
I didn’t stay here. Ever. Even on holidays. Because extending such an invitation would never occur to him.
After I switched off the ignition, I turned my phone to silent. Not that it really mattered, because meetings with him were never pleasant, but the ding of phone notifications made him batshit crazy and I was fucking tired of hearing his lecture on how good manners dictated silencing your cell phone during meetings.
Because this wasn’t a son visiting a father to catch up with each other.
It was a meeting.
The clock on the dash glowed 2:53. Hey, Dad, I’m here by three. But the stubborn streak I’d inherited from him kept my ass firmly planted in the driver’s seat of my Wrangler until the numbers changed to eight minutes past. Only then did I reluctantly exit the vehicle and approach the front door.
I rang the doorbell and waited. It wasn’t like I had a key to let myself in.
He answered it with a scowl, and I vowed for the millionth time not to turn into him in thirty years. He was just past fifty, but the lines etched around his eyes and the permanent creases carved into his forehead made him seem a decade older.
“’Bout damn time,” he muttered, turning away and heading to his study in the rear of the house.
“Good to see you too,” I mumbled to the empty foyer as I shut the massive carved oak door behind me. The house was spotless as I moved deeper into it. Even the dust particles were scared of him. He had a cleaning service come daily, and they probably knew him better than anyone at this point. He kept such a chokehold on every aspect of his life, there was no room left for joy, happiness, laughter, love. Me. I didn’t think he even recognized the concept of fun anymore. It had ceased to exist as a noun in his world. Maybe it was because his job as CFO of the largest chain of car dealerships in south Alabama dealt with numbers, not people. Everything was black and white. Profit and loss.
His back was to me as he sat in his oversized leather office chair behind his equally oversized solid mahogany desk, the view out the window of the perfectly manicured yard obviously preferable to the sight of me standing stiffly in the doorway.
“Come in,” he ordered impatiently. “You’re late.”
I moved a few steps farther into the room and chose the guest chair in front of the desk closest to the door, already planning my escape. The chair was hard and uncomfortable which suited the mood in the room perfectly.
“It’s recently come to my attention that you haven’t submitted any med school applications yet.” He steepled his fingers as he spoke, each word precise, sharply articulated, and dripping with disapproval. “And not only have you not applied, you’ve changed your major from pre-med to computer science.”
My back straightened on the unforgiving chair but I held my tongue. He hadn’t actually asked a question yet. The silence lengthened. It was a game he liked to play to make me squirm, one that was losing its power over me the older I got and the less I cared about his opinion.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? There was a plan. You’re going to med school to become a research oncologist because this world needs better doctors than the ones that took care of your brother. You’re smart—you got that from me. Your grades are up to par. And you owe it to him.” The last four words were accented by his fist pounding the desk with each syllable.
Your brother. Him. He couldn’t even say his name.
“Garrett,” I emphasized the name and he flinched, “wanted me to be happy. That’s what I owe to him.”
“And what are you going to do with a computer science degree?” He said it in the same tone you might expect someone to say finger painting.
A smile curved my lips. “Design video games.”
His head shook in denial before I even spoke. “No. Absolutely not. I forbid it and I won’t pay another cent in tuition toward something that asinine.”
I held my silence. His decree was both unsurprising and unimportant.
“Well?” he demanded after a time. “Do you hear me? You will change your major at once. School hasn’t started yet so you can end this nonsense before it begins.”
“I hear you,” I acknowledged. “But no, I don’t plan on making any changes.”
“And then how exactly do you plan on supporting yourself?” His smug tone made it clear he thought he’d won this round.
My shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug he couldn’t see. “I haven’t used a dime of your damn money for myself in the last two years.”
I knew that would shock him and one side of my mouth tipped up in a satisfied smirk at the way he whirled around to glare at me with eyes the same color as my own.
“Watch your mouth.”
I rolled my eyes. Because that’s what we really needed to be worried about here.
The middle finger of his right hand tapped the desk in an angry allegro rhythm. A pair of robins flew loops outside the window, and the vapor trail of a jet cut across the clear blue sky. Minutes passed. The tapping sped up.
“Why didn’t I know about this?”
Because you only exist on the periphery of my life. Because you quit being a father the day we—not you, we—lost Garrett. Because you’re a selfish asshole who never asks about my life. Pick a fucking reason.
I sighed. “Does it matter? Do you really give a fuck?”
“I told you to watch your goddamn mouth!”
My hands fisted on my thighs. “Apologies, Dad.” My sarcasm was thick as syrup and there was no way he could miss it.
He pinned me with an assessing gaze but his chair remained facing the window. I didn’t merit his full attention, even now. Hurt curled into a hard knot in my gut. “What happens to all the money I deposit into your account?”
“Half goes to the children’s hospital—yes, that one—and the other half funds a scholarship to Rodner for a student who’s had cancer.” And beaten it, I added silently.
Dad’s jaw worked back and forth before he twisted back to the window. I wondered what he’d do if I marched over to it and touched it, smeared my handprint right down the center and marred the spotless glass. I was half-tempted to try it.
“And how do you pay your bills? Your tuition? You selling drugs now?”
No, but he wasn’t going to like the real answer any better. I rolled my neck, hating how tense I always got in his presence. “Remember all those video games I played as a kid? The ones you hated so much? They paid off. I designed two popular game apps and live off the royalties from the download price and the in-app purchases.”
His face twisted like he’d accidentally eaten a piece of gristle.
“In fact,” I continued, “I’m almost done developing my third. It should hit the market before I graduate.”
He clutched his stomach like he might be physically ill.
“Why?” he boomed. “Why would you waste all your intellect and ambition on something as trite as an app? You could be curing cancer in a few years!” He vibrated in rage as his chair rotated to face me.
I didn’t back down from the fury in his pinched eyes. “You’re right. I am smart, and I did the research. The problem with pediatric cancer treatment isn’t a shortage of doctors willing to put in the time and effort to find a cure. It’s a lack of funding. They need money. I’m going to raise it for them.”
He shot to his feet. “I donate thousands of dollars each year toward that very goal!”
“
They need more.”
“And that’s your big solution? Throwing money at the problem?” He gesticulated wildly.
“No. That’s only part of it. The other part I’m working on is for the kids themselves. Kids like video games.” I said it like I was revealing the location of Atlantis after centuries of searching. “Kids fucking love video games.”
“Watch your goddamn mouth!”
“But nobody,” I ignored him and kept talking, “has taken the time to create a game specifically designed for the needs of a pediatric cancer patient. One that keeps their attention, but also, through biofeedback, assists them through the treatment process by helping them manage their own pain. That’s the app I’m working on developing now.”
He blinked at me and his face wobbled as he fought to hide his surprise. He licked his lips and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Though it was still thick, it was more gray than brown these days.
I didn’t care about his reaction though because I wasn’t doing it for him. I pushed to my feet and turned to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Pausing on the plush Oriental rug, I asked, “Are we not done here?”
“We’re done when I say we’re done and not a second before.”
I didn’t turn back around. He could face my back this time. “You finished with me years ago. Fourteen if you’re looking for specifics.”
The truth was, any remnants of Garrett I’d like to pretend were still buried deep within him had shriveled up and disappeared along with my childhood. The only thing we had in common these days were Irish green eyes, a last name, and half our DNA, and if I could somehow return those in exchange for a clean slate, I would. As I approached the door, I heard the rustle of his clothes behind me.
He somehow reached the door before me and produced a key, locking me in. Who the fuck had a key to lock themselves in their own office? Or maybe he was sealing everyone else out?
“So, you basically stole my money.”
His accusation stung.
“I didn’t steal anything from you. I never asked you for it. You put it in my bank account and I used it as I saw fit.”
“You let me think it was for your tuition.”
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