Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I didn’t talk about it to anyone. Not even my closer friends in the club, who kept giving me curious glances when I would take off in the middle of the day, knowing where I was heading.
But this was my old man.
The calmest, least judgmental person I’d ever met. And he was pretty solid with the advice-giving. As much as my teenage self would hate to know the adult version of me thought so.
“Yeah.”
“I heard it through the grapevine that you knew her from the road.”
“The grapevine stretches all the way out here?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Don’t believe the shit about women being gossipy. These men like to talk too.”
“Yeah, I met her when I was on the road. I was doing a job for a crew in the south who were robbing armored cars. For the record, I didn’t do any robbing.”
“For the record, I wasn’t doing any judging.”
And he wasn’t.
There were a lot of reasons to love my dad. That was pretty top of the list.
“I was in charge of going to make sure the CCTV footage was removed in real time. Which led me to the middle of fucking nowhere. There was this creepy-ass glass house with something like a hundred cameras inside and outside. Only one exit. A door that locked when it closed and only opened with a fingerprint scan.”
“Paranoid.”
“Yeah, well, he had reason to be. He was keeping his girlfriend trapped inside.”
“There are some sick fucks in the world.”
“Yeah. He watched her every move. Her diet. Everything. I only met her a few times, but she left an impact.”
“Of course she did. Poor girl.”
“I made it clear, in a way that Ben couldn’t look back on and see anything remiss, that I was from Navesink Bank. Then, once, when Dezi was making a racket, told her that I would help her if she ever needed it.”
“And she finally needed it.”
“I should have gone back sooner. Gotten her out. Burned the fucking place down with Ben inside it.”
“That’s an option,” my father said, his smile a little wry. “So, she got away from him.”
“She finally had enough motivation to.”
My father glanced over at me, his dark eyes working.
“She’s pregnant.”
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t my business to tell. But within a few weeks, months at the most, it would be obvious to everyone. Besides, this was my father. He was a vault when you needed him to be.
“The ex’s?”
“I would tell you if I got someone pregnant, Dad.”
“I’d hope so. Alright. So she’s pregnant with the ex’s baby and came to you for help.”
“Yes.”
“And you… don’t want to help? Fair warning, if the answer to that one is yes, you’re grown enough now for me to kick your ass.”
“That’s not it at all. If anything, I wish she’d let me do more. But she’s been putting her foot down when she thinks I’m helping too much.”
“Okay. You’re safe. So, what’s the issue?”
“I like her.”
There.
It was out.
I felt like I could breathe properly again.
“And that’s an issue because you’re a deadbeat who has nothing to offer a… wait…”
The laugh barked out of me.
“She doesn’t need to deal with things like this right now.”
“You know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“That you should trust a woman to know what she wants and needs. So you shouldn’t be making those decisions for her.”
There was a clapping noise behind me, making me turn to find my mother standing there.
“Hey, Ma.”
“I have no clue what the larger context of the conversation is, but I agree wholeheartedly with your father on that last bit. Did you figure out what’s wrong with him?”
“He’s sitting right here,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, just sorted it out.”
“Should I be making soup, prepping the spare room, or calling the local treatment center?”
None of that said with judgment.
If I needed a hot meal, a place to sleep, or to head into detox, they were there and they weren’t going to make me feel like shit about it. And since they’d been very open with their own addiction struggles, and we’d all been aware of how that could run in families, they kept an eye on that kind of thing. But so did I. And I never had any issues on that front.
“I wouldn’t mind a home-cooked meal,” I admitted. “But I think I’d rather Dad made it.”
“I’ll go ahead and not be offended by that since I prefer his cooking as well.”
“Your son finally caught feelings for a woman.”
“Have you?” she asked, eyes bright. My mom was far from a nag, but I saw the way she looked at everyone else’s grandbabies. And I was her only shot at having any.
“She’s pregnant,” he went on. Yes, my dad was a vault. But my mom had full access. As she should.
“Not with my baby,” I was quick to clarify.
“Okay. I see what I walked in on now. But I agree with your father. You don’t get to decide for her if she’s in a place for a relationship or not. That’s her choice. Don’t be a jerk. I raised you better.”