His eyes flit between me and my bag, a million questions lingering in his eyes. I pray to hell and back that he doesn’t bother asking any of them. I feel like total shit, my hangover pounding away in my head, and the last thing I need is a goddamn interrogation.
“Just on vacation for a bit,” I say with a careless shrug.
“Why?”
My brows arch up to my hairline at the blunt question. A scoff falls from my lips.
“Do I need a reason to come home?” I ask scathingly. “Iamyour son.”
The last thing I need right now is for him to find out I got fired. I just need a landing spot until I figure my shit out, and then I’ll be gone again.
“How convenient for you to be part of the family when you feel like it,” Jenny snipes from the kitchen.
I roll my eyes at the acid in her tone. Looks like one night wasn’t enough for her to get over whatever crawled up her ass. Sure, I’ve been gone for a while, but it’s not like I disappeared entirely. I answer her calls when I have the time.
“Good morning to you, too, Jen,” I say, snark heavy in my voice.
“You know better than to call her that.” I blink in surprise at the immediate correction, and the actual note of scolding in his tone. Yeah, it’s not my sister’s favorite nickname, buthe’snever corrected me on it before. He’s always been content to let us bicker. “You’ve been gone for years, Wayne. You never call and you hardly pick up when your sister checks in. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for us to be confused about you showing up for a vacation out of nowhere. Especially when you reek of whiskey.”
My own annoyance mounts more and more the longer he talks, and by the time he comments about my obvious hangover, my jaw is tense and I’m fighting back a sneer.
I’ve been gone because ofhim.
He hit rock bottom when Mom died, and he let it ruin everything. He never even tried to pick himself back up, and it was on Jenny and I to figure out how to survive on our own. I was grieving the loss of my mother, and my dad turned into a shell of a person, someone I didn’t know.
So yeah, I left. Fucking sue me.
I built a life for myself, got my law degree, got a good job, did whatever I pleased whenever I wanted to. This is just a hiccup in the road, and I don’t intend to let it drive me into the ground.
“I had a few drinks with friends last night,” I snap. “Got a problem with it?”
Frustration flashes in his eyes, and my blood rushes through my veins in anticipation of a shouting match. I’ve got plenty of anger to get out of my system, and screaming at my dad will bring it back down to a manageable level.
Before we get into it, a sharp knock sounds at the front door.
The sound shatters the tension mounting between us, and my dad shoves up from his recliner to get the door. He gives me a wide berth as he stalks past.
“Everything alright, Tony?” he asks after opening the door, spoken in a tone that’s worlds more civil than he’s using with me.
“Yeah, just wanted to let you know the doc is here,” the dark-haired man answers, glancing past my dad and raking his eyes over me curiously. “Al’s out for his treatments this morning and you spend the most time with them other than him. She wanted to know if any of the calves were having issues.”
“Perfect, I’ve got a few I want her to look at.”
I don’t get a chance to ask what the comment about Al means before my dad walks out without a glance back at me, slamming the door shut behind him. I blink at the dark wood of the door for several beats, confusion and frustration swirling in my gut. How dare he just walk away from me?
Fucking coward.
Jenny walks past me with a thermos of coffee and an annoyed glance, heading toward the door.
“You’ve never come home for vacation before,” she says with her hand on the doorknob. “And you barely talk to me. You guys haven’t spoken in almost a decade. Can’t blame us for being confused about you showing up out of nowhere. I’m thinking you got yourself in trouble and are just hiding out here.”
I refuse to flinch at the accusation, not wanting to confirm her suspicions. I’m a lawyer. Having a good poker face comes with the territory.
It’s harder to fool people who know all my tells, though.
I follow her out silently, unwilling to let her end the conversation like that but still searching for the right words. All I’m asking for is a place to crash—at my childhood home with my fucking family—but everyone’s acting like I’ve spent the past decade actively betraying them.
So what if I left town and built my own life? That’s what people aresupposedto do when they grow up.
