“Where the fuck have you been?”
My key wasn’t even out of the lock.
As I exhaled through my lips, the air hit them just right, and they vibrated, making an additional sound.
I twisted the metal, freeing the key, and while I put the set in my bag, I closed the door and took a quick inventory of the room. I first counted the amount of beer on the table. He liked to keep his empties there, as though they were trophies, and he would throw them away when he began drinking the next day and start over. The amount was too many to count.
And that was a number that alarmed me.
Mom wasn’t in here. Neither was there any food, and I couldn’t smell a single aroma in the air aside from cigarette smoke.
“Answer me, Alivia.”
“I met up with some friends. We went out.”
I’d been giving him that reason almost every time I came home. I’d stopped trying to come up with unique lies.
I was too tired for that.
“Bullshit. You don’t have any fucking friends.”
While I walked toward the living room, where he was sitting in the center, his gaze dropped down my body as though he was looking for signs to prove me wrong.
There were no signs.
I’d left my uniform and black sneakers at Charred. Before I’d left the restaurant, I’d changed into a pair of jeans, a tanktop, and flip-flops. My hair was up, but that meant nothing, and I’d been using the same purse for years.
If Dean was observant, he’d know that this was the same outfit I’d worn home last night and the night before. And when I went to bed, the clothes would go right back in my purse for tomorrow’s drive home.
“Where’s my beer?”
His beer.
His money.
Two things that endlessly poured from his sour lips.
“I didn’t have time to stop and get some?—”
“Where’s my fucking beer, Alivia?”
“I already told you, I didn’t have time to stop and get you some.”
He moved to the end of the couch, his hair matted from resting on it all day. “What do you mean, you didn’t have time? You were in your car, weren’t you? You drove, didn’t you?” He lifted his hand to point at me, and beer sloshed out the top of the can. “The only thing that stopped you from picking some up is fucking selfishness.” A look of disgust crossed his face. “You have plenty of money. I know you do.”
I had about ten more seconds in me before I darted to my room. If I did that as soon as I came home, he would spend far more time banging on my door. The best-case scenario was to get this conversation out of the way.
“You know nothing about me.”
His fisted hand pounded on the couch. “Give me some fucking money!”
The screams.
I knew they were coming. They always did. And now that they were here, all I wanted to do was cover my ears.
But I wouldn’t be that vulnerable in front of him.
I wouldn’t show him that anything hedid affected me.
