Ava
I follow his gaze. “Daddy?” I’m slightly embarrassed, but more curious, how he’s here, and yet my mama is at home, sick, alone. “What are you doing here?”
His glare at Gunner is telling. Gunner gets it. “I…I’ll leave y’all be.”
“No, Gunner, you don’t have to leave.” I say, feeling brave, wondering just how sick my mama really is. I address my daddy again, as he hasn’t answered my question. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes sear through Gunner’s, but I stand my ground, placing my hand on my hip, when he finally looks at me. His expression softens only slightly. “Your mama was worried. She didn’t want y’all to go all weekend without being home.”
Sure. Something tells me this is just another checkpoint. I’ll bet twenty bucks mama isn’t really sick. “So you left her alone, sick, daddy?” I say it in a ‘how dare you’ tone.
“She was asleep when I left.”
“But not before she told you to come out here and check up on me.” I state, not trying to hide the coldness in my voice.
“Ava, darlin’, I should go.” Gunner says, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts that he’d rather be knee deep in horse shit than be caught in the middle of this. Although it is unfair to keep him here when he’s so uncomfortable, I feel like if I let him scurry away, that daddy will know what just happened between us. Suddenly I’m sick of being treated like a child. Gunner brought out the woman in me, and I’m feeling very brave and not in the mood to be brought back down again…yet.
“Gunner, it’s okay.” I say firmly.
Daddy gives him a look that says he better leave, but Gunner heeds me instead. This man is not afraid of anything, and it reinforces in my mind that he’s worth keeping around for yet one more reason.
“Your mama didn’t feel like puking in the car for four hours, dear, but she also had a gut feeling that something might be wrong.” Daddy looks Gunner up and down. “And I see that she was right on the money.”
“Sir,” Gunner says, raising his hand. “With all due respect, Ava was with me. She wasn’t out robbing a bank or doing drugs, or anything like that.”
Point for Gunner.
“No.” Daddy’s lips are pursed into a sneer. “But I’m sure you two weren’t innocently playing a game of Monopoly in there, either.”
“No, Ava here was just picking up some things from her room is all. Nothing more went on in there and that’s the truth.”
I like him. He found a loophole.
“And just what were you picking up, Ava? Some things to stay overnight at your boyfriend’s house, I’ll bet.” Daddy accuses.
“I’m not her boyfriend, sir.” Gunner says, finding yet another loophole.
“Then just what were you doing, sucking my daughter’s face off in the middle of the hallway?” Daddy’s bark is worse than his bite. It’s mama’s attitude that’s intimidating. I’m sure that sending daddy in her place was an act of mercy, convinced by daddy, who always tries to go to bat for me.
“Sure, we were kissing, sir, but we weren’t doing anything wrong. Nobody else was here in the hallway until you came. And to be fair, you must have snuck up on us, because I’ve heard noisier barn mice.”
Gunner is unbelievable. He’s not afraid of daddy at all, and he has more tact than anyone I’ve ever met.
“Daddy, I’m almost nineteen years old. I think kissing at my age is acceptable.” I interject.
Daddy gives me a look. A look that I’m very used to. It means that this topic isn’t open for discussion. My folks will never let me grow up. I’ll never get to have my own life, no matter how far away I am. I’m trapped. I can’t argue with my folks or else I risk losing their financial support, which I desperately need, with another decade or so of education ahead of me. Government assistance only got me so far, and I’ll try for another scholarship next semester, but who knows if that’ll pan out, and until then, I still need their money, since I’m not attending a local school.
“Ava, I suggest you get your things and come home with me. We’ll discuss this in the car.”
“Daddy, I…” I look at Gunner. He is completely unscathed. When daddy gets that tone, I start to cave. Sooner if mama gets it. “Can I stay here this weekend? Do I have to come home all the time?”
“That was the deal, Ava.”
“What if I bring her home, sir? I was thinking about packing it up, anyway, to be honest.” Gunner offers.
“No, she’ll come home with me.” Daddy says, not looking at Gunner, but glaring at me.
I hang my head. “Yes, daddy.”
