I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. “I wasn’t there to protect her.”
“Not. Your. Fault.”
I sighed but didn’t argue with him.
“The Eric thing is different. You were protectin’ your sister and as far as I’m concerned, nothing to lose sleep over.”
My sister’s high school boyfriend had only been her boyfriend to get her into bed. There’d been a bet that he couldn’t fuck the biker’s daughter and once he’d slept with her a couple of times, he’d dumped her.
When I found out, my brother and I lured him to some private trails out in Ridgefield with a little catfishing scheme. The asshole had a crush on the very underaged homecoming queen, so I used the promise of sex with her, and shocker, Eric rushed right over. He figured out way too late that it wasn’t his crush waiting for him, it was me and Archer. We beat the shit out of him and then I sliced one of his Achilles tendons. Eric had been a track star, so it ended his running career.
There was no blowback because Eric would have to admit he was meeting an underaged girl for sex, the proof of which would have been sent to the authorities should he ever try to report it. And Archer and I were each other’s alibis, which were airtight.
“I don’t lose sleep over it. But there are those who think I should.”
“Like who?” Dad challenged.
“Daisy.”
“Highly doubtful,” Dad said.
“Mom, then.”
“Least of all your mother.” Dad sighed. “Because she doesn’t know about it.”
“How the hell did you keep that from her?”
“It wasn’t easy,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“So, why do you think you keep fuckin’ things up?” he asked.
“I don’t think it, Dad, I just do. She gets close and I have this need to push her away. I can’t seem to stop myself from bein’ a dick.”
“Yeah, I see that, bud. You need to quit.”
“Not helpful,” I snapped.
“Does Teagan know about Chelsea?”
“Jesus,” I hissed. “No, she doesn’t know about Chelsea.”
“You think maybe you wanna tell her?”
“I don’t know if I can risk it.”
“You’ve risked everything for her so far, son,” Dad said. “If you don’t go all the way then it doesn’t mean shit.”
“What if it all blows up in my face?”
“Lucky you got a fuckin’ amazing family to put you back together then.”
He stood, squeezing my shoulder before walking out the door.
Teagan
IHID IN the bathroom for as long as I could, washing my face and doing my best to clean up my running mascara. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and slid it out to see a text from Cash. I rolled my eyes as I read it.
