Call me when you have a minute.
Great.
The ringing sounds colder when it’s his number I’m dialing, and I swear the AC goes down a notch.
“Yes?” I’m more curt than I should be, and I brace myself for the blow back.
“Is that anyway to greet your father?” he asks, his voice thick with mockery. “You’d think you’d be more grateful.”
I want to sayfor what—after all, it’s not like I’m getting his financial support for free. Just selling my soul one secret at a time.
“I’m just in the gym,” I say, walking back my obvious irritation. “What’s up?”
“I need you to keep an eye on someone.” Papers shuffling against a desk sound in the background. “Sloane Fielder.”
Grant’s sister, bent across that pool table, hair spilling down her back, plays vividly in my mind.
What the hell could he want with her?
“Uh…” I hesitate, already imagining the inconvenience. “Why?”
“Because I said so, Andrew,” he says, like the question is outlandish.
“No, no I know. It’s just…” I glance around the gym before knocking my head back. “It’s harder with people I’m not already around, you know?”
“She’s your teammate’s sister. If that's too hard for you to figure out?—”
“It’s not,” I cut him off, avoiding the latent threat he’s always ready to throw in my face—that he can make this all go away in an instant. That he can rip the rug out from my family’s life with a simple phone call. “Can I at least know what I’m supposed to be looking out for?”
“Not important. I just need to know where she goes, who she’s with. That kind of thing.”
“So you want me to stalk her?” I scoff, gathering my bag from the bench I left it on.
“Of course not,” he laughs, and I hear the papers again. “She’s your type. I was told she’s staying with her brother, so whenever she’s around just…do whatever it is you do. Get her to open up.”
The insinuation that I could and should use sex to manipulate someone has me grinding my teeth, but I know I wouldn’t be so bothered if he was wrong. The trouble is, he isn’t. That woman isexactlymy type. If she wasn’t, maybe my gut wouldn’t be churning with premature guilt.
It’s for that reason that IknowI can’t do this. It’s a line I’m realizing I can’t cross, but telling my father that is not an option. His lines are nonexistent, and he expects me to follow suit if I want him to keep paying me the stipend that barely helps my mom make ends meet.
A flimsy plan formulates in the silence on the endof the phone: if I barely see Sloane, I’ll have nothing to tell, and I’ll chalk my failure up to chance. Easy.
“Andrew?” my father cuts through my thoughts with a decisive edge that confirms what I already know—refusing him will never be an option.
I run a hand through my hair, relishing the cool air that hits my face as I walk to my car.
“Yeah. Got it,” I lie, praying he doesn’t hear the slippery deception in my voice.
“Great. Talk soon, kiddo.”
Fucking kiddo, I think to myself, as walk back to the fraternity housing he cuts the check for.
4
Sloane
Fourteen years ago
Gloria, our social worker, is a round woman, her cheeks red in that splotchy way that people who sweat a lot tend to have, and she smells like maple syrup, which only makes me want to throw up more on the bumpy ride through northern Georgia. Grant squeezes my hand in the back seat as the beefy woman turns, a hollow smile on her face like she isn’treallyhappy about this outcome, but professionally can’t say otherwise.
