My father ignored the mess he’d made, wiped his hands, and attempted to fill his glass a second time while muttering under his breath.
No time like the present. Things weren’t getting any better.
“I’m enlisting.”
His eyes lifted to mine in slow motion, his head remaining still, chin tilted down. The look he leveled at me chilled me to the bone.
“You want to repeat that?”
What the fuck was I thinking? He had pull. Maybe not enough to get me disqualified, but risking my dream, my escape route, was idiotic.
“I said I’m listening.”
His brow furrowed. “To what? You’re not making any sense.”
“Do you want me to clean that up and pour for you?” I asked, holding myself in check so I didn’t step forward into hoping he was drunk enough that the change in topic wouldn’t throw up any red flags.
Today was only the first meeting with the recruiter. We started the paperwork for my enlistment, but several steps remained. Which meant I needed to make nice for as long as possible. As much as I hated the thought.
“I’m sorry I missed the event.”
“Fuck it. It was a bunch of pussy ass-kissers who will vote for me anyhow.”
A scream of frustration built in my belly, swelling me up like a dead thing in a scorching sun on the verge of explosion.Make niceflashed in my head, reminding me to let the vitriol I felt go. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to say in response, so I stood there, outside his reach with a cushion to run if needed, but not so far as to trigger his anger. And I waited.
“There’s a present for you. My assistant arranged it.”
The words, so softly spoken, they sounded ghostly, drifted toward me. The old man never looked up, so at first I thought I’d imagined them until he spoke again.
“Well…aren’t you going to ask what it is?” His gaze found mine this time over the crystal highball glass poised for a drink before his face.
So, luxury it was, at least for now.
“Sorry, um…what is it?”
The whiskey disappeared in one go. The glass met the marble just shy of breaking. His gait was even more unsteady now than it had been when he moved through the room earlier. He stopped in front of the hall table where his briefcase lay. Clicks of metal echoed in the room, their only competition the sound of the surf coming through the still-open patio doors.
A thick manila folder landed on the island with a thud, skidding across the slick, white marble toward me. Without a word of explanation, he picked up the glass he’d abandoned, grabbed the bourbon bottle, and turned toward the back staircase.
A few steps up, he paused and, without turning back, said, “Welcome to adulthood.”
The gruff timbre of his voice held a melancholy note, one I heard every year for as long as I could remember, when he’d hand me whatever gift his assistant at the time bought for me.
The door to his bedroom shut, the sound echoing upstairs and down, which meant he had to have slammed the thing—hard—given how far away it was from where I stood.
Picking up the packet, I turned it over in my hands before opening the clasp and dumping its contents onto the island. I pushed things around, only reading what jumped out at me. After a few minutes, the scoff I couldn’t contain turned to rueful laughter.
“Thanks, Dad. I love you too.”
Sarcasm dripped from the words in case my father waited in the shadows for my reaction. Who was I kidding? The man never waited or worried about me once in my whole goddamn life.
My fingers pushed aside papers until I found the two that really jumped out at me. I shock my head. In one hand he handed me my freedom, and in the other, a leash. Setting down the photo taken of Kelly and me on the riverbank—thought you didn’t know who I was with, Dad—I hoped the sleazy asshole my father kept on retainer enjoyed the show.
An ink pen lay among the papers that tumbled out of the envelope. Picking it up, I turned it in my hand, scoffing at the logo emblazoned on the shaft as I signed the documents granting me my freedom. Once done, I pushed all the paperwork into a pile, climbed the stairs, and packed the shit I gave a damn about. On my way downstairs, the old man came out of the bedroom, the ruddiness of his face more pronounced than usual.
“What you don’t take will be tossed out. So get it now,” he said, the words so slurred they sounded computer-generated.
“Fuck you,” I said.
