He huffs, pushing away from the bar so hard the stool falls to the floor.
“God, you’re such a fucking brat,” he grumbles under his breath as he bends over and rights it, turning on his heel and leaving.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
TEN
AUSTIN
Dad isn’t passedout in his chair like he normally is when I get home from work, which is odd, but I don’t think too much of it. I switch on the lamp by the door so he’ll have enough light to stumble to his chair when he gets in, and head down the hall with a yawn.
I only stream when Dad’s passed out drunk or if I know he’ll be gone for a couple of days. It prevents any surprises—like him coming home mid-stream and hearing his daughter fake-moaning for strangers on the internet. Even though I really need the money, especially now that Maddox won’t be watching anymore, I’m sort of grateful I won’t be able to stream tonight. I’m exhausted.
Or at least I was. Now, I’m on high alert.
My bedroom door is open, even though I know I locked it when I left this morning, like I always do. Unease creeps in and I know before I even go inside what I’ll find. It doesn’t make the sight any less painful.
My bedroom’s in shambles. The drawers of my dresser are all pulled out and my clothes are scattered around the room. Even my box of sex toys has been dumped out on my bed, which Ireally, really don’t want to dwell on considering I know it was my dad that ransacked the room.
The sight of my closet makes the muscles tighten in my throat and my eyes sting.
I’ve always kept the boxes my boots come in because they make handy storage containers. When stacked on top of one another and tucked against the wall, they’re also a handy way to hide a loose floorboard in the back corner of the closet. Under that loose floorboard, I keep an old metal coffee can with a plastic lid. Every penny I make from bartending goes in that can and I do my best to keep it there unless I absolutely have to dip into it. Thereshouldbe just about five grand stashed in that coffee can.
But I don’t have to step over the torn up boot boxes and walk over to the gaping hollow in the floor to know my money is gone. I do anyway, because hope is a bitch, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
I used to keep my money in the only bank in town, just like everyone else, but the head teller frequently welcomed my father into her bed. She had no issue telling him how much was in my account.
Once, she’d even withdrawn money from it for him—off the record, of course. There was no one to hold her accountable so I’d just had to deal with it. Small towns are like that.
As far as my Dad is concerned, it is my duty to take care of him now that I am grown up because he’d taken care of me for eighteen years. Apparently, that also entitled him to my money.
The bank teller agreed with him, but he wouldn’t surround himself with anyone who didn’t. Dad sitting on his ass in his recliner day in and day out, drowning his liver or snorting coke while I worked fifty hours a week to pay all his bills? Well, the good Lord says they ought not judge, so they just turn a blind eye.
When I feel tears in my eyes, I take a deep breath. I fuckinghate crying. I refuse to. Instead, I try to calm down so I can think clearly.
I still have money from streaming in an online bank he doesn’t know anything about. Thanks to Maddox’s most recent contributions, there was a decent amount in there, but not so much that a loss of five grand wasn’t an issue.
The front door slams, destroying my attempts at calming myself and causing me to make reckless choices. Storming down the hallway, I nearly bump into him as he stumbles towards the kitchen.
“Where’s my money?” I demand, like the dilation in his eyes and the sweat on his forehead isn’t proof enough. Dad isn’t just drunk. Five grand doesn’t just get you drunk.
It gets you enough coke for a week-long bender.
His hand drops from where he’d been rubbing his nose, surprise flashing on his face at my sudden appearance. It only lasts a second before it flips to a defensive rage. Despite his stained tank top and ill-fitting jeans, he looks stronger than he has in months as he towers over me.
“Yourmoney?” he booms, eyes wild. The veins in his forehead bulge. “You mean the money you make inmyhouse, usingmywifi to whore yourself out?”
My stomach drops like I’m on the 82nd floor of the Empire State Building, but I do my best not to let it show on my face. Somehow, word had either gotten out, or he’d seen the container of sex toys and assumed. He wasn’t smart enough to put those pieces together himself though.
Had Maddox told someone?
Was the whole town gossiping about me? I guess it wasn’t considered gossip if it was true.
“The house is yours in name only. If it wasn’t for mewhoring myself out, the mortgage and Wi-Fi wouldn’t even get paid,” I reply with more courage in my voice than I feel.
Perhaps it’s not courage.
Perhaps it’s stupidity, because the next words out of mymouth could only come from someone who has no sense of self-preservation or common sense. “You won’t even hold down a job, so I don’t know where you get off on?—”
