His features went slack for a second, making me think the shock of my words was causing him to have a stroke. I might have hated him, but I didn’t wish anything bad to happen to him. I just wanted to forget my dad’s existence once the next few minutes were over.
I opened my mouth to ask him if he was okay, but before I could say anything, both his fists clenched so hard the knuckles turned white.
“Don’t youfuckingdare,” Ash growled beside me, his eyes lasered onto my dad’s face.
The noise had my dad’s gaze snapping from me to Ash’s face.
Bile surged into my throat at the thought of my dad saying something disgusting to Ash. This was my problem to deal with.
If I thought that I’d felt all the flavors of humiliation courtesy of Dad over the years, I’d been wrong. Having Ash and Mom witnessing his disdain for me was so much worse than I could ever have imagined.
Dad’s anger might as well have been a living, breathing animal that sat in the middle of the table.
“You haven’t said what he’s doing here. Is he here because you’re not brave enough to face me on your own? You need your ‘coach’ to back you up?” My dad sneered at me, flicking his gaze back and between me and Ash, the insinuation of something disgusting in his tone.
To Ash, he spat, “I don’t give a shit why you’re here, this is none of your fucking business.”
“Anywhere Cade asks me to be is my business,” Ash said simply, giving my thigh a tiny squeeze under the table, his hand having relaxed after he’d made his point clear.
“Listen,Ace,” Dad said, pouring revulsion into Ash’s nickname. “I don’t know what right in the goddamn world you think you have to interfere with my family, but this is between me and my son. So, get out of here before I call the cops on you for trespassing.”
“Do what you need to do,” Ash’s tone was completely unfazed. “But I’m not going anywhere unless Cade tells me to leave.”
The wild fear inside me gnawed at the bars of its cage deep in my gut.“Let me out! Tell him to go! He won’t love you after this!”it chanted. The refrain was so loud it became distorted, buzzing in my ears, making it that much harder to keep my promise to myself to allow Ash to see me be vulnerable. I wasn’t about to send him away. I hadn’twantedhim to hear anything my dad might say, but I couldn’t deny the relief of having Ash at my side.
“Frank, what the hell are you doing?” Mom turned sideways in her chair, eyes narrowed. “No one is going to be calling anybody. Ash is a guest in our home. We haven’t lost ourselves so much in this family that we can’t be civil for a single conversation, have we?”
This wasn’t a side of Dad she saw often. Our family motto had always been to ignore his temper and pretend the next day that nothing had happened. I feared that option wasn’t available to her this time, especially with Ash here to witness our dysfunction in all its glory.
“Frank, have you been drinking?”
I blinked at her question. The first unspoken rule of the Kelly family was that we didn’t talk about Dad’s drinking. Where had this version of Mom come from?
“Fuck, Lynn. It’s barely noon. Is that how you talk about the person who’s been supporting this family all these years?” The anger in his tone had reduced by half, even with the profanity.
“As if you’ve been the one supporting the family,” Ash started before my mom cut him off.
“We will talk more after the boys leave, Frank,” she said as she held Dad’s gaze, before glancing at me. “I’ve been letting too many things slide for too many years and believing too many stories you’ve told. But that’s for us to figure out, eh?”
A tense silence fell over the table, before Ash spoke up again.
“Can I excuse myself to the bathroom for a second, Lynn?” A small part of me was thrilled that Ash addressed Mom like she was the only owner of the house, while the other part wondered why the hell he had to leave right this second..
“Of course, Asher dear. Down the back hall, second door on the right.”
He nodded before quietly slipping out of his chair, pressing two fingers to my shoulder before he made his way out of the kitchen.
I chose to believe that Ash did in fact need to use the bathroom and that he wasn’t second guessing his decision to come with me.
It had become crystal clear that it was time to go, and when Ash came back, we’d leave.
I was just done. Done with the cycle of my dad ignoring everything I said and getting angry anyway. It was too debilitating to carry any longer.
“Dad, Ash isn’t going anywhere. He’s part of my life now.”
I didn’t owe him any clarification of what Ash was to me. He could think the worst for all I cared at this point.
“Ah. I see how it is now. You’ve made yourself a little fuck-toy side-piece for Mr. Superstar with all his money. Has he connedyou into thinking he’ll take care of you if you quit hockey?” Each word dripped with disdain.
