His eyes slid back to me in question, but Ma looked absolutely horrified.
“I mean, well, he broke in because he was looking for information,” Blake quickly added. “See, we were both after the same guy, but I got the information first. He needed it too, and then we fought?—”
“You fought a woman?” Ma gasped. “Michael Benjamin Parker, I taught you better than to hit a woman!”
“Hey, she shoved me through a window!” I snapped, defending myself, butinadvertently threw Blake under the bus. “I had glass sticking out of my stomach!”
“Yes, but I did take you to get help.”
“Yeah, and then you tried to ditch me,” I scowled, but quickly realized that our arguing was only making matters worse. “I mean, it was a rough time. We were…stuck in the middle of a job and…Look, it was complicated.”
We both stood stock still, waiting for the axe to fall. If only Blake hadn’t mentioned the window, not that it would have mattered much. The story would come out eventually.
But the look on Pop’s face said it all.
You’re a disappointment.
You never should have left us.
“So, while the farm was falling apart, you were off playing Army Ranger with your girlfriend.”
“I wasn’t playing anything,” I hissed in anger. “I was working to clear my name.”
“Yeah? How’d that work out?”
“Fucking great,” I snapped. “The president overturned my conviction and I was honorably discharged. He even offered me a job.”
“The president?” Ma murmured. “You had a meeting withthepresident?”
“It wasn’t exactly a meeting,” Blake clarified. “He sort of dropped by where we were staying and—well, we were both sweaty from working out, and it was not at all dignified.”
Pop’s eyes slid back to Blake. I wanted to tell her to shut up, to stop trying to make things better, but that would only make her look bad, and I needed her on my side.
“And what was your role in all this?” Pop hissed at her. “What did you get my son involved in?”
“Excuse me?”
“Pop, she didn’t get me involved in anything?—”
“It sounds like she got you into a world of trouble. You should have been home,” Pop argued.
There was a lot I could put up with—attacks on me were a given—but Blake was off limits. Without her, I wasn’t sure I would have made it through any of the last few months. The thought of starting over with her was all that helped me push through.
“It’s because of her, and a few other people, that I’m even standing here today. She helped me get my life back!”
“Lower your voice, son. We’re in public.”
“Ben, maybe this isn’t the time,” Ma said, trying to ease the tension in the room.
“He brought her with him. I’d say now is the perfect time.”
“I brought her home because she’s going to be my wife!”
All the air in the room was sucked out, leaving it so quiet that the beeping of a monitor on the other side of the hospital could be heard with crystal clear precision.
Or so I imagined.
This wasn’t the way I had planned to pop the news to my parents, but I would not stand by as they berated the woman I loved.
