Fucking knew it.
Zach accepts the device with a scowl as I get up and head into the kitchen.
I should have known Dad wouldn’t care that Alec tried to intimidate me.
God, is it any wonder I take Mom’s side with everything?
“Do you think you were being a little harsh with Dyers, son?”
“I’m not your son.”
“Now, come on. You know I treat you and Pecan like you’re my boys,” Dad dismisses, managing to sound incredibly inauthentic.
As per freakin’ usual.
“Didn’t you hear what Denny said?”
“Denny’s overly sensitive sometimes.”From my thoughts to Dad’s lips.“What Ididhear about was that whole scene in Dopie’s diner. You two keep fighting and things will escalate to the dean’s office.”
“He’s an animal, Rod, and you want me to play with him?”
“No charges were ever brought against him.”
He means that to reassure, but Zach looks even more sus than before.
“You’d know that, how?”
“I check up on future clients.”
When Zach’s face screws up with not just incredulity, but genuine disgust, my heart goes pitter-patter.
I’m a realist. A pragmatist, even.
But Zach doesn’t have to be. Not when he’ll exist in the microcosm that’ll make him a literal god.
He knows he’s going to play in the NHL.
He’s biding his time.
Honestly, some days, I wish I had balls that big.
I guess the other side of the same coin is that Dyers’s the darker version.
Yin and yang…
Zach thinks he’s untouchable.
Dyers does too. But he uses that to get away with shit Zach’d never even think about.
See, kids, this is why you need to be raised by a feminist mother.
I smirk at the thought and pump my fist in memoriam to Joanna, who graced her child with a conscience.
Zach, seeing my silent fist pump, arches a brow at me.
“Just thinking about your mom,” I tell him sweetly as I bring over two cans of soda.
“You were?”
