8
GROW UP
The dinging of the phone made Dean sit up in bed. No one ever called him early in the morning so that meant something had to be wrong. Either family or the bar.
When he reached over to grab it, he saw it was his sister, Willow, calling and that it was six.
Damn, he’d overslept. “Hello.”
“Dean?” Willow said. “Are you sleeping?”
“I was,” he said, swinging his legs over the bed and rubbing his hands through his hair.
“Must have been a late night. Sorry, I thought you got home earlier now that you’re a dad.”
“I got home at nine, in bed at ten. Guess I slept harder than normal.” Thankfully Jonah did too and he didn’t get his son up until seven. Even if Dean slept until seven, Jonah wouldn’t know. His son didn’t like waking in the morning, but they had shit to do on his day off of Pre-K.
“I don’t know how you manage it all.”
Sometimes he didn’t either.
“Is there a reason you called?” he asked. He wasn’t close to anyone in his family. If he had to say one person he wouldn’tmind being stuck in a room with for more than an hour, it’d be his younger sister, Willow. Three hours was the max though. Their ten year age difference played a huge part.
“I just need someone to vent to.”
Which meant either his grandfather or his mother was putting the pressure on her as they did him. “What happened this time?”
“I’ve got one more year of business school and I just don’t want to finish. It’s not for me.”
He snorted. “Willow. How many degrees do you even have?”
“I don’t know. The first two don’t count because they were what Grandpa thought I should do. I never wanted to work in fashion or be an interior decorator. Just because I like to look good or putter around the house doesn’t mean I wanted that to be my life.”
“You’re at fault for giving in to him.”
“He controls our money,” Willow said.
“No. Youlethim. I got away from that.”
“Yeah, well, thanks to you, we aren’t allowed to get the money unless we are following through with things. Why is he that way?”
He laughed. “Don’t put that blame on me. I’m not getting controlled by anyone. I’ve watched it with Mom and Dad. Dad likes the lifestyle too much. So does Mom. Everyone in the family has just fallen in line if they wanted to see those extra greenbacks.”
“Except you. The apple of Grandpa’s eye. I think ‘the betrayal’ hurt worse. Your betrayal. He had such high hopes for you.”
This was the last shit he wanted to deal with this morning.
Being blamed for things beyond his control.
He was the only one not willing to be a puppet, yet somehow it was his fault.
“You’re just going to piss me off,” he said, standing up and finding a pair of shorts to slip on. He slept naked and loved it, but he didn’t enjoy walking to his kitchen buck-assed naked where people could see through the windows if they were looking. He’d learned that the hard way years ago.
“I feel like we are all watched more now.”
He was in the kitchen putting coffee in the filter. He was old school—none of that one cup flavored shit. He drank it black, strong, and by the potful.
“Go out and get a job like a real person.”
