“My father is fucking standing on my front porch, Elizabeth, and I don’t want you here for whatever is about to happen.” I buckle her in.
“Now get the hell out of here and be careful. I’ll call you when I can.”
“Marc,” she protests so softly, I almost change my mind.
“No, Elizabeth. Go the fuck home.” I slam the door and wait with my arms crossed for her to put the truck in reverse and back out of the driveway before I turn and face the nightmare waiting for me on my front porch. God, I hope she’s sober enough to drive home, but she can’t stay here. My skin crawls the closer I get to him; there’s no way in hell I want Elizabeth anywhere near him. He can be so unstable and I don’t know where his head is at. She doesn’t need to be here. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s no way to greet your father,” he says. “Who was the girl?”
“None of your business.”
His jaw tightens, and that’s all the sign I need to know he hasn’t changed. He may be showing restraint, but he’s ready to pop me in the jaw for that. “You guys lost tonight.”
“You didn’t fly all this way to tell me how I’ve fucked up in the game lately. Why are you here?”
“We can’t go inside? It’s cold out here.”
“No.”
His eyes narrow. I don’t care that I can see the curls of air from his breath thanks to the light from the road. We can both freeze to death. Besides, it’s not that damn cold. I could use something more than my suit jacket, but I’m not shivering just yet either. I wait him out with my hands in my pockets and my eyes on his.
When I was a kid, I was terrified to look into his eyes. They were often hateful, sometimes crazy looking, and he’d rather I keep my eyes downcast than look at him head-on anyway. To look him in the eyes was a challenge to his authority. Sometimes, it still bothers me to do it because when I do it now, it’s out of defiance. To show him that I can do it and appear to have no problem doing so. Sometimes, I feel guilty about it. He took care of me in his own way, whether it was a good one or not, when he could’ve given me up. Often, I wished he had. But he didn’t and for some reason, I feel like he deserves some credit for that.
“I want to move here,” he finally says.
He has to be kidding. Is he looking for approval from me? He’s not going to get it. There’s no way I want my father to live in the same country as me, much less the same town.
“Why?”
“My therapist thinks it would be a good idea.”
Ha, I bet he convinced her it would be a good idea. He can be a manipulator and I don’t think his therapist can keep from falling for his ‘I’m healed from being a mean bastard with an addiction’ act.
“Why?”
“She wants me to improve my relationship with you. Kind of hard to do that when you ignore my calls ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“I’ll start answering your calls. Problem solved, and you don’t have to move all this way. Call a cab and get back to the airport. It’s late and considering I’m playing as shitty as I’m sure you’d like to tell me, sleep would be good for me, especially since I have to get my truck back at some point.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You’re not going to answer my calls.”
“Can you blame me?” I interrupt. “Look at all I’ve done for you after what you did to me! You still haven’t apologized to me, Dad, because you don’t think you should! Why the fuck would I want to deal with you more than I have to?”
My father steps forward until we’re nose to nose. “Don’t you talk to me that way.”
I step closer to him, my chest brushing against his. “Get the fuck out of my face, old man, or you’ll learn what it’s like to be knocked flat on your ass with one punch.”
He takes a step back and starts laughing. “You’re going to be just like me, you know. There’s a reason for the phrase like father, like son. You may think you’re better than me, but you’re not. One of these days, you’ll find out when that pretty little blonde does something or says something and the next thing you know, you’ve clocked—”
I grab him by the collar and throw him against the door with my forearm pressing into his neck. “The only person who brings out the inner bastard who is like you is you. So if anyone’s going to get clocked, it’s going to be you. Stay the hell away from me. Don’t show up to my house unannounced and uninvited again. Call all you want and if I want to speak to you, I will. Otherwise, you can fucking cry a river and deal with being ignored. I like my life just fine without you in it.
“If you have issues with our relationship, that’s your problem. You created those issues, not me. I don’t have to help you solve them if I don’t want to, and I don’t want to because you can spew whatever shit you want, but I don’t believe you’ve changed one fucking bit. You still wish you could beat me. You still call me to berate me for whatever the hell you feel like berating me for that day. You still let your bastard side slip whenever I’ve pissed you off. You still accept my money instead of getting your fucking own. You. Haven’t. Changed.
“Here’s the new plan,” I say, feeling so powerful right now. “You can call me once a week, and I’ll answer or I won’t. You don’t call my agent or anyone else to get up with me. You don’t show up or come here unless asked. You call me more than once a week or show up again and I’m cutting you off. No more money. No more support from me.”
“You wouldn’t,” he breathes.
“Try me.” I let go, enjoying that he gasps for breath. I pull out my phone and call him a cab myself.