Depends On Who's Asking (SWAT Generation 2.0 12)

She whirled around in her dad’s arms, and he was forced to let her go. She stomped directly toward me and then pushed me out of the way with her hand on my hip so she could point out the bullet holes in her car.

“I just paid my first car payment!” she wailed.

I backed away warily, looking at her as if she was about to break.

She might’ve been.

But she was also pissed.

Once she was done pointing at her car, she turned then, surveying me.

“Who are you?” she asked. “And why are you bleeding all over the place? Go inside and get that taken care of.”

My lips twitched.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said quietly.

I started to walk away, but she stopped me before I could even get five feet. “You didn’t tell me your name!”

I turned around, found her gaze with mine, and said, “Saint. Saint Nicholson.”

Caro narrowed her eyes.

“Saint Nicholson.” Caro tilted her head. “Is that a joke?”

I shook my head. I fucking wished it was. But it wasn’t.

“No. I wish to God it was. But no.”

Then I was once again heading back into the ER to get my wound looked at.

It was as I was breaching the doors of the hospital that I heard Michael say, “Leave him alone, Caro. Now, what did this guy look like?”

The doors closed behind me, cutting off her reply.

• • •

Walking into the duplex that I lived in two hours later, the very last thing I wanted to do was deal with my father.

Yet, my phone rang anyway.

And, like the dumbass I was, I chose to answer it instead of ignoring it.

The one and only time I’d chosen to ignore a call from my father, he’d been in a car wreck. Ignoring it had been bad because I’d had to find out that he was injured by a secret service agent showing up at my door in the middle of the night to let me know.

“Hello?” I grumbled as I poked around in the fridge.

“Son,” my father’s deep voice growled. “How are you?”

I felt my eye twitch. “I’m not coming home. And I’m not quitting.”

My father sighed. “I need you here. At my side. This looks good for me and my reelection.”

It might.

But I seriously didn’t give a fuck.

“And?” I asked.

“Son,” my father said. “You’re not going to be able to continue playing this little game.”

My ‘little game’ was my ‘life.’ My father didn’t like me living my life the way I wanted. He wanted me to live my life the way he wanted. The way that benefited him the best.

“I’m not playing any game, Dad,” I replied tiredly. “I’m living my life. And I’m living the life I want to live, not the one you want me to live. So no, I’m not coming home to help you get reelected. I’ll come if you make it, though. On inauguration day.”

My father sighed.

“Not even for Christmas?” he asked.

No. Not only no, but fuck no.

“Last time I came for Christmas, you made me fucking sit at dinner with a woman that you and Mom wanted to set me up with so you could talk to her father about your possible reelection,” I told him. “So no, I don’t trust you anymore.”

My father sighed again, longer and louder than the previous time.

He seemed to do that a lot.

The year that I’d joined the military, my father lost his reelection to his opponent, knocking him out of the White House after his first term.

And now, my father decided that it was time to run again for his second term. Something that had never, ever been done before but by one other person. I hoped and prayed that he didn’t win, but I had a sick feeling that he might.

Which didn’t spell good things for my future if he did.

“Call your mother in the morning to wish her Merry Christmas. Don’t forget,” Dad ordered.

“Isn’t it a better choice for her to call me and wish me Happy Birthday?” I countered.

I was born on December twenty-fifth, which was why I had such a stupid name. Having a birthday on Christmas day has to be the worst, which is why I always changed my birthday in my mind to a different day of the month.

The bad thing was, years later, they would come to regret naming me ‘Saint’ Nicholson due to not my embarrassment as a child, but their realization that it made them look weird to the political world when my father started running for higher positions in the government.

“Son,” my father continued, “hope you had a good day.”

I didn’t bother telling him about the stitches.

I was sure he’d figure it out sooner or later. I just didn’t want to have to be the one to tell him, because then that’d bring on another lecture that I wasn’t willing to have at that moment in time.