“Did you steal?” he asked, but then continued as if talking to himself and tapping his fingers on the steel table. “No, you’re not greedy. Assault, maybe?” He shook his head at me. “But you never liked to pick battles that you could lose. With someone weaker, perhaps. You were always a little coward that way.”
I balled my other hand into a fist and concentrated on breathing.
Sitting there, forced to listen to his internal musings that he was so gracious to let me hear, I wondered if he just pulled this shit out of his ass or if he really was that perceptive.
Was I greedy? No, I didn’t think so. Did I pick battles with weaker opponents? It took me a minute to consider, but yes, I did.
But that was only because everyone was weaker than me.
Everyone.
“So it must be drugs, then.” He slapped his hand down on the table, startling me, and I looked down, away from his eyes, out of reflex. “I’d believe that. With your mother and me, it’s in the blood.”
Everyone. I reminded myself.
“You don’t know me,” I said, my voice low and even.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
No. He left me—and thank God for that—when I was two. He spent a few weeks with me one summer.
He did not know me.
Clenching Tate’s necklace, I stared at him hard. It was time to shut him up.
“How long are you in for? Six more years?” I asked. “What does it feel like to know that you’ll have gray hair before you get laid again? Or drive a car? Or get to stay up past eleven on a school night?” I raised my eyebrows, hoping my condescending questions would push him back in place. “You don’t know me, and you never did.”
He blinked, and I held his gaze, daring him to come at me again. It looked like he was studying me, and I felt like I had a sniper scope on me, zoning in.
“What is that?” He gestured to the necklace in my hand.
I looked down, not realizing that I had threaded my fingers through the light green ribbon. It was obvious I had something in my fist, and all of a sudden my heart started thundering away.
I wanted to leave.
Thinking about Tate and my father in the same thought, and having my father see something of hers, disgusted me.
You know the flowers a magician pulls out of their hand? At that moment, I wanted to be the flowers and go back into hiding. I just wanted to sink into the chair and be out from under his dirty eyes, taking the necklace with me where it would be safe.
“What’s her name?” His voice was low, almost a whisper, and I cringed despite myself.
Raising my eyes again, I saw him smile like he knew everything.
Like he had me under his thumb again.
“Six years, huh?” He licked his lips. “She’ll be in her twenties by then.” He nodded, and I saw flames, not missing his meaning by a long shot.
Mother. Fucker.
Slamming my hand down on the table, I heard gasps from those around us as I shoved my chair back and stood up to glare at him.
Whatever I was shooting from my eyes burned like hell.
I wanted him dead. And I wanted it to be painful.
Hot air rushed in and out of my nose, sounding like a distant waterfall.
“What’s wrong inside of you?” I growled. “Is it broken, dead, or just numb?”
My father looked up at me, not scared—I wasn’t a threat to him after all—and answered with the most sincerity I had ever seen from him. “Don’t you know, Jared?” he asked. “You have it, too. And so will your useless kids. No one wants us. I knew I didn’t want you.”
My face didn’t relax. It just fell, and I didn’t know why.
“I have a birthday present for you.” Tate’s dad appeared in my driveway, hands in his pockets, as I got out of my car.
I shook my head, feeling the f**king weight of the visit with my father crawling all over my skin. I’d just sped all the way home from the prison, and I needed a distraction.
“Not now,” I bit out.
“Yes, now,” he shot back, turning to walk back to his house, assuming I’d follow.
Which I did. If only to get him to stop busting my balls.
Traipsing behind him into his open two-car garage, I immediately halted with the disaster in front of me.
“What the hell happened?” I burst out, shocked.
The fully restored Chevy Nova that had sat in this garage for as long as Tate and Mr. Brandt had lived here was completely totaled. Well, not completely. But it was a f**king wreck. It looked like it’d been used in a baseball game between King Kong and Godzilla. Windows were shattered, tires slashed, and that was the easy stuff. Dents the size of basketballs covered the door panels and hood, and the leather seats were cut up.
“Happy Birthday.”
I jerked my head over at him and pinched my eyebrows together in confusion. “Happy Birthday? Are you crazy? This car was in great shape yesterday. Now you’ve turned it into a piece of junk, and I can have it?”
Not that I needed a car. Jax would get mine as soon as he turned sixteen and got a license, and I’d be buying another car any day now with the money from my grandfather’s house.
“No, you can’t have it. You can fix it.”
Gee, thanks.
“I figured you might need a little automotive therapy after today, so I decided to break out the sledgehammer and invent a project for you.”
Were all of the adults in my life on f**king crack?
James walked towards me, to the front of the car. “All that shit you feel, Jared…the frustration, the anger, the loss, whatever it is…” he trailed off and then continued, “it’s going to find a way out eventually, and you’re going to have to deal with it someday. But for now, just keep busy. It won’t cure anything, but it will help you calm down.”