Cane stopped walking too, pulling off his sunglasses.
“Kandy, what the hell?” Dad yelled. “Your mother and I have been calling you! Why haven’t you been answering the phone?”
“I—I was going to call back when I was ready—“
Dad looked at Cane and grimaced. “I am so sick of you manipulating her, Cane! I swear to God, every time some shit goes down you’re in the fucking picture!”
“Dad, stop!” I shouted, rushing between them. “It was my choice to go with him! I knew how you would react after the school called you so I called Cane and he booked a flight for me to come back here!”
“Why?” Dad barked. “Why couldn’t you just call me and ask me to schedule the flight? Why the hell did it have to be Cane? You told me you weren’t talking to him anymore, but then I get a call from school saying your scholarship was revoked because you were with him? Just doesn’t make any fucking sense, Kandy! Don’t you see he’s ruining your fucking life?”
“He is not ruining my life, so back off, Dad! I mean it!”
Dad’s eyes stretched wider, like he was shocked that I’d spoken to him that way. I could understand why he was. I had never spoken to him that way. I’d shocked myself, to the point I was literally shaking.
“Kandy,” Cane tried to speak, but I held my hand up at him. Cane was only helping and my dad was being a selfish asshole and letting his anger get in the way of what I wanted. Yes, he had a right to be upset, but he needed to realize that he didn’t control me. I’d had it with him.
“Kandy…out of all the men—all the people in this fucking world—you decide to be with him?” Dad questioned, voice lower. “I just can’t wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Well, sometimes things like this don’t make sense, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt him or me because of it, or make me do things just because you want it to be your way. My life is not yours.”
Dad scoffed. “Hurt you? Kandy, I am trying to protect you! I know Cane! I know where he came from and it’s not a good place. I don’t want you getting caught up in any of that!”
“I’m fine,” I asserted.
Dad’s head shook. ”Your mother isn’t going to be happy knowing you’re in Georgia and didn’t tell her.”
“I was going to come home and talk to both of you when I was ready. I didn’t want to talk to you while your head was hot. I wanted us to talk when you’d cooled down. I knew you were pissed, that’s why I stayed away.”
Dad ran a hand over his face. “Can’t believe this shit,” he grumbled, looking from Cane to me. He stared at Cane, but Cane matched his stare, not backing down this time.
“Look, D, I—”
“No—don’t even fucking talk to me!” Dad snapped. “This is what’s going to happen. Mindy is off work tomorrow and so am I. Kandy is coming back home tonight, where she belongs, and tomorrow you are coming over for dinner. I don’t give a shit if you have meetings or flights—you better fucking cancel them because if you don’t show up tomorrow, I will be sure that you never see my daughter again. You aren’t the only person who knows people, Cane.”
I stepped back, peering up at Cane. His jaw was ticking, and his grip tightened around the paper bag of groceries cradled in his arm. “She’s only going home if she says she wants to. Otherwise, she’s coming back with me. You don’t tell her what to do anymore, D. She’s not your fucking puppet.”
Dad started to charge him, but I pressed a hand to his chest and forced him back. Dad was seething like a bull. He hated being challenged, but Cane had a point. My father couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do, and he needed to realize that. I wasn’t nine anymore and he couldn’t ground me over choices like this.
“Dad. Back. Off.” I forced him back some more and he lowered his eyes to mine.
“I want you home, Kandy. Tonight. I mean it,” he snarled.
“And I’ll come home, as long as you promise not to hurt Cane.”
Dad’s seething settled a bit. His eyes flickered over to Cane’s before dropping again. “Fine. But if he’s not there tomorrow, he stays away. I mean it.”
“Fine.”
Dad grunted, jerking himself away.
“I’m going back with him to get my suitcase and I’ll have him drop me off.”
“I mean it,” Dad repeated, pointing a finger at Cane. “You don’t show and I will fucking ruin you. She claims you love her so much? Well, tomorrow you’re going to fucking prove it to me.”