Pepper got quiet.
“Get the fuck out,” Auggie repeated.
“I am not a fan of you speaking to me that way,” his mom said.
“You know what?” Auggie asked of Dem. “Honest to God, I don’t know why you take her back. She’s a piece of work. My advice, get home faster than her, bar the door, call a goddamn locksmith and be done with it.”
And after he said that, he ignored his mother’s enraged gasp, carefully moved Pepper out of his way, approached his mom, bent and picked up her bags.
He then shoved through her and his dad, went to the front door, opened it and sent them flying down the front walk, one after the other.
They wanted drama.
There it was.
“Augustus!” Dana screeched.
“Boy, that was over the top,” Dem bit out.
He leveled his gaze on his dad. “You know I can put you both out. Don’t make me.”
Father and son stared each other down.
It was no surprise to Auggie that he won, swiftly, because it didn’t even take three seconds. His father backed down and grabbed Dana’s hand.
This was because Dem was weak and every second of Auggie’s life, he’d been demonstrating just how deep that flaw ran.
He couldn’t even win a staring contest, for fuck’s sake.
Which was why, to his mother’s muttering and griping, Dem got Dana to and through the door.
Auggie locked the storm door behind them and shut and locked the front door.
He then turned to Pepper.
“Still want me to come have dinner with you and Juno tomorrow?” he asked bitingly.
“Take a breath,” she urged.
“I can take a dozen of them, that does not make that bullshit go away.”
“Take one anyway.”
He drew in a short, sharp breath.
“Another one, honey,” she encouraged.
He did it again, it was longer, it went deeper.
It didn’t help much, but at least he didn’t want to shout or tear apart his living room anymore.
“One more. For me,” she requested. “This time, pay attention to nothing but that breath going in. It doesn’t have to be a deep breath. Just focus on the in and out of it.”
He did that too.
Okay, a little better. Not a lot. But it was something.
“I’m gonna get you another beer,” she declared when he’d let out that last breath. “Come with me?”
He looked at her, taking her in.
She seemed calm, alert, watching him closely.
Not like she was biding time until it wouldn’t seem too rude to ask him to take her home because she suddenly got a “headache.”
So he nodded.
She gave him a small smile and held her hand out to him.
He approached her, took it, and she walked him to his kitchen.
Once there, she got him a beer, rested her ass against his counter, waited until he took a slug, and the minute he dropped his arm, she said, “Talk to me.”
“Not sure what to say,” he replied. “That pretty much said it all,” and he used his bottle to indicate the living room.
“It said a lot about them, but I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah, and I’m worried about how you feel about being with a guy who not only has parents like that, but who has no hesitation getting down and dirty with them,” he returned.
She sounded confused when she asked, “Gets down and dirty with them?”
He indicated the living room with another tip of his beer bottle, this one a lot more agitated.
“Babe, that didn’t do me any favors in there,” he noted.
“They forced their way in,” she said.
“Yeah, I was the one who they pushed through to do it,” he confirmed.
“Auggie, honestly, I was really kinda surprised it took you so long to lose it with them. I mean, you’re used to them, but take it from an outsider. That was crazy.”
He stared at her.
“Seriously,” she went on, “it was like you didn’t exist, even though they’d come to you. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“I don’t,” he stated.
“Sorry?”
“I don’t exist.”
Watching her react to those words was like watching a slow motion of crash test dummies in a car, hitting a barrier. Her body swayed forward and back, her eyes locked to him.
“We can just say that my mom didn’t make sure to get up every day so that I had a good breakfast,” he continued.
And that made her wince.
But he wasn’t done.
“I’m nothing to them until they decide it’s time for my character to enter the scene. I never have been, Pepper. Right now, they’ve totally forgotten about me. They’re either on the sidewalk having it out. Or in their vehicles, racing each other home in order to have it out. Or they’ve decided who’s next to drag into their drama, and they’re heading there. The fact they forced their way into this house, into our day, did what they did, said what they said, got the reaction they got out of me doesn’t factor to them. He’s about him and her, because I honestly think he loves her, it’s just fucked-up love. She’s just about her, the end. And that’s all there is.”