“Let’s go talk to Dad,” she said with a smile.
I didn’t want to go in the living room, but she pretty much dragged me in there. She put me almost right in front of the TV. “Nash got to eat lunch with his friend today,” Mom said.
I didn’t think he heard her. “Move out of the damn way,” he growled.
She gently nudged me to the side a few inches. “I was thinking we should invite his friend over this weekend. You could cook some burgers for the boys.”
“Take them to McDonald’s. I’ve got to work this weekend.”
“Both days?” she snapped. “You never spend time with us. Your son would like to see you.”
My dad threw up his hands. “I’m right here.”
He didn’t look at me. I sometimes wondered if he knew what I looked like. I didn’t think he ever looked at me. Mom always looked at me. She told me she looked at me every morning because she needed to know what I was wearing in case I got lost and she had to talk to the police. Dad would never be able to find me because he didn’t know what I looked like at all.
“I ran really fast in football today,” I said. I hoped he would be proud of me. I was working extra hard to get really good at football. If I was good, he might come and watch me play one day.
I waited for him to say something. He didn’t. Maybe he didn’t hear me. “I beat all of the other kids,” I told him.
“Bob!” my mother exclaimed. “Your son is talking to you!”
“Dammit!” he shouted and got to his feet. “I work my ass off all day long. Can’t I have ten minutes of peace and quiet? Do I have to listen to both of you right when I get home? I don’t give a shit if he runs or walks. I’ve got more important things to worry about!”
He hurt my feelings. “I’m going to my room,” I said and rushed out of the room. He was mean. He hated me. He wanted a different son. I was bad. I ran upstairs. Before I made it to my room, I heard a loud crash. I stopped running and was going to see if Mom was okay when I heard her yelling again.
“He needs you to pay attention to him,” she said.
“That’s what you’re here for,” he shot back. “I work and you raise the kid. You don’t need me. What am I supposed to do with him?”
“You’re supposed to act like you love him!” she shouted.
“Dammit! I just want peace and quiet.”
My dad walked by the stairs. I knew he was going to his office. “Go to your room,” Mom said as she followed behind him.
I heard a loud bang and more things breaking. I ran all the way back upstairs and into my room. I closed the door and flopped on my bed. I could hear them yelling and more stuff breaking. I covered my ears with my pillow.
When I grew up, I was never going to be like him. He was a mean man. I heard footsteps on the stairs and hoped they weren’t coming to talk to me. I didn’t want them to talk to me. I wanted to disappear. I knew it was my mom. I could hear her crying as she walked to their bedroom.
He was a mean man. I was never, ever going to have kids. I never wanted to be like him.
Chapter 53
Saige
I ran through the drive thru at Dutch Brothers and ordered two coffees. Nash wasn’t calling me back. He was pissed at me. The more I thought about the incident, the more I could understand why he was mad. I overreacted, and I was prepared to apologize for that, but I would not encourage him to teach him to fight.
When I got to the office, the environment was very different than it had been the last few weeks. Things were much calmer. The damn walls were still up, but I was getting used to them. I didn’t like them, but I didn’t see them anymore. They were just walls. I walked to Nash’s office with the coffees in hand. The door was closed and the lights off.
Just to make sure, I knocked once and then opened it. As I suspected, he wasn’t in. I went to my own office and sat down. He was probably running late. That was the perk of being the boss. He could come and go as he pleased.
It was about twenty minutes later when I realized he still wasn’t in. I walked back up to reception to see if he’d called in to say he was running late. “Hey, has Mr. Aarons called?” I asked.
“Yes, he isn’t coming in today. Or tomorrow. He said to let you know he was going to be out of the office for a while.”
“Did he say why?” I asked.
“Just said he had to take care of some other business.” She looked around and leaned forward. “I think it will be nice to have a little bit of normalcy. It isn’t like we are going to miss him around here.”
“He’s been very kind to everyone here all last week,” I reminded her.
“An anomaly,” she said with a smirk.
“Remember, he’s the boss,” I said. “We should give him the respect he deserves.”
I walked back to my office. I had a feeling I really pissed him off. I pushed him too far. I couldn’t believe he was that upset about me telling him he couldn’t see Jace. He didn’t even know my son. Could there really be some kind of genetic connection?
I shook my head. “No,” I muttered. “Impossible.”
I started my usual Monday morning routine. It really was nice to have a reprieve from the tax deadline. We still had plenty of clients that needed extensions. We were ironing out their tax issues, but the crazy hectic nature of tax season was behind us. This was the lull. We would take a few weeks doing silly things that didn’t matter. Then we’d make promises to ourselves that we were going to get our clients shit in order long before tax season rolled around.
We wouldn’t, but we would keep saying we were going to. It was like a New Year’s resolution. Every year, it was the same damn thing. As I was going through files, I tried to remember I wasn’t going to be here for tax season next year. I didn’t want to leave my clients hanging or the person who took over my clients.
I spent hours writing up notes for what I had planned for the clients. It was the equivalent of writing a report. “Knock, knock,” I heard.
I looked up to find Lana standing in my door. “Hey, come in.”
She sat down with a huge smile on her face. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“What feels good?”
“Being able to breathe without the ghoul staring over my shoulder.”
“The ghoul?” I questioned. I knew who she was talking about, but I wanted to hear her say it.
“You know.”
“Lana are you referring to Nash?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Lana, he’s the owner. You shouldn’t talk about him like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll agree he was nice the last two weeks, but you have to agree he was a royal prick before that. You kicked his ass into shape. If you hadn’t come back, we’d be dealing with a mutiny. I was ready to quit. I’d rather flip burgers than work for him. With the way he was working us, it would have been the same amount of money.”
“I think you’re being hard on him.”
She scoffed. “No. That’s being easy on him. He’s a dick. Like the biggest dick I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”