Only, he calls me a complete dumbass because I can’t ‘fucking listen to anything he fucking says’ and drives home in much the same way that my dad did.
He then proceeds to tell my father that I was inept, would never get it, and to buy me an automatic because it would be for the best.
And then they both laugh.
They laughed.
I’ve never felt like more of a failure than I did in that minute. But I tell you what. I’m now more determined than ever to learn.
Even if I have to beg some random man in town to teach me.
Sierra
P.S. I swear that my brother and dad are really great. I only tell you the bad things, though, because they piss me off.
• • •
“Um, Malachi?” I heard someone call my name.
I looked up to find the chief himself standing in the SWAT team’s private locker room.
“Yes, sir?” I asked, pulling my Kevlar into place and strapping the Velcro down.
“You have an older man here looking for you. He said he’s your father?” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me carefully.
I groaned and pulled my shirt from the hanger and shrugged that on, too.
“Great,” I grumbled under my breath. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“So you and Sierra?” I heard him ask.
A single brow rose at him in reaction.
I didn’t bother to say a word, just stared at him.
He sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing. And I hope you treat her well.”
I scowled hard at him. “I never said I wouldn’t.”
“No,” he said. “But you’re a fucking powder keg waiting to go off. I just hope that the girl I watched grow up isn’t going to be around when you do.”
This time I squared my shoulders to look at him.
“I’m sorry, but it wasn’t me that treated her like shit lately, was it?” I turned to look at Sammy who hadn’t said a word to me since I walked in. “Did you know that she texted me crying the day that she tried to tell those assholes that she’s pregnant?”
I pointed my finger at one of said assholes.
Luke’s lip twitched at that news, as if he was amused with me calling one of my teammates an asshole.
But it wasn’t just Sammy that I was calling an asshole. I was calling her dad, her sister, and her mother an asshole, too.
They were good people.
I knew they were.
But their reactions when it came to their ‘wild child’ daughter weren’t something that I could stand.
Maybe it was the deep disapproval that I’d always gotten from my own parents that made me dislike parents in general. Maybe not. But I knew that they still hadn’t really bridged the gap that they’d erected between them, and the longer that they let it fester, the more pissed off that I got.
Before I said or did something that I would regret to the girl that was making me feel things that I’d never felt before—and this was supposed to be fake—I left the locker room, missed whacking the chief with my shoulder, and didn’t look back.
It was no surprise to see my father standing in the middle of the bullpen looking as if he had a right to be there.
I walked right up to him and didn’t waste time.
“What are you doing here?” I asked stiffly.
“I’m here to tell you to talk to your grandmother,” he said. “All the hotels around here are sold out, and your mother’s not well enough in her health to continue to drive all over the country looking for one.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that before you drove all the way here. Or, maybe when Grans told you that someone was living in the house, you should’ve listened.”
“We have nowhere else to go, Gabriel,” he said, trying to pull the pity card on me.
Well, he’d taken my pity card and set it on fire.
I didn’t feel shit for that man anymore.
Nor the man’s wife.
I didn’t even claim them as my parents.
The one and only hope that I had left when it came to the two of them flew the fucking coop when they’d given my dog away.
I just couldn’t deal with them and their stupid selfishness anymore.
“I don’t quite care,” I admitted. “But I have to go to work, so maybe you should go look in fuckin’ Montana or something. Something far, far away from where Grans and I are at.”
I didn’t bother to stop and look back to see if my words had struck home or not.
Instead, I walked back through the maze of hallways to the back parking lot.
But before I could even make it through the door to the hallways, Sammy was there at my side, his hands stuffed into his pockets.
Before I could walk away from him, he slid between me and the door to stop my forward movement.