1
Emma
“Where is he?” the hulking behemoth snarls as his eyes scan the room, looking for the unnamed person in question.
The popcorn falls from my mouth as I sit frozen on the couch of the apartment dad and I just moved into last week. The one that, until a few seconds ago, had a perfectly functioning front door. But that front door is now completely horizontal, flush with the floor and underneath the soles of the biggest boots I’ve ever seen.
One minute my eyes are on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on our TV and the next they’re taking in the sight of a gigantic man putting his shoulder through the door, the hinges tearing away with ease.
“H…hhh…who?” I manage to get out from behind rattling teeth.
“You know who. Your father. Mike Martin,” he growls, his dark orbs focusing in on me as if I’m hiding him somewhere. As if I know exactly where he is. And I do.
Here we go again. Dad promised our new move was going to “solve all our problems” only to find out what he really meant was it was going to solve all his problems, as in his inability to not screw over business partners, long enough to maintain a residence to start receiving mail there.
I make myself as small as I can on the couch, which is really saying something considering I am small for my nineteen years, and I was already curled up tiny enough to practically fit into a FedEx overnight package.
It’s my only day off this entire month and instead of focusing on a movie or two, I need to focus on staying alive. But even though I’m terrified, the thought briefly slips from my mind as my eyes scan over this intruder’s huge frame, coming to rest on his very much protruding groin.
Swallowing hard, I start to wonder what this behemoth has planned for me after he takes care of my dad. I’ve never actually seen what a man keeps in his pants, but something tells me this giant is ready to give me a front-row seat, and a whole lot more.
This is definitely not the way I was planning on losing my innocence, and the surprise is exponentially greater given the fact that something in my mind is telling me I might actually…enjoy it.
“Get your sorry ass out here, Mike!” he calls out. “The longer you make me wait the more I’m going to pummel you.”
Not a sound from my dad, who unbeknownst to the imposing figure who’s threatening my dad in his own house, is cowering behind the couch at this very moment. If he’s not still passed out.
“I know you’re here you douchebag,” he continues. “Don’t think your pretty little girl is going to save your ass. Oh, and by the way, what kind of man leaves a woman to fight his battles? Loser.”
“Hey! That’s my dad you’re talking about,” I pipe in, a shot of courage causing the mouth that seems to always get me in trouble, to come flying open. The truth of the matter is that my dad isn’t exactly the best dad or the best anything. Loser? Depends on who you ask, but blood is thicker than water and nobody calls my dad a loser to my face and gets away with it.
I spring from the couch and start pounding my fists above my head into the chest of this good looking, muscular, extremely masculine, alpha hole. And all it does it cause him to tip his head back and roar in laughter.
“You gotta do a lot better than that,” he cautions, grabbing both my wrists in one go, his big calloused mitt easily lifting me straight up off the ground.
“I have your kid, Mike. What do you have for me?”
“Turn the TV down already,” a raspy, hungover voice calls out from behind the couch just before an arm wraps over the top and slowly my dad’s face appears.
His look immediately goes from annoyed to scared out of his pants, which is fitting considering he rarely wears pants, preferring to lounge around the house in his tighty whiteys. No wonder I don’t have many friends, let alone consider ever having them over.
“Elijah,” he swallows. “I thought you were—“
“Released early due to good behavior, and overcrowding. And my fist is gonna crowd your jaw with some really bad behavior if you don’t cough up my cash, pronto,” he demands, redirecting my dad’s sentence to fit his annoyed narrative.
“We don’t have any money,” I shout, bringing my knee up quickly, trying to catch him in the groin, but he only extends his arm out farther, keeping me at a literal arm’s distance as I miss wildly, and my body swings like I’m attached to some sort of human amusement park ride.
How in the world he can support my entire weight with his arm locked out straight is beyond me. Then again it’s the same shoulder he just used to crumble a steel-reinforced front door without breaking a sweat, as he entered ready to break my dad in more pieces than a jigsaw puzzle.
“Give. Me. My. Money,” he commands.
“Dad, just give him everything in the Ziplock bag in the freezer. It’s all we got.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” my dad threatens, pursing his lips. “Now he knows where to look.”
“No, Mike. You’re going to be the one looking, for a way to get your head outta your ass if you don’t get me what’s mine right…fucking…now.”
Dad scratches his head and appears to instantly sober up, or at least less inebriated than I’ve seen him in weeks. Granted I’m typically pulling twelve-hour shifts every day, plus the commute time, so I don’t see much of him at all. All I hear is his snoring when I’m coming and going. And he wonders why mom left years ago.