“Everything.” Mr. Newman cocked his bushy eyebrows at me, knowledge swimming in his gray eyes. “Everything is the man’s fault. Women are the delicate creatures we want to catch, but we always screw it up.” He paused, supporting his weight with his arms on the poles. “You’re like the butterfly, but we’re too stupid to come after you with a net, so we grab a catcher’s mitt.”
I thought of Tony and smirked. “Or a ball bat.”
“Right.” His brow creased in worry. “But you don’t mean that literally, right? That a boy came at you with the ball bat? That’s a metaphor?”
“Yes,” I said with a smile. “That’s a metaphor. My ex-boyfriend didn’t use a bat, but he did start playing the field. There were a lot more girls in that field than I first realized.”
“One of those,” he snarled.
“Yep.”
“I hope your new boyfriend is loyal.”
“He is,” I said. “I mean…he would be if we were serious.”
Mr. Newman began his steps again, sluggish, but he was committed. “From the dazed expression on your face,” he said between labored breaths, “looks like it’s already serious for you.”
Cade
Paul was frowning at me, and I was used to him frowning at me, but usually it was because I didn’t say anything to him. This time around, my father frowned because I had just said a whole lot of things to him, none of which he wanted to hear.
“No.” He shook his head as if I had asked a question rather than made a statement. “I won’t let you do it, Cade. I won’t let you quit college after you’ve come this far with your speech. You wanted to be a lawyer. You are going back to college. Just because—”
“Just because my three partners have surpassed me? Just because I’ve lost every ounce of passion for law since the accident?” I hadn’t stammered or stuttered once since I left Tasha’s house this morning. I felt such a stab of certainty about my future, every word flowed easily.
My dad, though I suspected he was impressed, was shaking his head at my insistence that lawyering was not for me.
“You can finish your bachelor’s degree,” he said. “Go to law school from there.”
Which would require almost every waking moment of my life. I thought of Tasha, frowning at how little I’d see her if I resumed my full class load. I’d followed a girl to school who left me once. Was I leaving school for a girl this time?
“I’m sure your friends will let you move in. You can study together. It might be to your benefit that they’re a year ahead of you.”
“No,” I growled.
“Dammit, Cade! Finish what you started.”
“I don’t want to finish what I s-started.” Shit. He’d rattled me, and it was starting to show. I pulled a sharp breath in through my nose and closed my eyes. I heard Tasha’s voice in my head telling me to relax.
When I opened my eyes, my dad wasn’t frowning at me. He was looking at me like I was fragile, and that was so much worse.
His voice was soft when he spoke next. “Son, I want you to have an opportunity to make something of yourself.”
“I’m good with cars,” I stated, speaking slowly. “I can make something of myself in the garage.”
“No street racing, Cade. I mean it.”
“Do you th-think I’m that big of an idiot?” My pulse skyrocketed.
“I don’t think you are an idiot at all. But take it from a guy who knows how addictive illegal activities are,” my dad said. “It was easy money for you.”
That was it. I’d had it. I pushed out of the kitchen chair and stood, planting my fists on the table. He stood with me. Unlike last year, when he was neck deep in gambling debts and had taken to eating ice cream like it was a sport, he had recently gotten back down to his old fighting weight. I wouldn’t be throwing punches at my old man ever again. I was different and so was he. Plus, he would throw one back.
“Street racing cost me more than I made,” I said, dragging out the M sound a bit too long.
He looked away for a second, then looked back at me. “Then take this opportunity, what you’ve worked so hard to regain after losing it, and go back to school.”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer, Dad.”
I wanted Tasha. I wanted to be underneath a car for the majority of the day. What I didn’t want was to carry a bus tub through a greasy kitchen five nights a week. What I didn’t want was test anxiety, or trying to fit in with my peers, or getting arrested for knocking Tony’s teeth out, which would happen if I ever ran into him at a party.
“Think about it, son. That’s all I’m asking.”
But I was done thinking. This time around, I was choosing my future. And it had nothing to do with my past.
“Where are you going?” my dad called, but he sounded more tired than angry.
“To see Tasha,” I said. To tell her my plan. To thank her for helping me gain control, not only of my speech issues but of my life.
She would never ask me to do something I didn’t want to. My future was with her. I didn’t know yet how that was going to work out, or if she’d even have me, but if I had a chance with her, it was worth taking.