“I need to use the bathroom.”
He smirks. “There’s a perfectly good flower bed over there,” he tells me. “Go ahead. I won’t look.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
He chuckles. “People always ask me that,” he muses. “I’m starting to think it’s me.”
“Just let me pass.”
“No can do,” he says, crossing his hands over his chest.
I can’t help noticing the way his biceps curl, displaying corded muscle and veins rippling just under his skin.
This guy takes the term “boyish charm” to a whole new level.
Not that I’m charmed by him.
At all.
“Irritated” is the more appropriate word.
“I have to make sure my father is alright,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Your father’s fine.”
“And I’m supposed to just take your word for it?”
“You should,” he says. “I don’t lie.”
I frown. “That right there is a lie.”
“Geez,” he says, practically whistling out the word. “Someone has trust issues.”
“My father needs me.”
“What your father needs is a good AA sponsor. Not that I’m judging or anything. Just some friendly advice.”
“I don’t need your advice,” I snap at him. “Let me through—”
I try to shove past him, but those lean arms push me back. I stumble and almost lose my footing, but he catches me in the nick of time.
One arm wraps around my waist as he hauls me forward.
“Watch yourself, lass.”
“Are you kidding? You’re the one who just pushed me!”
He rolls his eyes as though I’m being dramatic. “I barely touched you,” he says with that one arm still wrapped around me waist. “But maybe you’re right. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
Scowling with frustration, I push him away from me and move out of his arms.
I can feel my panic creep up slowly as I glance at the kitchen windows. I can’t see or hear anything that’s happening inside.
And maybe that’s a good thing.
But I am scared for Pa.
I’ve worried about him since I was nine years old. Since I realized that he was one of those broken adults who needed taking care of.