“Dad. It’s Devlin.” He grumbles on the line. Prick. “A new patient checked in at your clinic tonight. Autoimmune disease.”
“Oh?” I hate the interest that perks in his voice. Medicine trumps human fucking decency. “How do you know this?”
“She’s my girlfriend’s mom.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, Dad,” I grit as I pull through the gate and park in the circular drive. “I tried to introduce you before, remember? That’s one of the things you’d know about me if you cared to talk to your son about more than your career expectations for me. You know, like a real father.”
“I am your real father.”
“Are you?” Pent up rage I’ve smothered for years billows in my chest. I slam my hand on the wheel. “Bullshit, old man. Uncle Ed and Aunt Lottie have been better parents to me than you and Mom.”
The truth of it burns my lungs. I’ve had parents my whole life, they just weren’t my biological parents.
“Now listen here, Devlin!”
“No, Dad!” I stab a finger against the leather of the wheel. “For once, you listen! You’re so obsessed with your career that you can’t even see you missed out on my entire life. I’ve asked you for nothing, even though you both abandoned me.”
“You’re wrong. Your mother and I have given you the opportunity to continue our work and—”
A hollow laugh tears from me. “Are you kidding? Do you hear what you’re saying?” I pull my fingers through my hair. “You left me to the nannies and Mom’s sister. The only time you pay attention to me is to course correct if I veer from the med school expectations you cram down my throat. Why did you even have a kid if you wanted to work so badly?”
My raw yell echoes in the car.
Dad is quiet on the line for a minute. “Your mother, she…”
“Don’t bother. It’s not like I couldn’t fucking guess.” Blowing out a ragged breath, I sever any remaining vestiges of hope my parents care about me. It’s freeing in a way, to let go of the broken threads I’ve been clinging to. I don’t need them. I have a family—Blair, my aunt and uncle, Lucas, Gemma, and Bishop. I don’t need anyone else. “You wanted me to be a man so bad, to grow up and be independent, well this is me doing that.”
“Yelling at me like a child?” The distaste in Dad’s voice is laughable.
Christ, who let him procreate? The detached, clinical way he approached fatherhood is wrong. Every one of my psychology books on the subject rings true on the importance during key developmental stages.
“No.” My voice is cold and commanding. “Macy Davis. She’s the patient. I want you to take the case or recommend a specialist.”
“What gives you the right to give me orders or make medical decisions on behalf of someone else?”
I grind my teeth. “The entirety of my existence. I deserve retribution, but instead this is all I’m asking for. Take this woman’s case and help her.”
“Why do you care about this?”
A dull pain throbs behind my eye. “Because her daughter is my girlfriend and her mom is her whole fucking world—something you’d never understand! This is the girl I love. She’s my family. My universe. I’ll do everything to protect and care for her. If you don’t do it, I’ll come for you, old man. Do we have a deal?”
Dad is quiet for a long stretch. I contemplate threatening something more drastic to make him comply.
“Very well.”
I blink out of my day dream about digging up blackmail to bury his career with. “Good.”
“What are your plans regarding your future?”
I bring the phone in front of my face to growl my point. “Anything I fucking want, because it’s my life, not yours.”
I hang up before he can curdle my blood. It felt good to finally stand up to him. I don’t need either of them. I haven’t for a while. Between my investments and financial manager, I have no use for their monthly expense account anymore.
What I wanted from them was never money. It was just the last lingering wishes of a lonely little boy missing the love of his parents, hoping they’d notice or care. I have the only family that matters to me and it no longer includes them.
With that issue seen to, I can finally go to Blair.