Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз (читать книги онлайн без сокращений TXT) 📗
Except I knew he was supposed to have been a father, and hadn’t bothered. That kind of took the cool quotient out of the whole equation.
“Hey son,” he said, then put his arms around me. I didn’t want it, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to push him away, so I let him hug me. Was he crying?
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Caroline Morgenstern…” he blubbered. “She could have died last night. You could have died last night.”
“Probably not. I’ve been able to swim since before I could walk. She probably passed out and swallowed water. I think she drank twice as much as I did and she’s half my size.” I was explaining it all so I could sterilize it. Because it was weird to have this grown man weepy over me.
“Jake. I want you to think about something,” he sobbed, his eyes embarrassingly red-rimmed. “I want you to think about become a Maclean in name. Legally. Is that something you might consider?”
I blinked hard and took a big step back, away from him and his embarrassing drink-enhanced emotions. “Why now?”
“Because now is when we have you back.” He was too close in my personal space when he said it. “Now is the time, Jake. And you area Maclean, no matter what your name is.”
“What does that mean?” I wanted to back away, but I was trapped between him and some big, stupid, boat-themed dresser.
“You stand up for yourself. And to my mother, which is no small thing. You’re brave. You act fast. All Maclean traits.” He wiped his eyes with the backs of his wrists.
I snorted. “I think that’s a stretch.”
“No it isn’t.” His jaw got tight and his nostrils flared a little. I guess there’re only so many times any guy will take his surly kid’s attitude. But it was a hell of a lot better having him pissed than having him weepy, as far as I was concerned.
I crossed my arms and leaned back on the edge of the dresser, as far away from him as I could get. “What about being snotty to people you think are below you? What about insane alcoholism? Sleeping around? Abandoning your kids? I wouldn’t do any of that, and those all seem to be pretty standard Maclean traits to me.”
“You’re just picking what’s bad about the family.” He started to poke a finger at my chest, but backed up when I stood my full height. Not that I was considering fighting my own father, but if it came down to it, I could take him. “That’s not really fair.”
Unbelievable. “You’re going to pop into my life seventeen years late and tell me what’s fair? Fat fucking chance.” I pushed past him and walked to the door, where I pointed out. “Leave.”
“Son…”
“Don’t call me that.” I felt so much fury, I was surprised my voice worked well enough for me to get any words out. “And I’m sorry, Gerald, but I can’t call you Dad either. Or take the name Maclean. I’m no good at pretending to be what I’m not. I guess that’s the Kelly in me.”
“There’s a lot this family could offer you.” The snide way it rolled out of his mouth made it sound pretty much like a threat.
I shrugged. “I made it alright without you all before. I’m sure I could do it again.’
“You get that from your mother. She didn’t give a shit what people thought of her, either.” He got this repulsive, shitty little half-smile.
“She cared,” I countered, my teeth gritting so hard, the ache went up my temples. “She cried her eyes out when she talked about you.”
“I would have taken care of her.” He twirled a silver ring that he wore on his middle finger. What the hell did he wear it for? Just because he was the douchiest loser in the house? “She wanted to get married, but I couldn’t. There was Lylee.”
“You divorced her anyway.” I stuck my hands in my pockets hard to keep them from his neck.
He shook his head.
“You and Lylee are still together?” I asked, and this one was a real shocker. Lylee definitely didn’t think of herself as a married woman, and I was sure Gerald was no damn angel.
“We’ve been separated for years, but we’re technically still married.” He ran a hand over his face with a frustrated swipe.
“What about Saxon?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you come around and see him?”
“Jake, it’s hard to explain it.” He shifted from one foot to the other and waved his hands in an attempt to come up with the words to ‘explain it’ to me. “I got caught up in my own stuff. I was selfish, alright? I admit it though.” He glared at me a little, and I thought about how my eyes probably looked just like his when I was pissed.
“Well, congratulations for admitting it. I guess that changes the past decade. I guess that makes Saxon less of a crazed fuck-up. And, if you were going to leave, you could have actually done the right thing and not dumped a guilt trip on Saxon’s shoulders.” My hands were stuffed so ferociously in my pockets, I was afraid I’d rip through them.
“I never did that.” He narrowed his grey eyes at me.
“Yes, you did.” I could feel my heart shot hard with adrenaline, running off the rails. I pointed my finger in his face. “You told him to take care of me. He was just a kid. Where the hell do you come off?”
He jerked his face away from my finger, but he didn’t back away completely. “Jake, I’m sorry. I don’t even remember saying that.”
“Must be another Maclean trait,” I muttered. “I don’t want to be rude to you, but I don’t really want your company right now.”
He gave a jerky nod, turned, and stalked out of the room, and I was left staring at the ceiling again, wishing I were anywhere but here.
Chapter Four
Brenna
Evan sat on the bed, long legs crossed neatly, and stretched until the laptop that had been balancing precariously on her thighs jostled and almost slid off the bed. Devon reached an arm out and caught it.
“I am so damn sick of this I could cry,” she moaned. She grabbed Devon’s hand, and, at that point, he was so completely under her spell he didn’t even attempt to pull away. “Devon, you alwaysfollow every rule that assface Dr. Gorman slaps on us. You can’t tell me there isn’t a teeny, tiny part of you that wants to just…just tear your clothes off and run naked over all those fucking cobblestones!”
She jumped up and Devon barely caught her laptop before it, once again, almost crashed to the floor. She shimmied out of her lilac cashmere sweater, tore off her black jersey cap-sleeved top with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons and tossed it so it landed right over Devon’s left eye, and was about to slide the zipper on her tight gray pencil skirt down when he jumped up and shoved the shirt over her head.
“Jesus Christ, you are so melodramatic,” he muttered, ripping the shirt back off her head when he realized he was attempting to put it on upside down. Strands of her dark hair flew up around her head in a halo of static electricity. “Do you want to go out? Are you hungry? Why don’t you just say what you want instead of staging this whole insane striptease?” He crammed the shirt down her head and over her arms, and pulled back when she attempted to kiss his cheek. “Brenna, control her!”
“Brenna, don’t listen to him!” Her eyes glittered. They actually shined, and I would have been only minimally surprised if bursts of sparkly light shot out of them like eruptions of fireworks. “Remind him how good I’ve been.” She wiggled her shoulders until one arm, then the other popped out of her shirt holes. “Please? Remind Mr. Stick In The Mud that I haven’t skipped one single class--”
“You went to four wasted. One so wasted you had to leave to puke.” Devon sat on the floor, his back against my desk, his laptop open, his fingers poised over the keys with aggressive intent.
“Only very slightly hung over. Usually. Except that one time. But only one time,” Evan objected, balling up the sweater that probably cost more than the plane ticket to get over here and throwing it at him. “And how did you know I puked?”
