“I’m a little short,” his father said, handing over a fifty.
He took it out of his father’s hand, his eyes drilling into the older man who’d abandoned them for the bottle years ago.
He counted out the change and put it out to his father. “A little goes a long way,” he said stiffly.
His father looked over at Warren’s boss, then said, “Keep it. Give it to your mother.”
“Yeah,” he said. Warren wouldn’t thank the man. He shouldn’t have to ask him for the money.
He didn’t even want to do that, but he hadn’t lied. That money could be stretched here at the mini mart for food since the owner let him buy what he wanted at cost.
“Everything okay?” Zach Brown asked him. Zach had gone to school with his father, knew the asshole that he was birthed from, and had offered Warren this job the day he turned sixteen.
Zach was more of a father figure to him than his dad would ever be.
“It’s all good,” he said to Zach.
Zach nodded his head, and Warren went back to work.
He didn’t want to cause a scene or bring trouble to anyone.
He had a way out of here for himself and his family and couldn’t risk it.
At the end of his shift, he’d spent the thirty dollars on the essentials. Milk, bread, cereal, some sandwich meat for lunches, and candy bars for his mother and sisters. They’d like the treat.
He wasn’t filling his body full of processed junk while he was training.
Football was his way out of this hellhole and there were a lot of things he had going for him as an aspiring pro athlete that his father didn’t.
Did he get pure talent from the man?
He did. But Warren got drive, determination, and commitment from his mother and he was going to make sure he exhausted it all to give his family a better life.
“That’s a lot of food,” his mother said when he walked in the door twenty minutes after his shift. “And you carried it home? I told you not to spend your money on us. You should have called for a ride on top of it.”
He considered it part of his workout routine to carry the four bags a block home to their small rented house.
“It’s from Sean,” he said. He wouldn’t call the guy Dad.
“Your father dropped money off?” his mother asked.
He started to unload the few bags.
“He came in for gas and handed over his change to me. He probably won’t return or at least won’t do it and hand me a fifty again.”
His mother laughed and put the groceries away. “Who intimidated him into giving you the money? You or Zach?”
He laughed. “We both might have been staring him down. No one forced his hand though.” Maybe the prick had a tiny conscience that was knocked loose.
“Zach never liked your father in school,” his mother said.
“Maybe you should have listened to Zach back then too,” he said.
“Warren,” his mother said. “We can’t change the past. I wouldn’t have you, Stephanie, and Stacy if I hadn’t dated your father in high school.”
The football star and cheerleader who got knocked up.
He wouldn’t be repeating history like his parents.
