I wanted to throw in his face every single thing I was doing, but I stayed silent. I shouldn’t have to prove myself in order to be loved by him. He was my dad. He should have been the first one to help me scrape off my mistakes and make them right instead of pounding them repeatedly into my skin.
Violet’s pale face dripping with blood flashed before my eyes. I hadn’t been behind the wheel, but I’d told the cops it was my fault, because it was the truth. If I hadn’t asked her to come and get me, she never would have been in the driver’s seat at all.
Just like, if I hadn’t dared Carlos to race, he wouldn’t have crashed his boat.
Just like, if I hadn’t allowed Vi to come with us, she wouldn’t have gotten tangled into things that could end up with her hurt.
No good to the core.
“I take the silence as a no. Why’d you call? Need money?” he asked, disdain in his voice that reminded me more of Ken’Ichi than I’d ever considered before.
“I’ve never asked for money, have I? And you called me, not the other way around,” I thrust out, trying to hide the hurt but knowing it leached into my words anyway.
He sighed. “Your mother has gone off the deep end. She’s making a Statue of Liberty out of Coke cans in her front yard.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, which of course was the wrong thing. Dad’s image wasn’t tarnished only by me. It was tarnished by the woman he’d briefly married long enough to get her knocked up and realize she would never fit into the world he was creating.
“It’s not funny, Dawson. It’s embarrassing,” he said.
“Why? It’s not like she’s still your wife. Leave her alone. She’ll be on to a new hobby before the end of the week,” I replied. It was the truth. Mom’s hobbies changed with the weather and her mood. She barely kept track of the day of the week, and if it hadn’t been for our grandparents and Truck making sure she paid her rent and her bills, she probably would have been homeless decades ago.
“Just call her, would you?” he demanded.
“Sure,” I lied. I wouldn’t. He knew I wouldn’t. It would be another way for me to disappoint him. “Gotta go, Dad. Give Belinda my best.”
I hung up before he could respond. He’d probably rant and rave to my stepmom for hours about it. I didn’t feel too bad. Belinda was good at ignoring him unless she wanted him to pay her credit card bill.
Sleep wasn’t going to find me tonight.
What might have saved me from a long night of tossing and turning was getting on our boat and heading out to sea. But even if I could, I wouldn’t get behind the wheel with alcohol in me. Never again. Instead, I spent several hours in the fitness center of Jada’s building, working my hands out on a punching bag, lifting weights until my muscles screamed, and then crawling on the treadmill for an hour-long run with an electronic coach who pushed me to my limit.
When I returned to the penthouse, it was still early, but in addition to my concern for the sleeping women, my concern for my friend grew as well. I’d left Dax a message after he’d walked out of the apartment in a huff, and I still hadn’t heard back. So, I showered, changed, and headed in his direction.
I went on foot the ten blocks to his place, both to torture my body some more and to allow the clock to move closer to morning instead of night.
Around the corner from his building, I picked up two espressos, knowing I’d be forgiven almost anything if I came bringing caffeine. The attendant in the lobby waved at me, buzzing me into the private elevator that led to the penthouse belonging to the Armauds. Dax’s parents were rarely in the States. They preferred Europe and Dubai to the lawlessness of America, so the penthouse was pretty much at Dax’s disposal.
When the doors opened, I walked through a mother-of-pearl archway into a space filled with white marbled opulence. It was like walking into heaven, literally through a pair of pearly gates. Whenever clouds were floating around the building, it felt even more heaven-like. When I’d first told Dax that, he’d laughed until he cried, but the gold-and-white space was about as close to those movie-fied images of the afterlife as you could get.
What wasn’t paradise-like was the way Dax was passed out on the white leather couch with a bottle of whiskey in one hand. Much like me, he’d obviously tried to douse his emotions with alcohol. Whiskey was both of our drowning-ourselves beverage of choice. Unlike me, he’d obviously been drinking straight out of the bottle as there was no glass nearby, only the discarded lid. He was still in his clothes from the night before with his shirt untucked and a day’s-worth of growth littering his chin. It was probably the least put together I’d ever seen him, and I’d seen him after partying for days on end.
I kicked his sock-clad foot with my deck shoe.
“Earth to the French god. You alive in there?” I said, trying to hold back my concern.
He groaned, placing the arm without the whiskey bottle across his eyes.
“Go away,” he growled.
“I come bearing the gift of espresso.”
He waved the almost empty whiskey bottle at me. “I’m good.”
“It’s five in the morning. Time to put the booze away,” I said. I reached over and grabbed the bottle from him. He protested but didn’t raise himself from the couch to stop me. I left the coffee on the table where he could reach it, put the lid on the whiskey, and placed it back amongst the other bottles of liquor hidden behind a mirrored door.
He pulled himself into a sitting position.
“Alexandria, assombris les fenêtres,” he said loud enough for the AI system to do as he bade. The windows?which had been starting to brighten?darkened back to an almost midnight level.
