Page 42 of Holding On To Good

No use thinking about what could have been.

Better, smarter to deal with the situation life handed you.

And tonight it’d handed him the princess of Mount Laurel High School, looking like a drowned rat and needing his help.

Just once he’d like it to give him something he actually wanted.

He grabbed a clean shirt from the basket next to his bed and tugged it on. Picked up his keys from the nightstand then headed down the hall again. Stopping at the door, he shoved his bare right foot into his work boot.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Pete asked.

Reed tugged the laces but didn’t tie them. “Out.”

Pete shoved down the recliner’s footrest and sat up. “Not until them dishes are washed. I ain’t running no hotel here.”

Reed put on his other boot then glanced up. Dirty dishes cluttered the counter and filled both sides of the sink. “I’ll do them when I get back.”

“You’ll do them when I say you’ll do them,” Pete said, lurching to his feet.

He wasn’t drunk yet—it took a hell of a lot more than a couple of beers to get his old man wasted—but his bum knee, combined with the extra fifty pounds he carried, had taken any small scrap of grace he might have once had.

Slowed him down, too.

Didn’t make him any less mean, though.

He limped into the kitchen, tossed the empty can on top of the full garbage can in the corner. It rolled off onto the floor, joining an empty soda can and a microwavable burrito wrapper. “You hear me?”

Reed straightened. “I hear you. But I’m not doing them now. I’m going out.”

His dad lumbered up to him until they were toe to toe, nose to nose. It took all Reed had not to back up from the gleam in Pete’s eyes, from the smell of him—stale beer, sweat and unwashed hair.

“You’ll do what I say,” Pete told him, his voice a soft growl. His tone pure threat.

Reed’s gut clenched. Dread coated the back of his throat.

It’d been almost two years since his old man had so much as lifted a hand to him, but he still had the power to scare the shit out of Reed.

The fucker.

Keeping his expression clear, Reed held his father’s gaze.

“I’ll do them when I get back,” he repeated and turned to leave.

Pete grabbed a hold of his arm and swung him around to face him. “Don’t you walk away from me, boy.”

Reed’s shoulders tightened. His hands clenched. His father’s nails dug into his skin, his grip tight enough to bruise. Pete didn’t give a shit about the dishes. Hell, he was home all day, every day, his hours spent drinking and watching TV and waiting for his next disability check to be deposited while both Reed and his mom worked two jobs.

If Pete had wanted the dishes washed so damn bad, he would’ve done it himself.

This was about Pete hating his shitty life and wanting to take that hatred out on someone else.

Reed’s mom was his favorite punching bag, with Reed coming in a close second.

Reed stared at Pete’s hand on his arm. Remembered clearly—all too clearly—how it felt to be slapped by those hands, to be shoved and grabbed and shaken and punched. The pain had been bad enough, but the fear was even worse. It’d been constant, always lurking in the back of his mind. He’d never known what he’d do or say that’d set his father off.

But those times were over. Had been over for years, ever since Reed grew bigger than his old man.

Ever since the night he’d fought back.

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