Page 86 of Villainous Summer

Sinking onto the front step, I cradled my head in my left hand. “Can you tell me why you’re here so you can leave?”

He rocked back on his heels again as if I hadn’t just threatened him with bodily harm. “Tracy has been on me about patching things up before the baby comes.”

My hand dropped from my face, and I stared at him, dumbstruck. “The what? I sure as shit hope I heard you wrong. My fifty-eight-year-old father didn’t get someone pregnant.”

“Strong swimmers.” He grinned at me. “She’s four months along. It’s a boy.”

“Un-fucking-believable.” I shook my head. “You can’t seriously be telling me this.”

“Well, I thought you’d want to know you’re going to be a big brother.”

“Big brother? Big br—I’m thirty-two years old. The time for younger siblings passed twenty-five years ago. You can’t think that I’d have anything to do with you, whatever floozy you found, and the spawn you created.”

“Don’t you disparage Tracy like that.”

“No, you don’t. Get off my lawn. Stay away from Mom, away from Summer, and away from me.”

“I thought you could be a man about this, but I guess not.” He sniffed as if I was the out-of-line one. “You know where to find me when you want to be a part of this family.”

Glaring until his taillights were pinpricks in the distance, I stood in my driveway, my arms crossed.

I stomped inside the house and slammed the front door, rattling the stained glass window.

Summer was seated at the bar, sipping coffee from the teacup I had so diligently washed fifteen minutes before.

“What was that about?” she asked, nibbling on a corner of toast.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

“You don’t want to talk about your shitty ex, and I don’t want to talk about my shitty dad,” I snapped. “Just taking a play out of your book, right?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously, and she dropped the toast on the plate and leaned back on her stool, scoffing. “Whoa. You want to try that again?”

Clenching my fists, I shook my head at her. “Drop it, Summer. I don’t want to fucking talk to you about it.”

Summer set her teacup down softly, her jaw set and lips a thin line. “Cool. I’m leaving.”

“What—no, don’t. I—”

“No, I am. You obviously don’t want me here, and watching your little tantrum was too much.”

“But you’ll come to trivia again, right?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

“How are you getting home? I drove you here.”

Clicking her tongue at me derisively, she shrugged. “I’ll walk. I don’t know.”

“You’re not walking. I’ll take you home.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “Fine. But I don’t want to hear a word out of you on the way home.” With that, she grabbed her little bag by the door and walked out.

The drive was silent. When I tried to say something, she would put her hand up and say no.

My offer to walk her up to her apartment was met with a door slamming in my face.

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